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How the Index is built.

Built from published conference programs, reviewed by hand, and rebuilt from scratch every year. This page explains what the Index measures, what it deliberately does not, and what we exclude.

major meetings in the 2026 universe
12
appearances recorded from organizers' programs
2,202
sessions excluded as selling, not teaching
90
appearances accepted from a bio or a bureau
0

One narrow, answerable question.

Across a single year, at how many of dentistry's significant meetings did this speaker teach, and how significant were those stages?

The Index rewards range. A speaker teaching at meetings in four regions of the country places higher than one teaching four times at the same meeting. Meetings are not treated as equals, but no single meeting can carry a speaker alone.

It measures

  • Where program committees chose to put their podium time
  • Breadth across national and regional stages
  • Education, category by category

It does not measure

  • Teaching quality or clinical authority
  • Speaker fees or audience ratings
  • How many people were in the room

From program to place.

  1. Collect the programs

    Every session comes from the organizer's own published program, or an archived capture of it.

  2. Review by hand

    People read each title and description and assign one category. No keyword matching.

  3. Remove the selling

    Product demos, exhibit-floor stages and corporate forums are recorded, then excluded.

  4. Freeze the places

    Places are set from the evidence and locked. Speakers with equal standing share a place.

  5. Then add membership

    SCN membership is joined only after places are frozen, so it cannot move anyone.

The stages behind the Index.

Meetings enter the universe on published criteria: they are open to the profession, they publish a program, and they carry continuing education at national or significant regional scale. A meeting that cancelled, went invitation-only or published no program contributes nothing.

  • Chicago Midwinter
  • Thomas P. Hinman Dental Meeting
  • CDA Presents
  • Greater New York Dental Meeting
  • Yankee Dental Congress
  • AADOM Annual Conference
  • ADSO Summit
  • Florida Dental Convention
  • Rocky Mountain Dental Convention
  • Star of the North
  • TDA Meeting
  • SCN Annual Summit

The relative weighting applied to each meeting is not published.

A periodontist is never ranked against a marketer.

Every session is placed in one category by its principal teaching objective. A category is ranked only when enough speakers qualify to make a ranking meaningful. Where it is too thin, we say so rather than manufacture a top five.

  • Practice Growth & Patient AcquisitionMarketing, branding, patient acquisition and retention, reputation, referral development, case acceptance and patient-experience design.Ranked
  • Business Operations & Revenue CyclePractice management systems, scheduling and capacity, financial performance, coding, insurance, reimbursement, collections and office administration.Ranked
  • Compliance, Safety & RiskInfection control, OSHA, HIPAA, cybersecurity and data privacy, regulatory compliance, employment and HR risk, emergency preparedness and patient-safety programs.Ranked
  • Clinical & Specialty EducationRestorative, implant, periodontal, endodontic, orthodontic, pediatric, oral-medicine, airway, radiographic, anesthesia and hygiene clinical education.Ranked
  • Leadership, Culture & WorkforceTeam leadership, culture, hiring and retention, generational dynamics, communication, career development, burnout and professional wellbeing.Ranked
  • Technology & Digital Dentistry (Watch List)Digital workflows, intraoral scanning, CAD/CAM, 3-D printing, imaging technology, equipment and practice software. Published as an unranked watch list for 2026.Watch list
  • AI in Dentistry (Watch List)Applied artificial intelligence in clinical, administrative and patient-facing dentistry. Published as an unranked watch list for 2026.Watch list
  • DSO & Group Practice StrategyMulti-site, group-practice and DSO strategy, affiliation, integration and scaled operations.Unranked for 2026

One big stage is not enough.

A speaker must teach at more than one eligible meeting in the year, and at least one must be among the larger meetings in the universe. Appearances at a single meeting, however prominent and however many sessions, do not qualify.

The specific thresholds are not published.

The Index counts education. It does not count selling.

Recorded, then excluded

  • Product demonstrations and vendor presentations
  • Exhibit-hall and booth-floor programming
  • Corporate forums a company buys and controls
  • Sales and recruiting sessions about the presenting company
  • Placeholders with no named session or presenter

Counts, with disclosure

  • Education a company underwrites. The company is named on the speaker's entry.
  • Sessions at a sponsored meeting or track. Broad sponsorship never disqualifies a course.
  • Sessions where the program is unclear. We record "unknown" rather than guess.

Every appearance traces to a primary source.

That means the organizer's own program, course catalog or session page. Speaker self-reports, media bios, agency rosters and social media are not accepted as evidence. Where a source is ambiguous, the record is held out of ranking rather than estimated.

Check our work: download the 2026 appearance corpus (CSV), every session with its organizer's link.

Known gaps in 2026

  • MediumAADOM Annual Conference. Friday course roster not recoverable; Friday appearances missing.
  • MediumTDA Meeting. Program published titles without session descriptions; categorisation rests on titles alone.
  • MediumCDA Presents. Program printed some presenters by surname only; those records are held out of ranking.

Here's how we handle conflict of interest.

The Speaking Consulting Network is a membership organization for dental speakers and consultants. We manage that conflict structurally rather than by assurance.

  • Membership is not an input.It is joined to the data only after places are frozen, and the published places are verified identical with the membership field removed.
  • Members are neither advantaged nor excluded.Members and non-members are ranked on the same evidence, under the same rules.
  • Our own programming is disclosed.Where SCN produces an event in the universe, that relationship is stated on the affected entries.
  • Our leadership is ranked like everyone else.Including where that produces an uncomfortable result.

Published programs contain errors.

If your appearances are wrong, incomplete or attributed to the wrong person, send us the organizer's program page for each one. We correct against primary sources only, we date every correction, and corrected editions carry a visible revision note.

We do not remove speakers on request, and we do not add appearances on the strength of a résumé, a speaker page or a bureau listing.

What stays private, and why.

So the Index cannot be gamed by anyone optimizing against it, including our own members, we do not publish:

  • Meeting weights
  • Qualification thresholds
  • The classification scheme
  • The scoring formula
  • Individual scores

We do publish:

  • Every place
  • The evidence behind each ranked appearance
  • The size of each qualifying pool
  • Every rule about what counts
Methodology version 1.2 · 2026 edition · Updated 18 September 2026Published by the Speaking Consulting Network