Impressions from the Chicago MidWinter Meeting

Although it doesn't seem possible that it is time for the MidWinter Meeting again, another has slipped off the calendar.

This year's event at McCormick West in Chicago was an amazing event for me. I was busy in a series of meeting after meeting events.

After 3 hours of sleep on Tuesday night, I left KC at 8 on Saturday and headed for Chicago. Upon my arrival in the Windy City, I jumped in a cab and headed downtown to a full hands-on editorial meeting with the rest of the crew from Dental Products Report. There I was delighted to see the return of my good friend Steve Diogo to the magazine's staff. Steve has been given the job of heading up the electronic and social media side of Advanstar so it looks like we will be spending a fair amount of time working on new projects together. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about that.

There are also quite a few things coming down the pipe from Dental Products Report. Although I'm not at liberty to discuss these new and exciting ideas, trust me when I say 2012 is going to be a year of surprises that will delight you. One of the E media things that you can look forward to in the not too distant future is my complete Twitter feed showing up on the DPR homepage.

I'm also going to be working on a couple of new video initiatives that will spotlight some fun and much needed areas of information when it comes to dentistry.

I also had a multitude of meetings with companies that are looking to bring game changing products to market this year. Once again, I'm not at liberty to discuss these but I walked away from several meetings buzzing with excitement about the changes that these products can bring to the practice of dentistry. Suffice it to say that the only constant in the industry is change.

On Friday night, after most of the meeting was either relaxing with an adult beverage or heading off to sleep a few of us convened to begin the discussions and arguments that always result from the Pride Institute Best In Class Technology Awards voting. This is the 4th year of the panel voting on the latest and greatest of products in our proud profession. Over the past years this meeting has been a combination of fun and arm wrestling. Trust me when I say that this year's meeting was all that and more. The winners will be announced on the June cover of Dental Products Report magazine and I've got to say that I'm incredibly proud of the panel that I'm part of in the decisions that we made.

The work that we do is always a labor of love and afterwords even though tensions may have run a bit high in the meeting, we always end up as friends. This year was no exception.

I was excited about the media in general as my friends in the industry indicated to me that dentistry continues to improve and strengthen as a business. However, we also continue to see incredible improvements that benefit the patient, and in the end that is truly what this great profession is all about.

So suffice it to say that I'm excited about what 2012 holds in store. Sorry I can't tell you more about some of the amazing things that are happening, but trust me when I say you'll see them soon enough and like me you will be thrilled!