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Non-profit group RestoringVision.org issues its 1,000,000^th pair of glasses

San Francisco, CA – By day, Mark Sachs is a product manager for Blue Shield of California, where he helps California policyholders get the support they need to protect their health.

By night, Sachs is a virtual one-man healthcare machine, seeing to it that poverty-stricken people around the world get the much-needed vision correction they can’t get anywhere else.

Now, just seven years after founding RestoringVision.org in the basement of his home north of San Francisco, Sachs’ non-profit organization has reached a milestone achievement: issuing its millionth pair of reading glasses, which Damascus Road Community Church recently delivered during a mission to Honduras.

“It’s wonderful and humbling at the same time,” said Sachs. “I wanted to do something to help people, but I never would have dreamed that we’d be able to help so many people in so many different places as quickly as we have.”

The idea for RestoringVision.org came to Sachs during an eye-opening trip he made to Mexico in 1997.

“While I was there, I couldn’t believe how many people were struggling to get by with obvious vision problems – and then I realized that a huge percentage of these problems could be fixed with just a simple pair of reading glasses,” said Sachs. “So, I decided to do something about it.”

What Sachs did was reach out to leading eye care companies and share his vision: instead of just warehousing or writing off overstocked readers, the companies could provide the glasses to RestoringVision.org, which would then handle the logistics of getting them to mission groups headed out to improve the lives of others.

Reader manufacturers Zoom Eyeworks and Foster Grant agreed to supply Sachs with product, while companies like Transitions Optical and America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses stepped up with cash support.

According to Reade Fahs, America’s Best CEO, Sachs and RestoringVision.org are serving a glaring need.

“There are roughly 670 million people in the world who need vision correction, and around 40 percent of the glasses they need are standard reading glasses,” said Fahs. “But these people simply don’t have the access or means to acquire them. Mark Sachs and RestoringVision.org have done an absolutely awe-inspiring job of filling that need.”

RestoringVision.org has the assistance of a handful of dedicated volunteers and supporters. Document management company Ft. Docs has donated storage space for all of the glasses since the beginning, while the group Becoming Independent which works with developmentally challenged adults, assembles them into mission-ready packages consisting of 300 pairs of readers of assorted powers.

So far, RestoringVision.org has distributed roughly $10 million worth of kits of readers and sunglasses to missions bound for Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Ghana, Honduras, India, Peru, El Salvador, and Nigeria.

“One million pairs is a tremendous milestone, but I have no intention of slowing down,” said Sachs. “I encourage any groups that are planning a mission to visit our website, restoringvision.org, and make distributing reading glasses a meaningful part of their commitment to the people they serve.”

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Founded in 2003, RestoringVision.org is a non-profit effort that delivers reading glasses and sunglasses to underprivileged people worldwide that desperately need them. Citing the need for low overhead and the favorable commute, founder Mark Sachs continues to operate the organization from his basement north of San Francisco.

For more information, please contact:

Mark Sachs

(415) 699-9123 / mark@restoringvision.org

Caroline Carithers

(904) 359-0981 / ccarithers@trsg.net

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By: Brad McCorkle, reprinted with permission from Administrative Eyecare

Social media has exploded into the U.S. collective consciousness, fueled, at least in part, by “Generation Y’s” youthful penchant to draw attention and col- lect “friends.” After years of evolv- ing, however, social media has final- ly gotten practical, reaching beyond the personal and transforming the business world. Companies of all sizes are using various social media channels to connect with current and potential customers and other industry insiders. Whether it is to promote events, differentiate servic- es, or solicit feedback from cus- tomers, social media provides the platform to inexpensively connect with a large audience.

A recent article in Business Week takes it further, into the realm of a personal connection:

At the most basic level, a social networking site allows you to identify your business contacts—from prospects and customers to partners and associ- ates—and establish a personal link between you and each of them.1

Pick Three Platforms

If your practice or organization is going to engage social media in any meaningful fashion, remember the fundamentals of focus and consisten- cy. In other words, have a strategy.

Many sites have the same or similar functionality, so it’s critical to evalu- ate all potential social media outlets and choose the few that would work best for your company or practice. It is best to pick about three widely used and applicable channels and focus on those. You might consider Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, etc.

