Vision 2020

The biggest number since Y2K.

Historical perspective: In business, few can resist a grand plan enumerated with the boundless promise of tomorrow, according to The Wall Street Journal in 2018. That might be why 2020 has become the biggest number since Y2K. German firm Siemens AG, consulting firm A.T. Kearney, and the Bank of England all have plans dubbed “Vision 2020.” So do Wales’ hockey league, the European Golf Course Owners Association, and retailer Eileen Fisher; the European Union has two programs with the moniker. The ubiquity of “Vision 2020” initiatives has irked a group of ophthalmologists, who in 1999 created a plan to tackle avoidable blindness. For obvious reasons, they called it Vision 2020. Now the original initiative is no longer the top result in Google searches. You need to type in ‘Vision 2020’ and then the word ‘eyes,’” says one annoyed doc. They’re looking for a rebrand.