For this first issue of 2021, my mind took the word “foresee” from a mental snapshot to reality in dealing with the image I’ve long held of this magazine’s role as a purveyor of the trends and products likely to shape our collective futures. I’m not talking about the distant cartooned future of what might be on the faces of “The Jetsons.” The focus here is what’s coming up in the very near future… the eyewear and sunwear your customers will be craving as we move into what I’m hoping is just around the bright bend in all of our lives. We totally deserve it, and I know we’re all waiting with bated breath.
I’m also foreseeing new and more personalized ways of delivering the care our optical arena prides itself on with an enlightened sense of what the Internet and social media can do in instituting new agendas. The old normal is gone, and this is the chance to create your own new normal as you rally with your medical and product partners, and your loyal and new customers and patients in a way aligned to their needs.
As we slowly but surely get back on our feet, I’m foreseeing the strengthening of concepts and commitments only dreamed of a short time ago but now part of our new reality. We devoted a double page spread to Modo in this issue’s feature as a way of applauding their commendable sustainability program with their frames and also acknowledging that our readers are responding to that focus with a resounding EyeVote commendation for that quest to go green in as many ways as possible.
I guess I can bring this “foreseeable” concept full circle on just a simple note right up my own trendsetting alley here by noting I’ve never seen so many green colored frames populating our near future. Kinda fun, right?! Maybe it has something to do with the masks we’ve all been donning of late. Big, bold green frames make for quite a hopeful statement peering out above those masks. Perhaps it speaks to that future where we all go as green as possible but in a way that creates a better future rather than just hoping for one.
At 20/20 we are ready to build 2021. Eye foresee it.
• James J. Spina
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
