Let's try something a bit different this week...we're wrapping up the forecasting section of the book, and know have a number of "tools" we can apply to derive a good estimate for future values of interest (be that sales $, unit sales, number of employees required, etc.) - let's see how well we understand the use of these tools when faced with such opportunities. This week, I'd like those students assigned to respond directly to the Discussion Topic to describe a variable they would like to develop a forecast for (as always this can be work, school or life related) and to detail some of the independent variables they believe to be relevant to the dependent variable. And I'd like all other students to describe how they think an accurate forecast could be built - you can speak to the independent variable(s) you'd use and how (simple, dummy, quadratic, interaction, etc.), the type of forecast (nave, moving average, weighted average {including exponential smoothing}, regression), and combinations of all of the above and/or any other variables, approaches, etc. you think would be useful.