Posts Tagged ‘tampa’

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

Wow, with all the stress and confusion from moving our office to a BIGGER and BETTER location (here’s the skinny, more on that later!) the Bright Eyes staff and I sure would like to blow off some steam! And there is almost nothing better for a good night out than some laughter at live comedy. It has been one of my favorite night time outings for years – especially when we lived in Chicago.

But you don’t have to Chicago, NYC, or LA to see some wicked funny comedy. Thanks to our friends at Improv, you can get your laugh on right in Tampa, and in honor of National Eye Health Care Month (see related post), they’ve graciously given us FREE tickets to hand out! Free funny? What could be better?

At Bright Eyes we try to stay ahead of the game when it comes to social media. We’ve had the blog for about 4 years now. We have fun with Facebook and Twitter. When foursquare was available in Tampa, I was one of the first local bloggers to write about it. As turned out, that was pretty successful.

Well, I am excited to share the news that Yelp is official in Tampa! If you are not familiar with it, Yelp is a social online business review site. People use the site to help decided where to go and then share opinions about their experiences afterward, good and bad. You can read a more detailed explanation on my Westchase Patch blog here.

I have been using Yelp personally since early 2009 and have found it to be a lot of fun. We’ve also established a Bright Eyes account and have been offering Yelp discounts and check-in rewards check in for a quiet a while. But now that we have an official  Tampa Yelp representative, we have lots of more options includingReviews of the Day, Newsletters, and official events. So get excited! This is yet more validation that we have a thriving tech scene in Tampa. It is something we should be proud of and continue to develop!

If you have any questions about how yelp works either for consumer business, don’t hesitate to let me know.

(PS: I’m still excited about Google Plus! If you haven’t had the opportunity to try it out yet, let me know and I will get you an invite as soon as I can.)

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

Friday Update:

At Bright Eyes, we know that contests are fun. So is looking through old family photos poking fun at your hideous glasses. So we thought, why not combine them and host the UGLY GLASSES Contest! We are so sure that some of our patients have been photographed wearing seriously ugly glasses, that we will be giving away a complete designer pair of glasses, prescription lenses and all, to one lucky person! How fun is that?

Here is what you need to do:

• Locate a photo of you in some truly atrocious/crazy/ugly-looking glasses.
• Head over to our Facebook Page!
  
• Fill out the form, upload the picture, and tell us why you should win!
• Get everyone you know to vote for you!

Here are the complete rules:

The Ugly Glasses Contest begins 8:00 AM May 2, 2011 and ends May 30, 2011, at 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST). By submitting an entry, each contestant agrees to the rules of the contest.

The Bright Eyes Tampa Ugly Glasses Contest is judged by Dr. Nate and the staff of Bright Eyes Family Vision Care. Photos are judged with no discrimination towards sex, race, or age. Please submit photographs on-line through the contest application. Photos may not be mailed or brought to Bright Eyes Family Vision Care. All decisions are final. Please ensure your information is completed accurately.

One entry per contestant. The winner will be chosen based a number of factors including ugliness of the glasses in the picture, degree of humor or uniqueness of the description of the picture, and level of public support for the picture. Participants are highly encouraged to get friends and family to vote their pictures “thumbs up”.

Winners will be announced on May 31st, 2011. The Grand Prize winner of the free glasses must come in person to Bright Eyes Family Vision Care select the glasses and pick them up. The Second Prize is a $50 gift certificate to Bright Eyes Family Vision Care. The Third Prize is a $25 gift certificate to Bright Eyes Family Vision Care.

Contest may not be combined with vision insurance plans or any other discounts or offers. All participants must be at least 18 years of age. Bright Eyes Family Vision Care may use winning contestants’ name and photo for media promotion. There are no warranties or guarantees implied or assumed. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

Can’t Wait to see those pictures!

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

(click to watch video)

I can certainly say that it is has been a remarkable journey. If you are not familiar, Foursquare Day started a little over a year ago when I was trying to find a way to have a fun event for Bright Eyes using foursquare and, to my surprise, the idea was very popular. In three weeks, it went global. You can read about happened in 2010 here and the recent story in the Tampa Tribune here.

This year, thanks to volunteers in Tampa and around the world, it was an event greater success. Foursquare Day was officially proclaimed by 19 mayors around the world, including Michael Bloomberg of New York City, and Tampa’s newly elected Bob Buckhorn. Over 1000 parties were held all over the world and money was raised for many great causes such as the Humane Society, Red Cross, food banks, and Japanese disaster relief.

