It's with a great degree of sadness that I write this post. As of Friday December 20th, 2024 at 12:00pm Eastern time. Dental Products Report ceased to exist. The parent company made a corporate decision to shut the organization down completely. There will be no more Dental Products Report magazine, no website where I can post... nothing. DPR and all their sister dental brands are now over.
I'm sure all of you reading this will be as shocked as I was. This was an event that came out of the blue. I had no indication that it was coming.
As most of you know, DPR had been my home for a long time. I started with the publication in 1998 and had eventually become the longest tenured member of the team. A lot about the world of dentistry has changed since then. When I started writing for the publication, there was a fairly new tech that was available it was called... USB. That should give younger readers an idea of how long I've been at this!
There have been a lot of changes in the publishing world due to technology. I still subscribe to some print publications and even my favorite, Wired magazine, continues to get thinner and thinner as more people move to digital publishing. We had taken DPR from 12 issues to 10 in the last year.
I'm sure many of you are wondering what happened and I am right there with you. I wish I had some answers for you, but I don't. Basically the decision by the corporation that owned DPR was that they had decided to leave the dental space and concentrate on other areas. The publishing company has a presence in a lot of other areas of healthcare and the decision was to concentrate more on those areas.
However, with this change as in any change, there is good that will come of it. The good news is that I will still be posting here Monday through Thursday, just like always. Also as word has begun to circulate in the dental industry about this, I've already been contacted by other publications who are interested in giving me a voice. It's nice to feel wanted!
It's kind of funny to me that as "The Technology Evangelist" my own career of communicating with my peers has been impacted by a tech change that is sweeping the print publication world.
So you haven't heard the last from me... not by a long shot. I tend to be an optimist and in that regard I'm looking at this change as a good thing in my life and career.
As I wrap up today's post, I want to let you all know how much I appreciate you. A lot of loyal readers started coming here due to my presence in DPR and a lot of DPR readers found out about my columns there by reading about it here. To all of you who visit here regularly and read my columns in DPR, I'm grateful. I enjoy writing and I also enjoy helping all of you to be better at what you do. I never planned on becoming a voice for dentistry, but life gave me that opportunity. However, writing is nothing without readers and I truly am grateful for your reading and your support over the years.
Also, I'll be making a post on this tomorrow, but I'm taking a little break from the blog until 2025, so no posts until January 2nd. I thank you all for supporting me and I hope you all have a blessed holiday season as well as a healthy and prosperous New Year. We'll talk again soon.
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