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Reach out to your local Ivaclar rep today and discover how IPSE Max Zirconia can help streamline your workflow. All right, Barb, we've officially made it to Mallorca for Exocad Insights.
Yes, I know. Somehow, we're going to power through it, Elvis.
I know, it's tough. But as promised, I finally tracked him down. Felix! Felix, how are you?
I'm great, I'm great. Hey guys, I'm really happy to finally connect.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, you're here as an Exocad dealer. What is your take on the meeting so far?
Honestly, it's been great. Great turnout, a lot of familiar faces, always nice to see Exocad is working on, and we're very excited to bring these new features to our customers.
Is there something that stood out to you?
Well, one for sure is the Exocad Hub. It's a new cloud-based service, and also really excited to see that the AI services are now on the DentalDB. Oh, yeah, We're still digging into the details, but as you can tell, there's a lot of things that still need to be worked on. We'll definitely use it in our milling center when it's ready.
Nice. That's really great. It sounds like a... common rollout strategy for Imagine. Would you agree with that?
Yeah, for sure. Any of these new products that come out, especially from Exocat, we like to use them in our own production facility before we release them. Then for our support team, it's much easier to support our customers. And for ourselves to use those features as well, it's very beneficial to them.
You know, that totally makes sense. So for you, what's the real value of being here? Other than the beach being across the street.
Other than being in Mallorca.
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's great to see everyone in person, especially our partners. We don't really usually get to have conversations with them, so it's good to see them without the e-mail or video calls.
Oh, for sure.
So Elvis and I totally agree. We do love face-to-face. Love these meetings.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. It's good to take a step back for a minute, see what's going on, and Not just do the day-to-day stuff that you do at work.
Yeah, plus it's not too bad of a place to do it, Anne.
Yeah, not bad at all. Not bad at all.
All right, let's get back to it.
All right, man. It's good to see you, Felix. I'm really looking forward to getting you on our full episode interview.
Here in the next couple weeks.
One hour, one hour. Yep, yep, I appreciate, guys. I'm looking forward to it as well.
Thank you. Enjoy Mallorca.
Welcome to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an e-mail at info at voicesfromthebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 431 of Voices from the Bench. My name is Elvis.
And my name's Barbara.
What's happening, Barb? How are you on this? Hopefully, do you have a short week this week or next week because of 4th of July?
All right, so we've got Friday off, which is super.
Friday.
So it's four day week for us.
Nice, You have big, big plans for 4th of July. What is, what does Florida do? Shoot it over the ocean.
I got rid of my boyfriend and my son's going to Michigan. They're both going to Michigan. And so no, I have no plans. I think my plan is going to be sleeping. go for a run and do laundry. Yay me.
Nice. Yeah, I love that. I love it.
I might have a boring life. What about you?
We're actually closed on Monday.
Why Monday and not Friday?
Because the lab is already closed on Friday.
Oh, so you have two days?
It becomes like a five-day week.
My God, you lucky *******.
Yeah, sort of, kind of. But I still work. I mean, that's how life is.
Well, we all work.
Yeah.
Non-stop.
Yeah.
Well, good.
No major plans yet. But I hope to see some fireworks.
I mean, you've definitely been busier. I hear not from you anymore. So I.
Know.
How lab life is good.
Yeah, my life is completely busy and different. Oh, all for the good reasons. All for the exciting reasons. Still getting to make teeth.
Yep. I got you. So everybody out there listening to us. Happy 4th of July.
Yeah. And those that are not in America?
Yeah.
Happy not Fourth of July. All right. Yeah, sometimes we forget, right?
I do. I know. I'm sorry.
Yeah.
My apologies.
Yeah.
Good thing Elvis is on point.
Yeah. So, Barb, it's always sad, but of course, all good things have to come to an end eventually.
Right.
It was but two months ago that we went to the island of Mallorca, Spain. to mingle with some of the greatest and brightest that all love Exocad. Of course, we cannot thank enough the team at Exocad for giving us this amazing opportunity to talk to some of these great Exocad users and heroes. So this episode, we will wrap up the stories and we're ending it with a good one. First up is the president of Exocad America, Beth Collington.
Love Beth. She's coming down to my end of the world here next weekend.
Oh, nice. It's definitely not the first time we've talked to her, But she still filled us in on some great updates for exocat lovers in the US. She talks about this exciting new Excellence Center, a new student ambassador program, and some of the new innovations that we can all expect very soon.
And then we wrap up this episode with two people that make Evolve Dentistry. You know, the awesome lab that also empowers their offices to do it themselves while still being a part of the solution. Joshua Jackson and Robert Norton stop by to talk all things Exocad. Joshua gives us a history of his family and Evolve before getting into their new better than AI AI called Crown Finalization. Robert talks about connecting with the folks at Evolve, training others on Exocad, and making sure the user is using the software for what is right for the user. So join us as we chat with Beth Collington, Joshua Jackson and Robert Norton.
Voices from the bench. The interview.
It's so good to see you guys.
Absolutely. So here we are. Here we are. We are back again, Mallorca, Spain, and we are once again talking to another American.
The American.
But a very special one, the president of Echocad America.
That's a pretty big job, just saying.
It's fun, a lot of fun.
A lot of coverage.
Great customers.
Beth.
Collington.
Collington. I always mess that up. Beth Collington. Back in Mallorca. I know. What the heck?
Record number of people from North America here at this Insights.
Well, we'd like to think that it's all because they heard it on the podcast.