Make sure that consistent mes- saging is spread across all three chan- nels and there is regularity to the posts. You should take a similar approach to social media as you do your marketing efforts: Don’t expect to place one ad in one magazine and achieve anything memorable. Occasionally dabbling with social media results in limited effectiveness as well.

Have One Team Member Manage Your Campaign

I recommend having a team member dedicated to firmly establishing your practice’s brand in the social media landscape. It may not be practical for your practice to have a staff member completely dedicated to social media (a social media expert can handle other marketing initiatives as well); however, communicating that social media is an important part of some- one’s job description is a step in the right direction.

Having a staff member responsi- ble for the execution of your social media campaign also enables your organization to be aware of the latest social developments, sites, and fea- tures. A great resource for your social media director is Mashable (http://mashable.com), a blog dedi- cated to discussing the advance- ments of social media and technolo- gy trends. The site also offers tips, tricks, and tutorials that break down social media concepts and technolo- gy and show how they can be applied by small practices and big businesses.

Establish Clear Goals, Expectations, and Success Indicators

Along with focusing on three social media channels, you should estab- lish clear goals and expectations around the type and frequency of messaging, as well as the results you hope to achieve. Remember: Anything worth doing is worth measuring.

When you get more clear about your own goals and expectations, you begin to experience impressive results. For example, in the last three months, the number of our followers on Twitter has grown by 81%. Tweets are being mentioned or re- tweeted by our followers to their fol- lowers. That amounts to a very pow- erful word-of-mouth campaign—the best kind of marketing.

Integrate Your Platforms to Make Them Easier to Manage

Keeping a consistent message and presence across multiple social media sites can be time consuming. Sites such as Hootsuite (http://hootsuite. com) put all social media outlets into one central location for viewing on your computer monitor. The soft- ware also allows you to send updates to all channels simultaneously, mak- ing it that much easier to manage several accounts at once. There is also a feature to set up “pending tweets” so a tweet is never missed.

Consider Messaging with Video

Using video in social media is also an effective strategy for connecting with customers. The unique social power of video (when done properly) creates a connection, and ultimately helps build trust between you and your audience. Not to mention, video is simply more entertaining!

Jing is a helpful tool for making video tutorials. Jing is free software from TechSmith that allows you to capture the live movements on your computer’s screen, combine that with audio, and then make a movie of sorts. The video can be up to five minutes long, a perfect amount for a quick tour of your practice website and your FAQs, for example. Short videos make Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs more interesting to the viewer—and they are relative- ly easy to produce.

When you’re planning your video, ask how you can produce one that not only entertains but solves a problem. As noted by Jim Kukral in Socialnomics: Social Media Blog,

Let’s face it: Videos are powerful word-of-mouth generators and atten- tion-getters. Your old tri-fold brochure, not so much.2

Summing Up

Social media is ever-evolving—and it’s becoming a prime marketing channel for today’s businesses. The most important thing a practice can do is to have an active presence and stay up to date with the newest trends and advancements.

Dedicating one employee to social media is a no-brainer for the practice that takes social media seri- ously. Picking a few outlets and keeping a consistent message across all social media platforms is crucial to getting a substantial following and keeping it. The best way to ensure optimal social media response is to engage the audience in a way that is creative, personable, and memorable. Now is the time to lever- age the power of social media for your business—build your business one tweet at a time!

Notes

1. Riggen-Ransom, Michelle. Social media for small business. BusinessWeek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Retrieved Oct. 2010 from www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/ tips/archives/2010/04/social_media_for _small_business.html.

2. Kukral, Jim. You HAVE to make videos … Period! Socialnomics – Social Media Blog. Retrieved Oct. 2010 from http://social- nomics.net/2010/08/07/you-have-to-make- videos-period/.

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Trade shows are great.  The Local Eye Site team was in New York for five days last week attending the Optical industries biggest show, Vision Expo East, and Expo didn’t disappoint.  Don’t misunderstand me, marketing and tele-sales can be very effective, but there is no better way to move business forward than to sit down face to face with a prospect.  We also attended some terrific events that provided great insight into the latest developments, innovations and challenges for our industry.

On Wednesday, we attended Vision Monday’s Global Leadership Summit.  My favorite part of the Summit was when representatives from the leading buying groups took the stage.  When asked about the biggest challenges facing independent Optometrists today…they almost unanimously answered “staffing.”  Exactly.

