Strangers ask Derek and I for advice all the time.

Just the other day, we were at one of our periodic planning lunches for CMEpalooza when our server sauntered over with a somewhat inquisitive look on her face.

“Do you mind if I sit down for a second?”

(Obviously, we were both going to tell her, “Yes, we do,” but she cozied up before we could say anything.)

“I have been eavesdropping a bit on your conversations about some sort of CMOpretzel kind of thing, and it’s obvious that the two of you are worldly and brilliant, so I’m wondering if you might be able to give me some advice about my roommate.”

It was the classic situation. One was neat, one was messy. One stayed out until the wee hours of the night, one liked to go to bed early. One ate all the food in the fridge whether she had bought it or not, one only ate what was hers.

“I really like her,” our server told us, “but I just can’t take this anymore. What should I do?”

Derek and I both looked at each other, simultaneously shrugged our shoulders and told her, “Move to another state, duh.”

Stunned by our brilliance, she got up with a strange look on her face, probably contemplating where she should move to next. Another life that had been invariably changed for the better thanks to our insightful advice.

Following this encounter, a lightbulb went off in my head. Why limit our life-changing advice to random strangers who are fortunate enough to cross paths with us on a daily basis? Why not offer our services to our adoring CMEpalooza fans?

So, with that in mind, we are launching a new blog feature that we are calling Ask Us Anything. Here is how it works:

1. You think of a current problem you are having that you want our advice about. Ideally, this problem will be professional in nature, but if you want our input on your nosy mother-in-law or any other pressing life issue, perhaps we can be helpful there as well.
2. Go to our Ask Us Anything form and submit your question(s). Provide us with as much detail as you want. Presumably, you’ll want your submission to be anonymous, so we’re also letting you pick out some sort of pithy moniker you’ll go by for our blog. If you can’t think of something, we’ll do it for you.
3. Derek and I will peruse the hundreds of expected submissions we’ll receive and select a handful to publicly respond to through our blog in periodic posts. Please don’t be disappointed if we don’t address your problem(s) right away. I am sure we’ll get to most everyone eventually.
4. We are going to take this semi-seriously. We are not Dear Abby or Ann Landers. If you have read our blog religiously through the years (and if you haven’t, shame on you), you should have a pretty good idea of the kind of “advice” you are likely to get from us. It is possible we’ll actually have advice that will help, but it’s also possible our advice will be completely nonsensical.

Let’s have fun with this, everyone.

Click here to Ask Us Anything

I saw my first Santa of the holiday season (complete with two “I wish I were any place but here” elves) on Saturday morning. It must not have been promoted very well because, despite a large crowd of people in the building, there was no one queueing up to sit on the big guy’s lap. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Santa’s beard was a bit scraggly and jet black, not exactly how he’s portrayed in the cinema. Just a guess.

But you know what never disappoints? No, it’s not Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Derek’s full 2,500 word review coming later this week).

It’s CMEpalooza. Big “CME” and little “palooza.” Yes, this is our way of reminding everyone not to send us emails this year about “CMEPalooza” or “CmePalooza.” It’s like the friend I have who continues to call me “Scot” in every text message he sends me. It’s been too long now so I really can’t say anything without unnecessarily embarrassing him. But we will publicly embarrass you this year if you botch “CMEpalooza” since we are telling you once again here how it is properly spelled. Derek suggested that we should tar and feather everyone who butchers things, but he’s been reading a bit too much about the Salem Witch trials, so we’ll probably come up with something less extreme (note from Derek: Why?).

