We all have our own spin on Vision Expo –  what we are looking for, what we do for a living, what we like etc. As we are optical bloggers with a sales and marketing perspective, plus sponsors we like to see what is new and interesting from as many angles as possible. We will be doing several posts on what we saw and we think our readers will be interested in. But in the meantime, this is my own personal quick report from Vision Expo East 2012. Cathy has her own as we divided and conquered the show!

What I liked best? – Seeing demonstrations and hearing explanations from the experts how some of the new optical technology works. Nothing beats seeing and hearing about it in person.

What was the most fun? – the parties, the new eyewear styles getting to see them and try some on!

Who did we see?  – Our Sponsors of course, plus the VisionWeb Cowboy, a few celebs and lots of opti-friends.

A&A Optical – Loved seeing the bling at the Jimmy Crystal New York Fashion Show. Met one of the designers, very exciting!

A.I.T. – Couldn’t get near them so many people in the booth, they were busy showing the new WECO edgers with integrated drilling and wrap frame processing.

Briot – Tina Kruse is a Pinterest expert and she is going to help us with our vintage eyewear equipment boards, let us know if you have some to add! We will be learning more about Visionix  from Tina as well!

Classique Eyewear – Lisa Loeb really truly loves her eyewear line, plus she can sing and play the guitar really well, all those who saw her at Eye Rock can attest to that. Plus she is very generous, she donated one of her guitars for the cause.

ClearVision Optical – Marc Ecko, so glad we saw him in person! He is a force and his Marc Ecko Cut & Sew Eyewear will always be cutting edge but perfectly wearable. The Marketing Department of ClearVision Optical is also a force, we learned about “Social Currency”. More about that later…

Corning  – Did you know that Corning SunSensor technology is used by many lens companies? More than we knew!

Eyes of Faith Optical – Always something new with this amazing team, they never fail to inspire us – HOPE  is a  great idea, if you haven’t seen it, check it out!

Frieze Frames – I tried on one of the new ANVI designs, but got pushed out the booth by people who wanted to order, Frieze Frame Flash mob!

Jonathan Paul – Fitovers – Fabulous new colors, love the blues, they had models demoing at the booth, what a great way to show the product, you could try it in your optical office, it is not as expensive as you might think. Craig’s List is a good resource to find a demo model for a day!

Marchon – Vogue Italia and Marchon know how to throw a party! Thank you to Vogue Italia, Claudio Gottardi and Robert Schienberg of Marchon, Anna Ibay and the rest of the OWA events group. A night to remember for ever! #13 is a lucky number indeed!

MODO – Too busy to talk to us at the show, but they are all over the news, saw ECO MODO featured on NBC Today on Tuesday, with Jill’s Steals and Deals.

Pixel Optics – We got to see the fitting and training of a patient for their first pair of emPower! electronic interactive eyewear. Here is Brenda getting measured by Pixel Optics training guru, John Ditski, ABOC. Fascinating, this is truly breakthrough technology that you have to see for yourself!

PPG/Trivex and NXT – Lots of new products and information coming, saw some secret ones, you will see them on the blog soon we promise.

QSpex – I couldn’t believe that tiny machine made this premium lens so quickly and easily, AR and all! So glad I saw the demo for myself.

Santinelli – We got to see Gerard drumming his heart out at Eye Rock and meet the famous Jaysun Barr who has tons of good info on edging tips, the classes were excellent.

Shamir – New GOLF progressive lens, great idea, perfect marketing niche as golfers will do anything to improve their game won’t they? They can read their score sheet, see the ball at their feet and wack it or putt it or whatever it is those golfers do! I am a tennis player so that is the progressive I want please Mr Progresso!

Transitions – I had a lesson on how the Transitions Vantage Polarized lenses work, pretty amazing technology. Truly a technical leap for polarized, no film as this has been replaced by smart little molecules that know how to line up as the light changes. Polarized lenses are no longer just sunglass lenses!

Just a quick Optigirl perspective from Vision Expo East 2012. More to come…..