April 16th was a busy one for me. After a few hours of sleep in Houston, TX, where I had spoken the day before to eye docs about Facebook, I flew back to Tampa early. I rushed for an interview for Bay News 9, did some blogging for 4sqday.com and then participated in a press conference with Mayor Buckhorn. It was very cool to spend time with the mayor talking about social media in a relaxed setting, outside by the Sail Pavilion. Then Mayor Buckhorn and I spoke at the podium about the importance of social media and business development, before Mayor Buckhorn proclaimed Jason Cyr the “Foursquare Mayor of Tampa.”

Until next year!

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

Wow, what a crazy few days. I’m in Houston, TX for an optometry meeting and Foursquare Day got a nice write up in The Tampa Tribune, which featured a nice pictures of me. Very cool.

Mayor Bob Buckhorn will sign a proclamation naming the Foursquare Mayor of Tampa in honor of Foursquare Day. The event will take place at the Sail Pavilion on the Riverwalk at Tampa Convention Center on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 2:04 p.m.

Mayor Buckhorn, myself and others will speak at the event, held in celebration of Foursquare Day and to help raise awareness about ways social marketing can be used to increase business. Tools such as Foursquare are not only an easy way to promote a business, but it is free, making it an affordable option to add to a marketing program.

After the real mayor’s event, we’ll be heading over to the Tampa Tap Room for the 4sqday party. Free drinks and give-aways, it will be a lot of fun!

Yesterday Mayor Michael Bloomberg proclaimed April 16th to be Foursquare Day for New York City. As the Huffington Post reports, NYC joins many cities in making Foursquare Day Official. This is all very exciting, the Mashable story even refers to me by name as the originator of Foursquare Day.

And lastly, don’t forget our big Foursquare Day Sale!

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

We love new patients! We love Yelp! We have a huge offer for Yelpers new to the practice! $50 discount on any purchase or service! You absolutely cannot beat that deal.

Click on the screenshot above for more info.

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

Recently the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St.Paul ran a story on Tampa Bay Lightning goalie, Dwayne Roloson. Part of the story explains how he uses sports-vision, to keep him at the top of game at age 41.

Says Dr. Mark Gordon, Roloson’s optometrist:

“We take a look at eye-hand coordination, reaction time, processing speeds, peripheral awareness,” Gordon said. “Do we know where our teammates are? Do we know where the opponents are? Do we know where the puck is? Do we know how fast the puck is moving? Can we make sense of not only where the puck is at this moment but where it’s going to be a half-second from now?”

Sports vision is a type of vision therapy. Sometimes vision therapy is used to help someone develop skills they did not develop on their own. For example, vision therapy could be used to help a patient with autism develop control of their eye movements. Sometimes vision therapy is used to help people cope with visual stress, like the high-school student who gets double vision while studying. In sports vision, the goal is to help people who already have average or better than average visual skills have even better skills so that they perform at their maximum potential.

This exemplifies a great point. Vision therapy isn’t “a procedure.” It is the application of any of a number of procedures and concepts to increase a patient’s visual skill. And this in turn can help them reach their goals, whether they are passing the FCAT or blocking the next hockey goal.

If you have questions about vision therapy, please do not hesitate to come in or contact us!

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.

It is that time of year again….. yes, my friends, April 15th, tax day.  Yay!

But even better, the day after that is FOURSQUARE DAY! And here at Bright Eyes that means SALE! That’s right, we are pulling out all the stops and doing something we almost never do – for a very limited time.

BUY ONE,

GET ONE FREE

SALE

Seriously, all you have to do is show up and check in at Bright Eyes on foursquare. You’ll get an entire pair of glasses and lenses of equal or lesser value. (Please note – this sale is so awesome that it cannot be combined with insurance or other discounts. Patients must check in prior to ordering the glasses. If you have questions, please ask us.)

If you don’t know what Foursquare Day is, it is a day to celebrate social media, and foursquare, the geolocation application. Because 4^2 equals 16, April 16 is the day! And you may not know that Foursquare Day started right here at Bright Eyes last year. You can read more about that on our blog here and TampaBay.com here.

And don’t forget to support the local foursquare scene by RSVP’ing here!

Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.