The CMEpalooza Electoral College Needs Your Vote!

Contrary to a lot of Americans, the Electoral College is one of my favorite things about the U.S. political system. It’s mostly illogical, usually confusing, and always controversial. Just like CMEpalooza!

To fully embrace the Electoral College, and, well, because everything these days is about politics, our special CMEpalooza sponsor event puts our own little spin on state delegates. Being the creative bunch that we are, we even gave our event a catchy title — “CMEpalooza Electoral College.” Our marketing team is clearly underpaid.

But unlike the political Electoral College, the CMEpalooza Electoral College isn’t illogical, shouldn’t be very confusing, and is controversy free. Best of all, there is a pot of gold at the end that will actually go to a handful of “voters” instead of being stuffed into the gilded pockets of the political candidates.

Here is how the CMEpalooza Electoral College works:

1. Click here to download our game packet (you can get a Word version by clicking here). This will give you all of the clues and an entry form to download.
2. We have a lot of sponsors this Fall (37!!), which means there are a lot of politically-themed clues — don’t worry, there is nothing that will get you into an emotional lather. Our sponsors have been sorted geographically by their headquarters (we did the best we could with what we could find online). Some companies have been grouped by state, some by region, and some by the “no one else is close to them or they are international so it’s just a miscellaneous category.” You’ll need to answer 1-2 clues in each category to create a successful entry.
3. You can find all of the information to answer each question by going to our Sponsor tab, where there are links and descriptions about all of our sponsors. You can find the answer to every question on each sponsor’s website. Generally, the answers are no more than one click off each sponsor’s homepage (and often on the homepage itself).
4. You can use the answer sheet located in the downloaded forms to complete your responses. You may submit up to three entries, but for each entry you must answer clues about different sponsors (so if you answer questions about the first two “Mid-Atlantic” companies in entry 1, you’ll need to choose different companies for entry 2, etc.).
5. Within each entry, you must get every answer correct to qualify for our prize drawing. If I’m in a less curmudgeonly mood than usual, maybe I’ll let you get one wrong. We’ll see.
6. In the spirit of trying something new, for anyone who is really bored at work this week or simply loves CMEpalooza’s sponsors, you can go for the whole electoral map and submit a form with answers to all 37 sponsor questions (this is on top of the usual three entries). Get them all right, and you earn five additional entries into our prize drawing. Get one or more wrong, and, well, probably not. I doubt anyone will actually try for this, but I thought I’d throw it out there.
7. Completed answer forms can be sent to me at scott@excaliburmeded.com. Make sure to include your name and political affiliation in your email so that when we announce that you’ve won, everyone knows where you stand on the issues. I’m only kidding, it’s your name and professional affiliation (ie, where you work) that we want. Please don’t tell me your political leanings – that would only get us both in trouble.

We’ll have five prize winners who will each receive a $100 Amazon gift card. As a special CMEpalooza 10th anniversary bonus, we’ll also have a $250 prize for the organization that has the most successful entries. This is a fairly low bar (I think the winning organization in the Spring had 4 people who entered) so it won’t take a lot of rallying your co-workers to earn yourself funds to throw a staff pizza party on the day of CMEpalooza Fall (Wednesday, October 16).

Entries will be accepted until the polls close at midnight ET on Friday, October 4, so get cracking!