Is your practice prepared for the future?

I interact with dentists from all over the world and for the most part, they sincerely believe the way dentistry is practiced will remain basically the same. Yet, compare dental practice today to a decade ago. The equipment, the IT, the processes, the systems, the materials, the marketing, the financing and the staffing are so much different than they were 10 years ago.

So, what are the changes the future holds? And if you could understand them today, would you seize the opportunity?

“Ten years from today, the center of our digital lives will no longer be the smartphone, but a device that looks like ordinary eyeglasses, except those glasses will have settings for virtual and augmented reality. What you really see and what is computer generated will be mixed so tightly together that we won’t really be able to tell what is real and what is illusion.

“Instead of touching and sliding on a mobile phone, we will make things happen by moving our eyes or by brainwaves. When we talk with someone or play an online game, we will see that person in the same room with us. We will be able to touch and feel her or him through haptic technology.

“We won’t need to search online with words, because there will be a new visual web 100 times larger than the current internet, and we will find things by images, buy things by brands, or just by looking at a logo on the jacket of a passerby. Language will be irrelevant, and a merchant in a developing world will have access to global markets.” -Robert Scoble, “The Fourth Transformation”

Those dentists, senior executives and investors who can open their eyes to explore new futures will have a distinct advantage because they will be able to align their thinking and resources to take advantage of the changes made available in the future.

What does the future hold and how will you take advantage of these changes?