When I asked a good friend in the research industry to give me a one word prediction for 2010, he sent me a clip of Mr. T saying “pain”.

That wouldn’t be my first word choice, but to get a sense of what leaders in the industry are thinking, you can check out their one word descriptors here.

You can also read Jeffrey Henning’s take at vovici here.

A quick summary:

transformational, rewind, qualitative, probability, listening, fulcrum, ethnographical, essential, consolidation

It is worth a read.

Macfarlane (Gfk), Poynter (Future Place) and Schillewaert (Insites Consulting) make the most interesting points in my opinion.

My word would be “REDEFINED”. The industry is not going through a gradual evolutionary shift, but something more akin to punctuated equilibrium. The tools, players, and industry definitions are all likely to change so much in the next five years that much of the industry will go by different names and be unrecognizable.

Upon further reflection, I might use the word “SCHUMPETER”, after the “Austrian School” economist that popularized the term “creative destruction” (to describe capitalism’s dynamism).