Yes, well, yeah. You know how we roll, so thank you to Exocad for bringing us here. Absolutely. We are enjoying ourselves thoroughly. So tell us what's happening at Exocad.
Oh my gosh, there's just so many new, exciting things. I mean, we've just had just outstanding end-user engagement. Every day there's more questions, there's more interest. People are just... Really excited about our latest features, which we're covering in-depth here at Instagram.
We've been talking about that, the hub, and.
Everyone's talking about the.
Hub, so that's pretty cool.
Yeah, really hot, right? Yep, game changer for dentistry. Yeah, love it.
I just feel like your company listens. You listen to the feedback and you change things very quickly and rapidly according to the feedback of the end user. So props to you guys.
Yeah, absolutely. It seems like every new release has a lot someone's excited about.
Yeah, I love it. That's one of the reasons I love Exocat. They're always innovating. The innovations are just, they never stop coming. It's really, really great to be part of it. And we just feel that it really keeps enhancing the entire workflow. I mean, with the TrueSmile video, you get better patient communication. There's just so many options with our AI and just different ways to communicate with the clinicians and support the end user adoption, patient acceptance, and treatment planning. I would just encourage you to get involved.
Yeah, I love it.
I feel like what we hear with the Exocad software mostly is that it does bring the clinician and the lab together, more so than any of the others. And that's the benefit. We were talking about that last night. It's like, you know, that mutual communication between the clinicians. clinician and the technician makes us all so much more successful. So I love it. So important. It's great.
I think one of the really exciting things that's happening is our excellence center. This is year two of our headquarters.
Tell us about that. What's the deal? Is that brand new?
Last year we launched. I don't know if you remember. This is an off year. This is in America, the Wakefield office headquarters. Yeah, Wakefield, Massachusetts. That's where Exocats headquarters in North America is located. And as we had a launch year last year, so we rolled out like 12 beautiful workflow programs, design classes, and this year we're expanding that quite a bit. So one of the things that we wanted to do was really enhance our education offerings and really support additional concepts and digital workflows, really bring in our vendor partners, our integration partners.
So they traveled to the facility for what, two, three day courses and just learn as much from the greatest tech, I'm sure, teachers.
So you're teaching your resellers or are you teaching users? Both.
Yeah, both. So a lot of our reseller partners are utilizing our space. And so we offer that to our reseller partners because we want to really encourage adoption on anything our customers want to learn, any end user on the clinical or obviously on the lab side. So they can come to us and they can just immerse themselves in whatever curriculum they feel Best benefits their learning needs, and we are definitely supporting multiple verticals in dentistry, and they're all unique, and they're all on our Eventbrite website. So, is it Clinician's website?
Check it out. Do you do both? Do you bring doctors in as well?
Oh, yeah.
Wow. Oh, yeah. Do you teach like... How to get started, intermediate, and complicated? Sounds like, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's really fun.
We just design, we'll also custom design, so we've had a lot of people recently reaching out and saying, Hey, I would love to learn X. We just completed with a master implantologist a three-day hands-on, completely designed training for them. And we do that. We need a little room to kind of prepare for it, but we are really willing to work with people. So whatever they want to learn, either we're putting together a curriculum that enhances that learning experience, or we invite them to come back in. Wow.
So I can call and say, I want a course on how to make grills, and you'll do that.
I want a course on how to be not clueless on Exocat. Beginner.
You have one for the third grade level for Barb.
I do want to. I'm serious. I'm sincere.
I can't wait.
I've always wanted to learn. I mean, I'm a ceramist by trade, but I want to.
Yeah, we know. Yeah.
And you're so good. I mean, you're involved with higher level cosmetic dentistry, Barb.
Yeah, that's cool.
Perfect.
All right, we got you.
Then you can go to your designers and say, I know you can do this.
I know, we've got like hundreds of licenses or at least 50, I'm sure. So yeah, I need to be one of those users.
Yeah, nice.
So we have a really exciting thing we're about to unveil. As a matter of fact, we just kind of launched it a couple of weeks ago. So we launched an academic enhancement program. So we have two different things that are happening. One is we have An initiative we really want to support students, that are coming into the industry, they're going into an accredited program, regardless if that's a dental laboratory technology program or a... dental school. But we want to say, hey, you should be having a touch point on Exocad. This should be your first experience to digital dentistry. And so we're working with these institutions and we're offering programs through our resellers that they can absolutely learn. Yeah, learn on a curriculum.
That is so needed.
Option, right? And then student licenses as well. So those students can also get involved and get hands-on from day one of their student experience throughout their entire, and then convert into full licenses when they graduate. Isn't that exciting?
Who did we talk to yesterday? Dr. Lau. I think I'm saying it wrong, but he's at Michigan. Michigan.
Oh, nice.
And he teaches Exocad at this school.
And I was like, I.
Go to IU, you don't see them teaching Exocad. That's a great idea.
Everybody can get involved. All they need to do is reach out and we can, you know, walk through the program with them, help them find the right reseller that works for their academic school, institution.
So they go through a reseller.
Yes, absolutely.
And then they will still learn Exocad through that reseller. Interesting.
Yeah, and the students are supported.
And the reseller teaches the students or they teach the faculty.
Both.
I love this.
