ADOO Events: running to not stand still

I am an enthusiast of life, always have been. I am the daughter of a father who woke up every day with a smile despite the myriad difficulties before him and, giving me a smile before he left recited, “Crooked goes and straight comes.” We have been walking on eggs for months now, looking for this straight road between sharp turns. The certainty in the heart is that it will open before us suddenly.In the meantime, let us live and face everything and run. Runnning hard.

AdOO Events was the result of a long obstacle race that had been starting every morning for months. Every day a puzzle to be put together by evening, and punctually the next day the box on the desk was another one, brand new. The purpose of associations and federations is to unite, something that becomes extremely difficult to accomplish at a time when the diktat is to physically divide people. This nature generated the strenuous advocacy, fielded by the AdOO and Federottica team, of the conference being held in a venue large enough to allow the necessary distance but also to look each other in the eye. When the puzzle box, returned on time in the morning, turned “red,” natural resilience led to running on a different road, paved with bits.

A streaming event and not a conference because the “defendants” in fact did not move a step from their homes, as did many speakers and guests: but the meeting was there and it was lively and exciting as we realized immediately from the words of Luisa Redaelli’s opening greeting.

I tiptoed in and from the hallway backstage before launching the long live broadcast on Sunday, Nov. 8, because that is exactly how I approached the world of optics, which immediately fascinated me. I took my first steps by putting myself back on the desks in my 40s, when you realize your wrist aches in taking notes quickly. I have faced the everyday life where you have to sip time to internalize concepts while, dazed by the living experience of the store, you face the beauty of a craft that lets you glimpse the perfection of the human machine unraveling between brain and eyes. A language you have to master very well to translate it into a tailored device appropriate to its important function.

An optician just never stops learning, thinking about the impact of new technologies in his work, finding the right balance. Therefore, discussion, interaction and updating become essential. When you realize that this primal need has to get in tune with the experience of being a well-rounded entrepreneur, you feel that every day you have to put on a heavy armor instead of a lab coat and run. Of course, not forgetting the hard hat to defend against everything and everyone.

The long marathon of the AdOO Events in the two dedicated days covered the length and breadth of issues related to the world that unravels around opticians: from the prospects and dangers related to the new European regulationsin the future that is emerging adding up to today’s situation, outlined in the report by President Afragoli, the new regulations, obligations, and innovations up to theheart of the conference, technical scientific insights.

The topics covered at Sunday morning’s analysis and reflection on the industry with MIDO and ANFAO President Giovanni Vitaloni, the debate followed Federottica research data illustrated

by Beatrice Zannarini, who took a snapshot of the situation in our sector, allowed us, albeit from a distance, to reason together thanks to the interventions of Giuseppe Sicoli, Anto Rossetti, Fabrizio Vettore, Simone Santacatterina and Davide Croce. The flow of the present is always

the result of the common feeling made up of assents and disagreements, and the common path is always a compromise to be reached so that the steps are decisive and incisive.

There are many battles that opticians have lost in the many years since the royal decree of 1928. The disillusionment to which the passage of time has accustomed the category is a bitter pill to swallow whose effects are evident in the thousands of social media chats where we are so many islands entrenched in ourselves. But changes always arise from crises, and while there is no doubt that the moment is critical, there is even more no doubt that we cannot waste this crisis. We must believe that the battles ahead can win us the war, if only we can find a common response. But nothing can be achieved without everyone doing his or her part with respect for his or her own ideas and those of common feeling, finding the necessary compromises between the two sides. No one is saved alone, and this is true every day and even more so tomorrow.

It was a great honor for me to introduce with a spontaneous smile and at this necessary moment, all the various moments of the day on Sunday trying to balance lightness and substance in a formula that was new to all of us. As I had a chance to say live my place was on the couch at home beside you or rather on the desk taking notes with a sore wrist. Come ho avuto modo di dire in diretta il mio posto era sul divano di casa a fianco a voi o meglio sulla scrivania a prendere appunti con il polso indolenzito.

Thank you to the AdOO team, Federottica and Italian Optics for giving me this opportunity and to all of you for the return hug that I felt loud and clear.

Full forward.