The Internet, of course, is the main reason I`m sitting here with a pen and piece of paper. Kansas City is the perfect place and time to lay a Web address out here for you: net32.com
Mark Hartley, Editor
My counterpart at Dental Economics, Dr. Joe Blaes, apparently writes some of his Editor`s Notes from pleasant surroundings. The surf and sand is the forward view. The rear view is lush tropical vegetation. A cool beverage is never far from his fingertips. The accommodations are exquisite, and dinner is a succulent fish smothered in a sauce to die for.
I write this from a parking lot beside a soccer field in Kansas City. I drove my daughter here for a tournament. I am still fried from yesterday. The sun made a deal with my skin upon birth. The sun decreed that it would cook me good one day each year. After that, I don`t suffer for the rest of the hot season. Yesterday was the day for me to be cooked in Y2K. Fortunately, for RDH magazine, it doesn`t hurt too much for me to hold a pen in my hand while I sit in the car and wait for the next game. Too tired for anything else last night, I ate a bag of honey-roasted peanuts for dinner.
Kansas City, by the way, is a beautiful city, and the hotel wasn`t bad. But the personnel weren`t hovering beside me, catering to my every need - unlike some of Joe`s accommodations that he refers to as models for customer service in dental offices. If the Kansas City hotel staff had been like that, I would have asked someone to go outside and kick the ball with Kate while I snoozed a little longer.
But I`m awake now, setting aside the legal pad for a second to hold a press release in one hand and a copy of Newsweek in the other.
In this idyllic environment of people screaming on the soccer fields next to the parking lot, I read the press release first. A study by University College in London has determined that the British waste $316 million a year on unnecessary dental treatment - $160 million of that figure is for "routine prophys." This view of dental hygiene as being a frivolous expense is not something I want to read about in a hot parking lot. Kate`s coach is British, so I`ll probably glare at him the whole game, as if this is his fault.
So I switch to the magazine, finishing this article about "browser assistants" (flyswat. com, gurunet.com, and quiver.com, for example). If there`s anything I dislike about the Internet, it`s the fruitless searching that I engage in while trying to find information. These browser assistants appear to be a promising aid, so I scribble a reminder at the top of the legal pad to try them out.
The Internet, of course, is the main reason I`m sitting here with a pen and piece of paper. Kansas City is the perfect place and time to lay a Web address out here for you:
net32.com
net32, inc. and its e-commerce Web site is one of several featured in the ".com invasion" article on page 20. The reason I single it out here is because net32 has entered into a partnership agreement with PennWell Corp., the publisher of RDH.
What this means to RDH readers is that the magazine is now online at net32.com. If you are attending the ADHA annual session later this month, a net32 representative will be happy to give you a tour of the RDH site. Besides the online shopping features that propelled net32 to the forefront in dentistry, the site also features a calendar of events, classified advertising, news, and expert sessions.
I could devote the rest of this column to the features of net32 and RDH online, but I`d rather focus on the people of net32. Since PennWell began negotiating with net32 last fall, I`ve had the opportunity to meet several of the key players with the Raleigh, N.C., company. They devote countless hours to "thinking outside of the box." As you sit and listen to conversations involving net32 personnel, you realize: They really want nothing to be done as it has "always been done."
That`s probably the main reason I`m excited about net32`s affiliation with RDH. They continuously search for the most innovative ways to serve hygienists and other dental professionals with online services. My best advice is to explore the RDH Web site, and, if there`s something you`d like to see there, contact net32.
I think you`ll be surprised at how responsive they are to dental hygienists.
Editor Mark Hartley can be contacted at [email protected]