We are looking to make sure that our products are in any accredited institution and that they have the opportunity to learn, whether they're doing a sidebar enhancement and they're saying, here's a touch point, or if they have a fully integrated curriculum. So we're hoping to support that. We're here to help facilitate it. And it's our goal to make sure we're in that market 100%. As a matter of fact, we went one step further.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, so I love education. Barb knows this about me. It's like a huge passion project for me. Love it. And so one of the things we wanted to do was have student demo days. So we actually instituted a student ambassador program. So we have one of our product support specialists, her name's Colleen Kohler. She's recently joined our company and she's a lovely, awesome individual. And so we're approaching schools. This just got started where we invite them and the students can come and spend a day with us and learn digital dentistry. And then they can head out and go back into the world knowing a little bit more about our products. We also are open to some on-site demo days, but this project is just getting launched, so stay tuned for more exciting developments.
But you guys are creating future designer dental technicians?
Yes.
We've always talked about how do we get into high schools? How do we promote dental technology? How do we build people knowing who we are?
It's exciting, right?
You guys are totally doing that. I can't believe that. Love it.
I'm so happy. I know, right? It's such a fun project.
And you're showing them how brilliant it is and how to use it. So then you're getting them ready to go to a lab, fully ready.
Absolutely.
I can't imagine someone that grew up in the age of iPads and at 4 they had a phone, you know what I mean? And then they go to a school and then it's like, well, here's your hand carver and your wax. But now they're back into what they're comfortable with.
Right index, okay, but we didn't forget our advanced dentistry clients either, so another thing that we really wanted to focus on is how do we enhance postgraduate clinical experiences? So, for someone who wants to go to an advanced higher learning education center, there's so many in the United States, we actually created a value-based incentive focus. Where we created a bundle, right, for advanced digital dentistry. And so if it's something that they want to learn more about, they can contact a reseller partner. But anyone who is attending one of the, I think, top five to seven advanced postgraduate digital dentistry curriculums, they can reach out to us through their reseller partners. And then we, you know, help them with some of our exoplan products or just smile creator and really help them understand the entire workflow. And that's really exciting.
So they take the course first.
They take the course first.
They say, hey, look, I took this course. They're like, well, here's our deal. And then you bundle. I love it. Yeah. There's nothing worse than coming back from a course and then doing nothing with it. You know? Exactly. Hey, I use this great program. Do you have it? No. Well, good luck. You know.
So what do you guys do, like, have like five-day meetings and say, OK, what's next? What is our vision?
Oh, come on, Barb, you know me. It's ready, set, go.
There's no fun. It's more of like every Any single angle you could have hit. I don't know what else there is, but you've got to just keep getting better, right? You just got to keep moving and put your foot on the gas. And yeah, you guys are amazing.
Thank you.
It's pretty impressive.
Exocad Insights. I think I remember asking you last two years ago, is there going to be an American one? An Exocad.
No, I don't think so.
I mean, this is not what happened to my York Elvis.
I mean, obviously, our offices are open for anybody to come anytime to just come see what we do, how we do it. I extend that invitation to the industry. We've been focusing so much on different associations, right? So the dental associations, we've gotten close to a lot of them in our home state and just really enhancing experiences. Come see what we're about. That's really, really what we want to do. Just love it. This industry, so fun working with you guys. Yeah. So great to see you. Thank you so much for coming here and supporting our meeting.
Thank you. So supportive. We love it.
Well, thank you for sitting down with us. I know we tried to get you for two old days. It's been a little crazy, but thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk to us and give us the whole overview on everything. So thanks. Bye, guys. Bye. Thanks. Unless they start doing the bang, bang, bang. We'll be good. It gets a little loud.
Yeah, I do have ADD, so. What? Okay. I think every dental technician probably has to. I think we have to.
Yes, that's totally.
We've actually talked about that a few times on the podcast. I think we all have that.
It's a super power.
Yeah, super power.
It is.
It is.
Don't medicate us, please.
I mean, you got to keep your eyes on so many different factors in a lab. You're right. It really is helpful to be able to do.
Multitasking.
Yeah. So this is super exciting. Day two.
Yeah.
Day two. First interview.
Are we all awake insights 2026.
Yep.
I had my coffee.
We can't get away from Americans, man. I know. Joshua Jackson. How are you, sir?
Oh, I'm just great. You know, so happy to be here in sunny Mallorca.
Yeah. I remember last year.
Man.
I think you were sick or something.
My gosh, I was so sick. I wanted to come on the podcast, but I didn't want to infect your beautiful headsets here. The last insight? Yeah, it was terrible, but you know, like, and like I was just coughing and coughing and I was trying to keep my distance from everyone. I was just like, I can't miss these updates and you know, but this year I'm raring and ready to go. And I got my friend Robert Norton here with me too. Good morning.
Good morning.
Blessing to be here. finally meet you two.
I've been listening for years. Thank you so much.
No, we appreciate that. So the Jackson family. Yeah. I mean, come on, man. We all know about it. Evolve, right?
Yeah, Evolve is a product line of our dental laboratory in Buffalo, New York.
Yep.
You know, my dad started the lab 30 years ago. He was going to school for chemistry and wanted to become a dentist because he's a... Immigrant from Poland, right?
I'm Polish.
Yeah, no way.
I love it.
