On Feb. 1, Jeremy Lin was barely a blip on the NBA's radar screen.

Men are predictable. For example, we commit ourselves to an almost slavish devotion to sports on an uninterrupted basis.

For the past several years, our firm has conducted an ongoing measurement of sports fan attitudes and opinions across a broad variety of topics ranging from the perceived popularity of various sports to the impact of Tim Tebow. But among the most insightful findings that this "omnibus" work has yielded is an ongoing pulse of sports fan sentiment about the economy, personal expectations for short- and long-term spending and pursuit of various leisure activities.

Women are in the boardroom. The age-old glass ceiling hasn't been completely shattered, but with women controlling more than $1.2 trillion worth of business annually, the fissures are now large enough to suggest that gender is becoming a non-issue throughout the Fortune 1000.