Sometimes, in the midst of the day-to-day pressures to produce, test, and deliver the next great software product, we ponder how great it would be to have the job of IT futurist -- someone who reads the tea leaves, gathers and analyzes the disparate data, and prognosticates the next big trends in technology development. We figure that as long as we, on occasion, accurately make one or two correct predictions, the world will forgive any trends we might miss.