Love it. Boom. Come on. There you go, baby. There's a lot of Polish people in this industry. And we're artists quite often. I'm telling you, it's true. Well, because it's because it's kind of, you know, from the old country, that's like what you did. You learn trades and you learn how to technically apply yourself because in that's what they wanted you to do, like when you were a citizen of the state. And so, you know, my dad or his family trying to escape communism came to the United States and my grandpa was a tool and die worker at Trico Industries and basically would make all the tools and dyes for the engineers. So it's kind of like very similar to a technician to doctor role, right? So basically my dad was wanting to become a doctor because he, a dentist, excuse me, wanted to make people smile. And my grandpa was like, You cannot become a dentist unless you become a good technician first because of his relation to that. And so my dad kicking and screaming was like, didn't want to go to technician school, but then fell in love with it. And how'd that work out for him? Probably immediately. Yeah. And he worked for a doctor, Ronald Jarvis, which. Buffalo has a big, rich dental history and industry. Ivaclar. Ivaclar, we have Great Lakes Dental and everything. Speaking of Ivaclar, Dr. Ron Jarvis, where my dad got his first dental technician job in the basement of Dr. Jarvis's practice. Dr. Jarvis was the first kind of like KOL before companies really had KOL for a company called Williams. And Williams Gold, right?
I remember them. Yeah, that's where my dad's partner started.
Oh, no way.
That's crazy.
We have a lot of life.
Troy, Michigan.
Yep. That's crazy.
That's actually where my dad started as well.
Really.
Yeah.
Selling alloy for Williams.
But yeah, so, you know, Dr. Jarvis, he developed a lot of like the classifications for gold and everything with Williams. Then a few years later down the road, a little company called Ivoclar basically kind of formed and purchased them and sorry I don't know like the exact but but basically they went on to develop classic porcelain and developed eventually Empress and Emacs and those are some of the first projects that my dad was working on in the basement with a technician Lee Culp so you're name dropping now bro so so you know honestly So my experience in this industry is really blessed because my dad got his start with Lee, Dr. Jarvis, these wonderful people, and working on technology products with Ivoclar, right? So that's kind of been our focus.
He was like the R&D guy? Or he just got them first.
Ivoclar needed to kind of like beta test things out with... a trusted partner and Dr. Jarvis being having his history with Williams, you know, it was somewhere locally that they felt comfortable and they're like, can we, you know, do some testing?
So we can see these in the mouth and we can photograph them and see how they act.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's basically where our family history and our dental lab started. And for the next 20 years of that, we've just been involved in technology throughout different avenues through Avident Digital Dentures, my dad was on the development project for that.
Wow, that was early, early on.
Yeah, 2010 is when that was. So yeah, and then basically around 2013, we kind of wanted to go back to the lab in Buffalo from Scottsdale, Arizona, where Avident was. And then right away.
You moved to Scottsdale, Arizona.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, we actually moved to Scottsdale.
How old were you at this time?
I was 20. I was 20. Yeah. And. So you left Buffalo. Yeah.
Which is like frigid. And then you moved to Arizona, which is like, ah, this place. Yeah.
Exactly. And you know, and now my favorite climate is right in between. Which happens to be Diorca. Yeah, okay, true, exactly.
Literally, it will work.
Oh, that's great. But right around 2013, that's when we got our start with Exocad. When we came back to the lab in Buffalo, we needed to find a good digital home because all of our systems in our lab were broken. It was, well, they were working, but they were all just compartmentalized and segmented. Nothing was connected. There was no communication with the doctor. The laboratory at that time was really failing, to tell you the truth. Because of these segmented systems and the inefficiencies in our workflow with our staff, we had so much more staff that was so much more inefficient. And as we adopted exocad, as we completely moved to a complete digital workflow, Things just kind of made more sense.
And everything connected together.
Exactly, yeah. And truly, the freedom of XOCAD is really what makes our technicians thrive, because there's never a situation that we're presented with a set of scans or a RX from the doctor that we can't overcome. Yeah.
So how do you and... Did Robert know each other?
Yes, so, Robert, when did you get your start in dentistry?
Well, I got my start in dentistry because of the technology. Honestly, when I was in college, I had no interest in dentistry, and as the technology crept into the industry, that kind of pulled me in, because, as I mentioned before, my father was in dental supplies. And that just kind of overlapped.
I was affiliated, not necessarily gonna go that directionally.
Yeah, no, I had this vision for becoming a graphic design artist, and I realized I didn't want to be poor for the rest of my life, and I was just kind of wasting time in school, and at least in my corner of the world, which I grew up in Atlanta. The technology was there, but nobody had really adopted it, nobody really figured it out for the most part. Not in a way that could be democratized to other labs. And us being a lab supply business and me working there late, and this is about the same time as the housing crisis, so people are being laid off, and I'm taking on more and more roles. I just kind of put things together and figured it out a little bit. And through a series of long story connections, I ended up linked up with John Higgins from Exocad, And he introduced me to Larry, which kind of basically got my whole career jump-started from there. So I dropped out of school and started my first lab at 23. That's pretty damn young.
That's ballsy right there.
Well, my thought was I either succeed or fail and go back to school. So why not? And then 10 years later, down the road, my lab basically became my resume. And what, like a year and a half ago? Mark Rosenberg from Exocad introduced me to, so I knew of Andy Jackson, and I knew of Evolve, and I knew of Josh, but I hadn't really formally met them. And Mark was like, I think you guys should really work together. And so he introduced us, and within like 45 minutes of talking on the phone, it's like, yeah, we have to work together. This is amazing. And it's just been such an incredible blessing.
What do you think you guys should? I mean, just the same personality.
Well, essentially, we've been running in parallel for like 15 years. So my little company out of Atlanta was doing. Doing the same thing as Evolve on a smaller scale, and I've been struggling to... find people to work with over the years. I even hired, put together my efforts with a partner, which went, well, it's amazing how six months can unravel 10 years at work sometimes. But again, ultimately, what seemed like a tragedy at the time was a blessing. Like I say, if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't have met. Josh, and I wouldn't have met Andy and wouldn't be here today talking to you.
