The first time that Derek and I kicked around the idea of having our community submit abstracts to us for potential inclusion in the CMEpalooza Spring agenda maybe 6 or 7 years ago, there was no grand plan that this would be the permanent path forward. In fact, I’m fairly certain that after our first or second try, we temporarily shelved the idea because there simply weren’t enough people willing to step forward and try something bold.
Our initial plan was that the abstract submission process would give us a little bit of a break from having to come up with ideas for sessions twice a year. The reality was that we ended up with maybe 3 or 4 viable ideas that we’d then need to supplant with whatever else we were able to cobble together. Don’t get me wrong, everything always worked out just fine (and often, though I’m biased, better than fine) but it wasn’t exactly executed the way we drew things up. We were Norman Dale putting everyone in place to run the Picket Fence, only to watch Ollie dribble the ball off his foot, have it ricochet to Jimmy Chitwood, who then promptly hit the jumper at the buzzer for the win. The final score was all that mattered, though getting there took some doing (note from Derek: While Norman Dale was the head boys basketball coach of Hickory High in Hoosiers, it was drunken assistant coach Shooter who ran the Picket Fence. Scott got caught watching the paint dry on this one.)
After benching the abstract submission process for a year or two, we eventually circled back to it because, well, coming up with an agenda on our own twice a year was hard. And yes, slowly but surely, people began to get it. A CMEpalooza abstract is not your traditional meeting abstract. First of all, you don’t have to have a fully formed concept or title. You may have some “TBA” panelists joining you. You don’t need to list learning objectives, or experience levels, or expected outcomes. Yet though we ask for very little, we often get quite a lot.
Our longest abstract submission this spring clocked in at a whopping 386 words. That’s not an abstract, that’s a senior year English thesis! But it was funny and creative and really interesting so, yes, it made the cut.
We’re proud to unveil the working agenda for CMEpalooza Spring this morning. There are still some Ts to be dotted and Is to be crossed (strike that… reverse it), but the gist of things is here. I am not entirely sure what some of these sessions are going to look like or how our panelists are going to pull things together, but it’s those unknowns that we hope makes CMEpalooza something to look forward to. If you like NPR shows, or Ted Lasso, or Disney rides, we’ll be riffing off of each of those this spring. If you like always hot topics such as outcomes design, or the future of AI in CME, or the dreaded “another year of overcoming funding challenges,” we’ve got that as well.
Whatever else you have to do this morning as you celebrate Leap Day, please take a minute to peruse our Spring agenda and put a circle around every “can’t miss session” (again, I’m biased, but that should be all of them). We’ll see you on Wednesday, April 24.
CMEPALOOZA 