GAC picDENTSPLY GAC, Islandia, NY, recently held its first annual Orthodontic World Congress (OWC) at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort, Coronado, Calif, where attendees were privy to a variety of clinical lectures, practice-building ideas, and a collection of internationally recognized speakers.

The meeting featured three keynote speakers, including Jonah Berger, NY Times best-selling author and assistant professor of marketing at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, who offered his take on how ideas are born and why some go contagious, and explained the benefits of each practice finding its “inner remarkability.” Berger’s book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, is featured frequently on NPR and in the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Bloomberg Business, and The Atlantic.

Steve Curtin, author of Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary, provided insight on getting to the essence of what a practice is all about. According to Curtin, once a practice can do that, it can transform the doctor/patient relationship from transactional to inspirational.

The third keynote speaker and NY Times best-selling author Jon Acuff has completed four books, including Start: Punch Fear in the Face: Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.

The business portion of the OWC featured speakers Lou Shuman, DMD, DDS, CAGS, and Amy Morgan CEO, both of the Pride Institute; and Ben Burris, DDS, MDS, who built one of the country’s largest practices in Arkansas.

Clinical topics included everything from taking another look at lingual treatment to dealing with complex and risky movements, such as Periodontally Facilitated Orthodontics.