Thursday afternoon, we attended the COR (Corporate Optometry Report) Advisory Panel Meeting.  COR is always informative, and this year was no exception.  Eye care rock stars like Marge Axelrad presented from the industry insider perspective, and Joyce Chen from Jump Associates presented some terrific ideas about innovation and how to re-invent your business.  Not to be left out, LES was profiled in the COR re-cap from the last meeting in Las Vegas: “Where Will the Next ODs Come From?”

Jobson ECP Business Services conducted a breakfast on Friday morning for Optical business leaders.  Sherrie Rogerson presented some terrific business solutions, including Jobson Research.  Wow, talk about understanding your market.  Sherrie was particularly brilliant when she presented Jobson’s online recruiting solution….Local Eye Site.  But of course.

Last but not least, we had three great days of meetings at the LES booth and at others.  We met with some of the industries biggest companies.  It’s gratifying to see the LES brand and recognition of our unique model growing, and trade shows have been an important component of our growth.  Vegas, count LES in.

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According to the BLS, 9% of the US workforce is still out of work, and that number increases when you consider the underemployed or those that have given up hope and stopped looking. Man, that’s at least 14 million people with no job…pause for effect…hey dude, need a little help over here!  Seriously, how do we get these good folks mobilized to hook us up in the eye care industry?

News flash, careers in eye care, such as Ophthalmic and Optometric Technicians are at the top of the list of the fastest growing in the US. Opportunities for Techs are expected to grow 34% until 2018. Optometrists jobs will grow by 24%, and Opticians by 13%.  The demand for ophthalmic surgical procedures is expected to double between 2010 and 2016.  Lastly, since June of 2009, the number of Optometry jobs posted on SimplyHired has increased by 500%!

Join Local Eye Site, and let’s influence the mobilization of the US workforce to meet the growing demand for eye care resulting from the aging boomers (the oldest group of boomers turn 65 this year). There are at least 14 million of you out there that need a job, and the healthcare industry is expected to add 3.2 million jobs between 2008 and 2018-that puts a nice dent in it, right?!  It all begins with awareness, and ends with education, training and jobs!  So, join us at Local Eye Site as we carry the banner for careers in eye care!  (PS…tell a friend)

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January got off to a positive start with unemployment dropping .4 to 9.0%. That is the lowest rate since May of 2009. Lest we get too excited, remember that since 1948 the unemployment rate has averaged 5.7% with all time lows of 2.5% in 1953 and a high of 10.8 in 1982. So, in the scheme of things 9% is still high.

The good news for the Local Eye Site community is that healthcare has faired better in jobs than the rest of the economy. Healthcare continued to add jobs at an average clip of 22,000 jobs per month in 2010. In fact, of the ten occupations with the lowest unemployment rates, five of them are in healthcare. Online job ads tell the same story-online job ads for healthcare practitioners and technical workers surged in January by 78,500 job listings; there were three job listings for every healthcare practitioner job seeker.

Hopefully these trends will continue, and the rays of economic optimism displayed by gains on Wall Street will inspire the confidence needed for employers in all industries to increase their staff levels. That should cause a trickle down of consumer spending that will additionally bolster the healthcare market, especially in elective areas like refractive surgery.

Sources:
1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/01/12/132859364/which-jobs-have-the-highest-and-lowest-unemployment-rates
2. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=USD
3. http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-261984/Healthcare-Job-Postings-Surge-in-January
4. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

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As 2010 comes to end, one of the year’s most evolved trends is social media. Social media has been around for years, but 2010 marked the greatest leap in social media for business purposes. Companies of all sizes have expanded their presence via social media significantly.

What started out as a way to share pictures and stay connected with friends has changed how business markets forever. As of March 2010 there were over 3 million Facebook Fan pages, 30% of them being dedicated to companies and businesses. There will always need to be a press release about the big merger, but how the release is presented and distributed will forever be changed. The average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, making wall posts and status updates one of the best ways to push out information. The world of recruiting has been radically altered via the power of personal social media as well. Information about job-seekers is easily accessible and creatively displayed through social media channels.

One industry to fully embrace all social media has to offer has been health care verticals such has ophthalmology. The amount of information distributed through the web has been massive, from health care reform and FDA regulations to information in more specific niche industries like optometry. Tweets, fan pages, blogs and YouTube channels are filled with articles, information, and responses. Health care related tweets trend daily under #hcsm, #healthcare tags.

