The genius...the challenge

So "The Genius" dentinaltubules version 2 arrived in January 2013. As explained, the old site was getting clunky - the development of the web and technology meant that it needed an upgraded. Actually my decision to upgrade was made in April 2012.

However it was months of planning, months of saving, months of writing plans.... More importantly, as we developed a new site - I suddenly felt that actually this was the opportunity to really grow dentinaltubules into a whole new animal.

 If we were really "sharing" to "learn" and really "connect" - we had to provide more and more avenues for this. Infact the growth of internet technology meant that there were so so so many new opportunities. So we introduced more than just articles .

Dentinaltubules version 2 "The Genius" was going to have webinars, video lectures, videos, audiocasts, unlimited CPD and infact the ability for members to develop their own profile and manage their own CPD.

So challenge 1 - involved spending hours of time looking into how we can incorporate all this into the site, what software to use and all the details related to that. It was hours of phone calls, emails, research and more.

Immediately this led onto Challenge 2. The software costs were phenomenal - something the dental community are yet to appreciate. and the cost of developing the genius rose to 3 x higher. Suddenly we were facing possible blackout and I released all my personal savings, personal cash, loans and everything I had into the new tubules project.

To ensure that "the genius" came to life, I spared no penny.

Today it is alive. The challenge of running it on a daily basis - ensuring that there is a happy mix between sponsorship and the profession's contribution - remains. The profession are slowly realising that they do need to contribute to any resources created for them

Challenge 3 remains regarding the pricing.

The truth is that I was spending hours and hours of my spare time for years, staying up half the night etc. to run tubules 1. All this overwork was going to make me go insane. Today I still have the passion, but I know my energies are low. I knew that finally after investing so much of my personal resources and time, the only way for the entire tubules project to grow was through it being able to fund itself and for me to remain freer to grow.

In addition, I felt that perhaps we needed revenue to renumerate and compensate contributors for their time. It was only fair that if we introduced revenue they shared in it too.

 The competitive pricing we introduced has remained but many still find it expensive. Yet we continue to encourage people to sign to premium - not because we want profit but because we want the fund, the resources, the team , the contributors and more to make the tubules project bigger, better, bolder and one of the best dental online education websites in the world