Yeah.
Well, how do, what do your businesses do? So you say you know everybody, but like how are you resellers, lab and resellers now, or just a reseller?
So both.
So yeah. And so I think kind of speaking to Rob's point, you know, Rob is an amazing exocad trainer. Honestly, we put him on our education circuit with Evolve, right? So Evolve, what do we do, right? Evolve is a dead cam or a dental CAD/CAM supply company. We supply and promote iTero. We supply and promote all sorts of different intraoral scanners. There's so many good ones on the market. You know, primarily we--.
To dentists and labs.
Yep, to dentists and laboratories. Right now we're primarily strategized with the Allied Star Scanner. It's a great unit, very, very cost-effective, and the scanner just works so awesome. Interesting.
Yeah, Allied, you say it's called.
Yep, Allied Star. Yeah, they're out of Taiwan, and basically they just have a really, really nice unit. Dr. Ahmad Alasani always gives it like so many great reviews. You know, whenever I want to go to like a piece of technology, especially scanning technology, I'm always looking at what that guy's saying because he's tested every single one and has done clinical tests on every single one. It's just amazing. But you're kind of going back to that, you know, so scanners, right? So scan design produces kind of our theme, right? So the design, obviously, we're very aligned with that SOCAD, no pun intended. And then with our production, we outfit people with the SprintRay solution. And we were one of their very early adopters with SprintRay. And we also are partners with VHF. So basically, with those, we have a really complete solution that we offer people. But I do want to go back to what Robert was saying, because when we put Robert on the schedule to help train and support all these products and everything, Everyone was immediately like, you know what? I really want to do the training with Robert. You're great, Josh. But he honestly just has such a way with explaining things, slowing it down, and making it so that I can really retain that knowledge. And he's such a great educator. But there's a piece missing to Robert's business with ExoMed 3D, right? And that was the dental laboratory, right? So Evolve is a product line of our dental laboratory in Buffalo, New York that my dad started 30 years ago, right? So, and you're still, absolutely, a dental lab as well. Our core business is being a dental laboratory, but we're able to train and support and back up these customers in a way. that I feel like a lot of our competition in the marketplace really just cannot, because they don't have a dental lab running there.
So all the systems you're selling, you're using?
Exactly. Basically, if it's not good enough for us, it's not good enough for you, is really our-- That's a great point. Yeah, and so we're using all this stuff. Johnny, my cousin, you guys had him on the podcast, I believe, he has run into all these problems. And we're sitting there with, quite honestly, a bleeding patient in the chair, and we are put on the spot to try and make these situations and complications in the workflows of digital dentistry work. And, you know, we couldn't ask for a better partner than ExoCAD and our other partners, because they just make the workflow so seamless, and they have so many great resources for us to reach into their network And support our customers, so that's why we're here in Mallorca is really just to learn about the latest and greatest on what's coming up.
Do they talk to you about what they want in the software?
Absolutely, we're involved on some beta projects and everything.
Do you get the releases early and stuff?
Well, so there is one that I did get verbal confirmation from Exocad that I'm allowed to talk about because I'm just not, I'm not able to contain this one, right?
And so I just, you're bouncing around.
Literally, I'm so excited to talk about this one because, you know, yesterday we heard about kind of five main focal points, right? AI crown and what's going on with that. XOHub, which holy smokes, we could probably have a whole podcast about that one.
We talked about it 10.
Times yesterday, so yeah, it's just going to be so crazy. And then what else? Those are kind of like the two main ones that were. Those were the two big ones. Yeah, but kind of to go to our point about the beta, the project that we're working on with them is the thing called Crown Finalization. So we got to work on the AI Crown a little bit early. And basically what we found is that it was really cool and we were super jazzed up about it in the beginning. And our laboratory probably does about 400 single crown units a day. Oh, wow. Yeah, we have some big customers that we're working with that send us a lot of volume. That's very big. Yeah. Wow. And so, you know, it's a good testing ground for them because we have the volume to kind of see the numbers and things like that. So initially when they rolled out AI crown to us, we were like, yes, But then we We look back at it and we're like, Is it saving us time? Initially, it wasn't actually, to tell you the truth, because our technicians would get the proposals and everything, but then they still sit there and kind of...
And then they would be technicians.
Yes, exactly. I don't like this, you gotta change that. And then I'm sitting there, it's kind of like our manager, like, How much different is that actually?
Come on, we actually added time making it in the AI, and it added more time fixing it or trying.
To fix it. per crown, which is great if the proposal is good. So we worked together with some of the people from Align and Exocad to actually come out with this thing called crown finalization. I could send you some screenshots of what the difference is between the before and after of that. And let me tell you, I cannot, as I think I'm okay at Exocad, I don't think I'm great, but I cannot design a better crown than what the new crown finalization does. Does for what we're trying to do in our crown design workflow.
What does it do rather than just AI? What's the finalization?
So, basically, before you would get a proposal, and then there would be the tooth, and then from a library, right? Yeah, from a library, typical Exocaders (Germans). They would be, they would, they would be like, Well, here's the proposal, here's the beautiful tooth, and then I'm like, Yes, it is beautiful, and it's yes, in the right position, and yes, it is to my parameters.
It fills the space.
But guess what? We have a minimal thickness that the doctor didn't abide to. So we need to conform to that, right? So basically, they kind of worked on.