Private practices to large suppliers have taken the idea of social media and adapted it to work for them. Facebook welcome pages have become mini company websites and twitter has become the go-to customer service help line. Businesses have accepted that social media is here to stay and are embracing it for their benefit.

Local Eye Site Sources:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-facts-figures-for-2010/

http://statistics.allfacebook.com/pages

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By Guest Blogger: Bob Padula, Eye Care Alliance

Eye Care Alliance is a partner of Local Eye Site and powers the Equipment Exchange

One of the difficulties in selling preowned eye care equipment is determining a value. As they say on a familiar cable show about real estate…”what’s it worth?”

First, forget about what you originally paid, that is old history. The market value is the current price that is paid for that model and age equipment. The older it is, the more it has depreciated in value. It may have been the latest and greatest at the time, but now it may be way behind the curve in terms of technology. Remember that if you have a good accountant, you have depreciated the equipment and written off all of its value against your taxable income.

One suggestion is to figure out if you want to move it quickly at wholesale or put in a bit more effort and get a retail price. Here are what the terms mean to you…..
Wholesale: This is the lower price point in which a reseller or equipment broker will purchase the equipment. The bad news is that it will be a fraction of what you originally paid, the good news is that the equipment will disappear quickly and you will get a check and never hear about it again. The price needs to be low enough to allow the broker to package, ship, refurbish, resell and then warranty the equipment when it is placed into service in its new home. Often, that requires a great deal of investment, particularly for a reputable broker who will stand behind the equipment.

Retail: This is the “doctor-to-doctor” price or the price that a wholesaler or equipment broker would ask for a unit. Usually the equipment has been refurbished and given some sort of warranty or guarantee of being in good working order. It may be a local doctor who can come by and see the unit in operation and can pick it up and move it to their office vs. having to package and ship the unit. This will be a higher price than wholesale and represent the current market value of the equipment as posted on web sites and offered by dealers.

Trade In Value: This is an option worth considering in which you can ask the company selling a new version of the equipment if they offer a trade in value for it. Of course, this works like an automobile trade in because ultimately it would be better to sell the equipment outright and negotiate your best price. However, if you do not want the hassle, most manufacturers and brokers will offer you a trade in.

Determining Value and Price: This is the tricky part. Of course, there is not as much information regarding eye care equipment pricing as in consumer industries, but you can still use the internet to your advantage. Plug in the manufacturer and model number and see what the unit is being offered for currently. Make sure that you find a timely post. For example, you may see a unit offered at a certain price but the post was from over a year ago. Market values change dramatically in that period of time. Unfortunately, usually moving down.

Another option is to use the resources here at the Equipment Exchange. Ask the administrators and one of us will give you a range of market values for the equipment. Make sure you know the manufacturer, model, age and serial number (which is usually on the back of the instrument, near the plug or located on a label). You may also find this information on your original invoice. Although the price may not be relevant, the original invoice will make a buyer feel comfortable that you are the only owner and have a record of the age of the equipment, etc.

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Thank goodness this is Local Eye Site…and not Local Construction Site. If you are reading this, chances are you work in one of the healthcare sectors like eye care. If you are employed in a health care, or health care related setting, do you realize how fortunate you are? I do.

Although 2010 was supposed to be the year that the employment market bounced back, things didn’t exactly turn out that way. Even though roughly 1,000,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in 2010, that just wasn’t enough to keep the monthly unemployment percentage from creeping up slightly from 9.7 in January to the current figure of 9.8 (through November, ’10). The economy needs to produce 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth, and individuals re-entering the workforce. So, although the employment market in 2010 wasn’t in a free-fall like in 2008-09, the robust recovery we’ve been looking for just has not materialized.

Are there any exceptions to this abysmal picture, you ask? Yes-healthcare. Healthcare produced more new permanent positions in 2010 (216,300) than any other part of the private sector. The unemployment rate in healthcare is also three whole points below the national rate across all sectors (5.8 versus 9.8 for November).

So, if you work in healthcare, and you are considering a New Year’s Resolution…resolve to be thankful for your great job. I know I am.

Sources:

1. http://www.bls.gov/home.htm

2. http://www.npr.org/2010/12/29/132364101/2011-jobs-outlook-better-but-not-as-good-as-it-was&sc=nl&cc=bh-20101229

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