Sep 2016

SPECIAL FEATURE: VISIONZ 2016
MIKE BRUNEL,
CONSULTANT AND AUTHOR
ELAINE SILK,
PRACTICE BY DESIGN
Tell us briefly about your
career?
I left New Zealand to play rugby
in Australia in my teens, got into
sales, then travelled to Europe, like
most Kiwis do, for a few years.
I arrived back in New Zealand
and applied for a position at the
local radio station selling radio
ads. I loved it. After managing
numerous radio sales teams, I
then co-founded NRS Media, a
successful media consultancy
company. Over the last 20
years we have established six
international offices in Sydney,
London, Atlanta, Toronto,
Cape Town and Bogota. With
staff close to 200 people, our
products and services are sold
in 32 countries, in 11 languages
and we have sales in excess of
$300 million a year. We sold the
company to staff and a private
equity company in 2015.
What’s your favourite
campaign and why?
I was awarded a prestigious
media award for raising money
to fund an expedition to Mt
Everest. The campaign itself was
to put three climbers on the top
of Mt Everest: Rob Hall, Gary
Ball and Peter Hillary. Rob Hall,
the expedition leader knew I
represented a number of radio
stations, so he approached my
company with an intriguing idea:
he wanted to broadcast live, back
to our network of radio stations,
on his way to the top of Mount
Everest via satellite phone. Both
the idea and the technology were
quite innovative at the time. The
challenges were quite difficult, and
I will share some of those at m my
presentation.
What challenges do you think
the optical industry face?
Retail is challenging, with
technology and the shift in the
buying criteria changing. Business
owners will win the customer by
positioning themselves as experts.
Authority marketing is becoming
a real trend and takes business
owners out of the price war
and back into talking solutions.
Optometrists are nicely positioned
to take advantage of this trend.
Tell us briefly about your career
so far?
Some hazy years spent at art
college cumulated in a job with a
graphic design studio and, under
the UK Display Screen Equipment
regulations, a compulsory eye exam,
where I met an optometrist who
owned a small group of independent
practices. This introduction to
the world of optometry and my
subsequently becoming a Federation
of British Dispensing Opticians
(FBDO) qualified DO, fused my
passion for creative design with an
understanding of the needs of an
optometry practice and culminated
in me launching my company
Practice by Design.
Why is practice layout so
important?
Optometry practice design is the
art of creating desire for the visual
solutions you provide; elevating its
value by creating an environment that
engenders a receptive mood. Effective
design involves everything your
patient sees, hears, smells, touches
DRI OCT-1 Triton Series
Swept Source OCT now with OCT Angiography
Essilor
With the demands of the modern world many adults are
living with some kind of eye strain including tired eyes,
blurred vision and dry eye. A recent study showed all
users of digital devices – regardless of age, type of device
or frequency of use - feel the same discomfort, related
to the difficulty of reading small characters and screen
brightness. For younger users, the main discomfort is
screen brightness, while for older users, it is the effort
required to decipher small characters.
See. Discover. Explore.
Feeder vessels in a CNV with GA
as they move through the space you
have created. The sensory cues your
patients absorb reinforce messages on
a deep, unconscious level and the look
and feel of the practice leads them to
form conclusions and expectations
about quality, value and trust in your
practice.
What recent trends are you
seeing in practice design?
The desire to elevate eyewear to
a status akin to jewellery has led
to some stunning practice designs
where the frames really are the
centre of attention, with advances
in lighting allowing designers to
highlight the intricate features of
frames. I am also intrigued by the
movement towards more consumercentric
interiors where the needs
of the patient come first. This has
softened and created a more playful
approach to practice design where
the floor plan brings the optometrists
forward, helping to eliminate the
divide between the retail and clinical
functions, creating an open flow and
atmosphere.
What is a key challenge for
optometry practices?
In the US, blindness ranks among
the top four “worst things that could
happen to you” alongside cancer,
Alzheimer’s disease and HIV/AIDS.
When designing an optometry
practice, it’s important to ensure
the practice creates a reassuring
and welcoming atmosphere to
alleviate stress. In the current optical
marketplace, you have to provide a
great patient experience on the clinical
side and a great retail experience on
the eyewear side. It’s up to you to make
your practice their best choice.
To meet these new visual needs, Essilor has designed a
new category of lenses for a connected life. This all-new
range of ophthalmic lenses provides a correction for each
reading distance required by digital devices, relaxes users’
eyes and protects them against the potential dangers of
blue-violet light.
Meet us on ADONZ stand 3 to discuss the features and
benefits of EyeZen lenses and play the EyeZen challenge to
win fantastic prizes!
Swept Source OCT Angiography
OCT Angiography image taken with a Topcon OCT Triton
Courtesy of Dr. Carl Glittenberg, MD Karl Lansteiner Institute for Retinal Research and Imaging
DRI OCT Triton Plus
Multi-Modal Imaging
The Topcon Swept Source DRI OCT-1 Triton Series 1 features a 1 micron, 1050nm light
source with a scanning speed of 100,000 A Scans/Sec., providing multi-modal fundus
imaging.The DRI OCT-1 Model Triton rapidly penetrates all ocular tissue without being obscured by
media opacity or hemorrhage. See you at AAO Booth 3732.
Color FA FAF OCT-A
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First combined anterior and posterior
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Triton
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DRI OCT-1 Series
Extremely fast scanning speed
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1050nm invisible wavelengths penetrates
Cataracts and Haemorrhages
10/21/15 12:07 PM
See. Discover. Explore.
Feeder vessels in a CNV with GA
RA:28042016/CS
OCT Angiography image taken with a Topcon OCT Triton
Courtesy OCT of Dr. Angiography Carl Glittenberg, MD image Karl Lansteiner taken Institute with for a Topcon Retinal Research OCT and Triton Imaging
Courtesy of Dr. Carl Glittenberg, MD Karl Lansteiner Institute for Retinal Research and Imaging
The Topcon Swept Source DRI OCT-1 Triton Series 1 features a 1 micron, 1050nm light
source with a scanning speed of 100,000 A Scans/Sec., providing multi-modal fundus
imaging.The DRI OCT-1 Model Triton rapidly penetrates all ocular tissue without being obscured by
media opacity or NZ hemorrhage. ) 0508 See you DEVICE at AAO Booth (338 3732. 423)
sales@device.co.nz
www.device.co.nz
Color FA FAF OCT-A
1. Not for sale in the US.
12 NEW ZEALAND OPTICS September 2016
For more information visit, newsgram.topconmedical.com/tritonangexport