So the proposal, no matter how much space you had, would be its thickness, and it could be a bulbous crown because they didn't reduce enough.
Actually, it was kind of the opposite. The minimal thickness would just be there and then the perfect tooth would be there, right? The perfect library tooth, not like the perfect shape tooth for the situation. The perfect library tooth. You see how Americans and Germans think they're really good. But basically I was like, no, we need to Americanize this process and we need to conform and we need to conform to our doctor's preps that go on here. Because, you know, not all of my customers.
Give you 1.5 millimeters of occlusal room.
Exactly.
None of them do more.
A lot of the times, the situation isn't allowing that, right? Because we would have to do a whole set of orthodontics or... we would have to do something to really, really kind of like change that whole situation there. So basically what they did is they made it so that the proposals come out right and that our distance to the antagonist is what we're setting it to. The shape is just wonderful. Let me tell you that the time I would always, always use it is if I have a minimal thickness, kind of like a flat crown. We all know what we're talking about here. A pancake crown. Exo CADs, AI pancake crowns.
They still have anatomy.
They don't look like pancakes.
They look like teeth.
It's just amazing. So together with the AI crown, what's it called, what they presented with the database and being able to request in the database now, you go crown request, crown request, crown request. What we're looking at is actually our front-end staff to do that. Instead of the designers, interesting, right? So, now office people, right? Doesn't that make sense? Yes, because then our designers, our waxers, quote-unquote, are waxing, right? Or designing, right? And that's really, they're.
Doing the harder, more difficult cases, exactly. I understand AI is... Fill in your single units, and then your designers can do all of the really high-end, high-skill cases, and it makes a lot of sense business-wise.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we're really excited about that on our point of the laboratory, and I really hope to train and support other laboratories to implement this. You know, if there's one thing I want... other labs to know about us as a reseller is that we're absolutely not a threat to you. We are completely willing to share our whole book of secrets to you guys. We want to come up together in the industry. Sure, we're not here to put anyone out of business or anything like that, though we are absolutely here to do that.
I think technicians now feel the threat like they used to, right? Yeah, I do think they're more open-minded to accept it.
When I entered this industry about 20 years ago... I was honestly a little bit disgusted at kind of the way it was before, because it would be like, Oh, he's my competition, and this, that, and the other thing, but over time, I think the technology has really kind of brought us together as a community.
Well, I think a lot of it had to do with we've now become a global industry, like a dentist can send to anybody in the world. Yeah. It's not just you and the three other in your town. Yeah. Because yeah, that was competition. Now, I mean, everybody is, you might as well just embrace it.
Yeah, absolutely. And now with ExoHub, you know, everyone, the cool thing for me as an Exocad educator and for Rob, too, I know is that Now, everyone needs to learn Exocad because everyone's going to have access to it. Before, the only people that did have access to the software were the people that bought the thousands of dollars in licenses. Yeah, But Exocad, I think I've seen a theme with them is that they're trying to make things more accessible. Rather, if it's through ExoHub and... And the doctor or the customer working with their laboratory through the online version of ExoCAD, which will become available. Or as of just recently, they made a monthly subscription program where a customer can come to us. Their initial fee would be about $380, and then on a monthly basis, only about $190.
And you get Exocad.
And you get the core version of Exocad for that, for the ultimate bundle, like all the bells and wheels, it's like, don't quote me here, but like 650 for the initial fee, and then the monthly is like 350, that's still amazing.
And then do you call Rob and say, Hey, I need you to go into this lab and train? Well, how does that affiliate you?
Yeah, so we have a training program, essentially, where... Our clients can book online they can select the trainer. I'm one of what we have four or five, but it's you and Johnny.
By the summertime, we'll have eight people.
On that, yeah, absolutely, and so they can select whoever they like to train with. the best. I really encourage people to shop around and jump to our other trainers. Everybody has their own unique expertise and experiences. I mean, nobody does I've ocean dentures like Johnny, right?
No one does I've.
Ocean dentures like Johnny. I've done maybe 1% of the number of dentures that Johnny has done. Absolutely brilliant. I don't know anybody. I mean, I consider myself an Exocad expert. I've been working on this stuff for 15 years. I don't know anyone else in the world who knows more about the software than Josh, you know, outside of actual Exocad employees.
I know the code stuff.
Yeah, but you just said he knows the secret codex.
No, I'm not.
I'm really not. I'm really not, though. I just know the software. Basically, basically, if I'm faced with like a dental complication where like the dentistry was done poorly, like, you know, bending and shaping teeth and waxing teeth. I'm not really that, like with freeform, oh man, I need to practice freeform so much more. But I'm really good with tooth placement, like with pre-made beautiful teeth.
Freeform's my favorite tool in the world.
So why is that?
Well, I do have an artistic background. Art's my hobby, one of my many hobbies on the side, right? And so just the freedom that you have with freeforming. You can literally, the library teeth are great. Over the years, I've had customers just give me libraries. I've got a library of maybe 100 different options there. I firmly believe and can demonstrate that you can take any library and make it look like any other library with a little bit of skill and time.
Sure.
Yeah, and freeforming is that tool. Not really any other software out there like Exocad has that ability. I mean, something that we don't really appreciate in dentistry because we're siloed into this perspective is that really there's not many other software, period, for CAD/CAM design that has the kind of abilities that you get with freeforming and Exocad. We hear that a lot. I mean, you can. There are things like Blender and Filter and all these others, but they're limited and they're not as easy to interact with.
