Chasing the Future

I must admit, here and now, that I am no visionary. Even with knowledge of the current state and an awareness of past development in any given technology, I have never been able to foresee the evolution of it.
Growing up, I was fascinated by future visions.I loved The Jetsons, although even then I could imagine mid-air collisions of folks whizzing around wearing jet packs. Agent 86 and Inspector Gadget were my heroes. I longed for a Dick Tracy watch; how cool would it be to hear your friend's crackling voice coming from your watch!
A sci-fi nut from early on; I devoured novels by Jules Verne, amazed at his foresight. Some of the rocket man type fiction predicted in novels from the 50's had already been realized by the time I read them. By that time, hell; men were already leaving footie-prints on the moon!
Sure, I knew all about computers; my dad had used one at work. It filled a climate controlled room with mysterious metal cabinets, whirring sounds and spinning disks. Wearing the rose-coloured granny glasses of optimism, in the late sixties the future was now, with limitless possibilities. I watched "Here come the Seventies" eagerly and dreamed of living in my Domehome.
On a side note, it is interesting that, in researching this topic I have found that designers of futuristic cars through the last fifty years really have not changed up the vision. Their models all look like elongated drops of water, beautifully aerodynamic but 3 inches off the ground with zero trunk space. C'mon guys..
Anyway..You would think that all this attention I paid to it, that I would have my finger on the pulse of the emerging face of technology.
Yeah; not so much.
In a college advertising course in 1980,we were instructed to design an ad campaign for one of the following: a personal computer, a personal video camera, a compact disk player or a mobile phone. Admittedly that year was pivotal, with development at a peak in all those products which, unlike myself, my instructor was apparently aware of.
There I sat, shaking my head. You gotta be kidding, right? What would anyone want with a personal computer? Why do we need CD players; I mean look at the history there.. 8-tracks were a monumental failure, as evidenced by the stack of them I had collecting dust. My cassette player was just fine. A video camera would be great, but who is going to want to lug around 30 lbs of equipment?
And a mobile phone? Pfft..never!!
I do not at this point even remember which I chose, or how I promoted my product; but I am pretty sure the names PC, camcorder, CD or cellular never came up.
I hang my head in shame.
The upside of this is that I am continuously amazed and surprised at developments in science and technology, which is a wonderful thing. I cringe at my hindsight, and try to nurture my foresight.. but it sure ain't easy.