INSIGHTS Progress and Change By Deirdre Carroll Monday, August 18, 2014 12:00 AM I recently celebrated a birthday (29… for the eighth time… if you’re counting). And as of this issue’s August 18 print date, it’s been eight years to the day that I started as an editor at Vision Monday. (Yes, I’ve been 29 the entire time.) It’s milestones like these that cause me to reflect on my life; on the progress I’ve made, on the things I’ve achieved and the things I still want to accomplish. I have found that looking at your life from day-to-day or week-to-week it generally appears to be much of the same but taken in large chunks of time everything seems to have changed. My career at Jobson is no different. When I started at VM, an “app” was just something people ordered before their entrée arrived. Today, we have an entire 12-page cover feature dedicated to the phenomenon in App of My Eye (page 37). Let’s be clear here, that’s 12 pages dedicated to apps geared toward the optical industry alone. With a robust cover story like that, it is clear the industry has made a lot of its own advancements. Of course, at Vision Monday we like to consider ourselves on the forefront of the industry’s progress. That’s why we host our VM LIVE events like the upcoming “Digitizing The Store” program on Sept. 17 to explore how new technologies are transforming the patient experience and doctor/retailer/patient dynamics. Progress has a variety of definitions, but in short, progress means change. Robert Kennedy said, “Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.” People are often afraid of change and change can be scary. But we live in a “grow or die” society and I, for one, have learned its better to remain adaptable and open to it rather than fight it. After all, of all of the definitions of “progress” my favorite is “growth or development; continuous improvement” and I think improvement is something we should all strive for regularly. dcarroll@jobson.com