Interesting, yeah.
And so you can do things that are well beyond just restorative dentistry and prosthetics. Like, I came from Atlanta, forgive me. So I still have jeweler friends that come to me every now and then for grills, stuff like that. I did a Hello Kitty grill last week, and I was able to just take, free-forming and sculpt like a little bow on the cuspid. Yeah, it's wild, and that's not something you can do.
Did you freehand Hello Kitty or did you like import in like a kitty?
No, I freehanded it. Yeah, and so what this lady wanted was it was a big like Hello Kitty bow on her. It was a lower drill.
I just wonder what psychologically is wrong with some of that.
I was about to ask for the.
Podcast logo on the ground.
All right, I guess we could do the podcast logo too, you know.
Voices.
Yeah, this brilliant young lady wanted the Hello Kitty bow on her lower, you know, cuspid. and a grill out of platinum, and so they put some kind of special enamel in there, whatever. I can send you pictures, but that's great. Wouldn't put it in my mouth, but that's, hey, to each their own.
She's showing everybody.
Yeah, she's showing everybody. Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So again, like, it is what makes it fun. And you know, that's kind of why I take these projects on the side is because it's just fun. Take a pancake molar, make a bow, make whatever. I had a request for shark teeth not that long ago. That's a whole other thing.
Shark teeth.
Yeah, just, and again, something I can.
Double levels, the layers of teeth, don't they?
No, like interlocking pointy teeth like a shark. Yeah, and the funny thing is, and I did I did beg the jeweler to advise this guy to like, Hey man, like he can spend $5000 on this grill, please send him to an orthodontist. as opposed to having me put shark teeth over these jangly, whatever, whatever.
It wasn't good to start with.
No, it wasn't good to start with. But you know, everyone makes their own decisions. And to digress back to XOCAD a little bit, I just, I really love the freedom that you have to just create any kind of form of XOCAD that you want, regardless of whether it's in the silo of typical workflows or well outside of it for restorative industry or other projects. I mean, I've even made car parts, restorative car parts in XOCAD. Yeah, I've used my 3D scanner, my Medit scanner, just desktop scanner to scan parts that had been produced in 40 years and put broken pieces together and then use Exocad to kind of tidy it up and boom, 3D print new parts. Interesting. Yeah, it's super powerful software beyond even dentistry.
Yeah, it's being used in the fashion industry right now. There's one of our customers, Dr. Anton, something Russian, he's in West Hollywood. He owns a company called Crooked Mouth. And basically it's these black colored snap-on smiles.
Snap-on smiles of black tees.
This is basically like the fashion industry right now. Like that is really up here. Yeah, like basically it's like instead of beautiful white, like it's like kind of like that gothic, like black, like kind of super grungy, punk, punk rock, like, like. It's really wild. And so it's super popular. They were.
So that's the next best thing, I guess. That's crazy.
Yeah, like we're going to Rolling Loud Music Festival and I think it's the one in LA, maybe it's the one in Miami. And we're helping them do basically set up the scanning situation there with our allied star scanners and the doctors will be there. Scanning people that want to get Crook Miles shipped back to.
That's where Gary Archer's from. So LA and California, they do.
So you're going to go to a festival with your scanners and scan people to give them black teeth?
Basically, that's what Dr. Anton is doing.
That's pretty smart of him.
Yeah, he's pretty wild. Yeah. And so what's it called? He also, so he's kind of like an expert in The 3D printing of kind of like flexible, kind of like that sprint ray mouth guard material stuff. I know that he was working with them on the mouth guards for also like MMA fighters and UFC fighters and stuff like that. And being in Hollywood, he's super connected in kind of like that industry. That's pretty sweet, you guys. Yeah, that's what Exocad can do.
So yeah, we're here to teach you anything and everything you want to do with that. Exocad.as.me, you can go and sign up with any of us. We have training packages online where you can book like either 6 sessions a month or unlimited sessions or just single sessions, whatever you need, whatever fits you best, whether you already own Exocad or you need it. We're here to help and serve.
What's the most common thing you teach?
I'd say what I've seen more lately, which is kind of shocking, is doctors who are trying to get their assistants to learn all on X. To design and everything. Yeah, they'll book like a couple hours and be like, yeah, just teach my assistant all on X. How hard can it be? But the other side of that, the more logical side of that, I really appreciate is just the incorporation of the assistants into the design process. More and more, like, and this is something I highly endorse, they're bringing the assistants to learn Exocad to do the little more basic stuff, like do splints, do temporary crowns, do a treatment proposal. Yeah, absolutely. And it's in coordination with their lab. So they might get an initial proposal and they're using Exocad kind of as a a communication tool and a diagnostic tool so they can see what's truly possible with the restoration and plan the treatment.
Yeah, we've talked to several clinicians that are doing things that way now, so, and it's not taking a lot of the lab work, like you don't really need to do a mouth guard.
No, right, exactly.
If your lab is based on doing mouth guards, you're in trouble.
I know a guy. That's all he does. Wow.
If you have that niche, and that passion, right? I'm just not very passionate about mouth guards and everything. It's hard to get excited.
Well, I mean, that's the other thing though, is like the mouth guards. Sorry to interrupt, but that's the other thing that's really interesting and excited about Exocad is that there's a lot of clinicians out there using the splint module, using the mouth guard stuff for TMD and TMJ treatment, airway treatment, alternatives to using CPAPs for sleep apnea, all these advanced And I don't really know who has the right answer. Everyone's still exploring this kind of unknown territory. But the fact that you can use these tools to try to improve people's lives beyond just restorations and prosthetics.
