I write this as thousands of visitors descend on Milan, Italy’s fashion capital and a growing industrial design center, at the end of February.

It’s been a few years since I’ve attended Mido, which is an optical fair that tends to offer a portrait, of sorts, of the global optical industry and vision technology space. With distributors from virtually every country in the world, crossing product categories and services, it offers a glimpse of trends that cut across all the usual divides of the business.

One can hear dozens of languages in the course of an hour at the show. And over three days, it’s possible to be both inspired and a bit overwhelmed at the sheer size of this very internationally-connected business.

At the same time, that the world seems so vast, a show like Mido reinforces the notion that the world is small, in the sense that issues facing ECPs—the battle to support the independent, the rise of online sales and influence, the incredibly fast pace of new technology—these are global phenomena, not just the province of one country or another.

Business challenges and opportunities are common. And the solutions to address them are arising from creative ideas, a commitment to astute leadership and a lot of hard work devoted to the business of helping people see and looking good doing so.

maxelrad@jobson.com