With that, a few CMEpalooza announcements:

1. After much consideration, consultation with two psychics, and hours of debate, we have set the two dates for CMEpalooza in 2025. Our Spring meeting will be Wednesday, April 16, and our Fall meeting will be on Wednesday, October 22. Please mark your calendars. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll let you in on a little secret – we actually changed the initially announced date of CMEpalooza Fall 2024 last year. There was another industry event that was dropped onto the calendar after our announcement, so instead of creating a conflict and totally destroying any chance of anyone attending the competing event, we simply moved our event by a week. Did anyone notice? Not that we are aware of. So yes, while we fully intend for these 2025 dates to be set in stone, we’ll keep the cement wet in case we need to adjust things.
2. You may have noticed that the CMEpalooza Archive tab is missing a few things, namely the 2024 Fall sessions. There is a very good reason for this. That reason is as follows: Derek has been lazy. If the Archive tab is not updated by the end of this week, he tells me that I can tar and feather him during the opening session of the upcoming Alliance conference. Stay tuned everyone! (note from Derek: meh [shrugs shoulders])
3. On Tuesday morning (that’s tomorrow), our 2025 CMEpalooza Sponsorship Prospectus will be available on our Sponsors tab. For the lucky few on our email distribution list, you will get some sort of pithy message from me noting its debut. While sponsorship commitments always trickle in over the course of the next few weeks, this is just a reminder for anyone interested in one of our more glamorous sponsorship levels to act quickly since we have limited high visibility slots. We operate on a first come, first served basis, with no “savesies” in advance. But once the prospectus is publicly available, step right up.

In the last few weeks before each of our live CMEpalooza broadcasts, our blogs typically become spaces where we’re launching events (or reminding you to enter them, or telling you who won prizes) or finding silly ways to entertain you (“cough cough, haiku!”). We probably don’t do enough to actually, you know, whet your appetite for the education you are going to be seeing during CMEpalooza itself.

Well, my friends, today begins a new chapter that more than likely won’t be replicated in future years because I’ll be too lazy busy, so you should take advantage of these insights now into what to expect next week when CMEpalooza Fall takes place.

1. It might help if you refresh your memory by taking a look at our Fall agenda. This will give you a sense of what sort of topics you’ll be hearing about and who you’ll be hearing from. It’s a fairly diverse menu.
2. What might strike you first is what is not on the agenda (at least not in any big way) — AI in CME. This seems to be the year of education about the current/future impact of AI in CME, and we’ll have a sprinkling of it here and there, but no more than that. Frankly, it’ll be good to take a break from thinking about this topic too much – it seems like AI in CME is front and center at every other industry educational event these days. I am sure it will come back around to CMEpalooza in 2025, but our Fall agenda is a good reminder that there are still plenty of other important issues we need to talk about.
3. So then let’s turn to what is on this agenda that you don’t hear nearly as much about these days. Things like millennial perspectives of CME, outcomes claims data, and (my personal favorite) the wild world of podcasts. Why podcasts? Isn’t that, I dunno, kind of a 2010 thing? Well, it might surprise you — I know it surprised me — but one supporter recently told me that the No. 1 proposed delivery mechanism they see in current grant requests is podcasts. Not live activities, not enduring broadcasts, but podcasts. Part of me understands it — podcasts are inexpensive to develop and produce — but I still was not aware of how ubiquitous they have become in medical education. I know how pervasive they are in the broader world (thank you, Kelce brothers), but I’ll be interested to hear from this panel about best practices in planning, recording, and marketing quality podcasts. I used to host a variety of podcasts for clients using just my cell phone to record the interviews. I’m assuming there are better ways to do things (note from Derek: there are [rolls eyes]).
4. We’re going to be trying out some new technology during one or more of the sessions. We love to be experimental during CMEpalooza. Things like our audience response system (sponsored this fall by Horizon CME) are more or less second nature by now, and we’ve done other quirky technology things over the years. I won’t give away what we’re testing out next week, but hopefully it’ll be cool and, well, actually work.
5. Secrets and surprises. One of our favorite things about CMEpalooza being in its 10th year is that we don’t have to personally get involved in the planning of content of each session anymore. Frankly, we don’t have any better idea than you do about how our panels are going to pull off most of these sessions. Will there be costumes? A murder mystery? A special appearance by Taylor Swift? You never know…