At Davos the big question was: “When are we going to get out of this economic mess?” So I decided to take an informal poll of attendees. The question I asked was: “When will world GDP start to increase again?” Strangely, the early poll results were quite negative — the average was hovering in the mid-2011 range. But as the World Economic Forum wore on, there was creeping optimism — I started to get more 2010s (and an occasional 2009) than 2011s. My sample cut across a wide swath, from CEOs to journalists to academics to political leaders — 55 votes in total.

According to my unscientific Davos poll, world GDP will turn and begin to grow again in April of 2010.

Depressing? Not necessarily. Davos rarely gets it right. Remember, this was the group that was highly bullish only 12 short months ago.