Yeah. So when you sell a new license, they get training through you.
Yeah, we have actually included training for the first. month or two or whatever it is. Honestly, I think it's a month. But here's the thing is like, as long as you're not like a jerk or whatever, like, and like you come back and like, you're like, Hey, I really don't know how to do this. And it's only like a month or two or three. Honestly, after you bought the license, I'm probably picking, I'm definitely picking up the phone. Let's be honest.
Yeah.
And I'm helping you get.
To it.
One of the biggest struggles a new user has, I mean, just setting up The case.
Yeah, I would say that's probably number one because it's the initial work. It's a little different. Peter Parker's uncle said, With great power comes great responsibility, Peter Parker. And XOCAD gives you great power. So you have great responsibility to understand that order form. But here's the thing, is that it's actually not all that scary. I've been doing a lot more customization of a customer's databases When I realized that there's maybe some hurdles that the staff or the doctor might be going through, we work with an educator, Dr. Diana Tadros, and she does very cosmetically-driven AACD workflows for the doctors that come in to attend her class. and they're using it for a very specific workflow, wax ups and dentistry. When she approached me in 2020 and said, I want to buy Exocad to make wax ups, I literally looked at her and was like, Are you crazy? Like, so you want to do just like wax-up models? And she's like, Yeah, that's basically all I want to do. And now we've educated over 3000 people in five.
Set the world five years.
Yeah, we heard about that yesterday as well. Another doctor was doing the same thing.
Another doctor did all his wax-ups on. And then he did all these models and stages of just the centrals and then to the left side and then the right side.
That was pretty cool. And so, getting back to your question about what are we, you know, that order form can be a little bit daunting. But XOCAD's got to give all of the users all the capabilities, because they might want to make a black-colored snap-on smile. Or they might want to put Hello Kitty on it. Or a car part.
And if I could add to that a little bit, I really see two challenges that it comes from, it depends on where you're coming from. So you have the traditional lab guy, right, or girl, who's only done analog stuff at the bench. And sometimes it's difficult to translate what's physically in your hands to a two-dimensional interface, which is a computer screen, right?
Yeah.
And that's usually just kind of a, I mean, you can only learn to swim by getting in the pool.
Yeah.
The other side, I think, is what... Exocad users really love the most, but it's often kind of confusing for people just adopting it. And that is that there's at least two ways to do everything, usually three ways to do anything in Exocad, which is the most powerful thing about the software is that you're never trapped. It's not a maze. There's always another way around. You can't get through the maze, go over it.
Yeah, interesting.
But we've heard that a lot.
That can be confusing for people just getting into it, especially people coming from Three Shape, who are just used to like 1, 2, 3, 4, and then that's the end of it.
Yeah, that's very true.
But then it greats through shape. I mean, they're first and best dressed in the initial. The whole industry owes them a lot for that. It's just different pathways, different tools.
I can see how that would be confusing to somebody learning it. You could do it this way, or this way, or this, just show me one way. What's the right way?
Well, I mean, what's the right way for you is really what it comes down to. Because at the end of the day, every practice, every lab, is its own cult of personality, and they have their own workflows. And regardless of whether you think that's the right workflow or not, they've been doing that Maybe 5, 10, 30 years. And so the software and your teaching technique needs to adapt to what suits them better, not the other way around. At least that's my opinion.
That's well said. I love it.
I love it. That's some good stuff.
Well, thank you, gentlemen.
Can I just do one shout out really quick? Of course. Because, you know, I really want to give a shout out to Johnny O. Because without-- Is that Johnny Exocad? No, Johnny Exocad's my cousin.
Yeah.
Oh, you're kidding me. Johnny O is Johnny Orfanitas. OK. Yeah, Johnny Orfanitas. You got a lot of Johnny's in your family. Right. Yeah, so Johnny Orfanitas, I wouldn't be here today at the Exocad without him introducing us to the software and teaching me everything he knew about Exocad and kind of taking me as his Padawan in this digital journey and everything. So he was one of the.
Original guys to bring Exocad here into him.
Yeah, him and Larry Bordoni. Him and Larry Bordoni brought it to the Yankee Dental Show and that's how we found it. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Thanks, Johnny.
Thank you both.
Enjoy the rest of your life. Thank you so much for having us. And thank you for what you bring to the industry. Truly, you do both inspirational. It's shifted the conversation. quite a bit and in a positive direction.
We love it.
Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you. See you. Awesome.
You do it.
You want me to wrap it up? Yeah. Wow, we're mixing it up.
I know.
A big thanks to Beth, Joshua, and Robert for talking to Barb and I at Exocad Insights. Again, and again, and again, and again. Thank you, Exocad, for allowing us to talk to all the great people. We are always excited to see what Beth is doing in the US to make Exocad even greater, and her love for education is a big driving force in that. And seriously, y'all, That's Barb's. If you want to get into Exocad or you're already using it and want to get better, those people that evolve are great at showing others how to do it. Who better to learn it from other than a lab that uses it every day, right? on.
Right on. Well said, Elvis. Good job on my part.
Yes. Big shoes to fill.
I know.
All right, everybody. That's all we got for you. And of course, we'll talk to you next week. Have a great week. Happy 4th. Happy 4th of July. Bye. See ya. He's a little Yorkie.
And his name is Mother Tucker. And I too.
The views and opinions expressed on the Voices from the Bench podcast are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or Voices from the Bench LLC.