The race to CMEpalooza Gold sponsorships has become a curious annual phenomenon, right up there with Antarctica’s Blood Falls. Inevitably, not long after we put the wraps on CMEpalooza Fall, we’ll get an email from a handful of folks asking if their organization can reserve a Gold sponsorship for next year’s iterations of CMEpalooza.

“Sorry,” I tell them. “There are no ‘sponsorship savsies.’ You’ll have to wait until the formal release of next year’s sponsorship prospectus, at which time it’s first come, first served.”

To even the playing field even further, we’re taking the unusual step here of announcing the release date for the 2024 sponsorship prospectus (geez, I feel a little like Taylor Swift. Look out Travis). It’ll happen at approximately 10 am ET on Monday, Dec. 4.

Here is what will happen:

• At 10 am ET, the 2024 sponsorship prospectus will be made available on the Sponsor tab of our website. We may put out another blog post – we’ll see if we feel it’s needed.
• At the same time, we’ll send out a pithy email that includes references to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Derek Warnick (now that’s an unlikely trio) (note from Derek: Not as unlikely as if you had included Kant. That guy sucks all the fun out of a room.) to our top-secret mailing list of past and prospective sponsors. If you don’t get an email from us, it’s nothing personal, and you can still secure a CMEpalooza sponsorship. All of the info you need will be on our Sponsor tab at the time this email goes out.
• Once these two things happen, you can then email me and ask about securing a sponsorship for 2024. While you can secure any level of sponsorship at this time, it’s our limited, higher-end sponsorships that tend to go quickly. So if you think you are interested, I wouldn’t recommend waiting too long.

Of course, watch this blow up in our faces, we’ll get zero emails on Monday, and people will laugh at us. It won’t be the first time (note from Derek: nor the last).

Yesterday was another banner day for CMEpalooza, with a record-breaking 1,234 individuals tuning in to at least one of our Fall sessions. There was a lot of good interaction through our ARS polling questions as well as Q&A and other commentary from our viewers. Thanks to all of our panelists for the hard work they put into their sessions as well as everyone who tuned in.

For anyone who missed the live presentations, or if you simply want to go back and watch again (let’s face it, a perfect Saturday night could easily involve snuggling up to your loved one and watching Think Again: Challenging the Path of Least Resistance), all full recordings of the CMEpalooza Fall sessions are now available for the low, low price of $0. Derek will put them in the session archives once he’s done with his day job.

As mentioned during the sessions, the Fall agenda page has been updated with the following additional resources:

• Organic Partnerships That Lead to Real World Connections: Link to the concussion CE program that was discussed
• Do We Really Need Another Session About AI?
  • Top 10 Best Practices in GenAI Prompt Engineering
  • Comparison of Top 10 GenAI Prompt Best Practice Across 4 LLMs
  • Slides from presentation

Finally, congratulations to the winners of our CMEpalooza Scavenger Hunt, sponsored by Skin, Bones, Hearts, and Private Parts. At the end of the day, 124 sleuths successfully found the “hidden” CMEpalooza logo and were entered into our prize drawing. Here are your winners of $100 Amazon gift cards from this morning’s random prize drawing:

• Melissa Ketchum, CHCP, FACHEP: Director, Continuing Education, Annenberg Center for Health Sciences at Eisenhower
• Katherine Wright: Associate Director of Partnerships, PVI
• Angela Still: Grant Specialist, Vindico Medical Education
• Angelique Vinther: Freelance Outcomes Consultant
• Wendy Macias: Manager, Continuing Medical Education, Methodist Healthcare

We’ll see everyone again in 2024.

Tis’ the season of CMEpalooza giving…

First, we had last week’s special sponsor event, CMEpalooza Meets the Golden Bachelor, where we gave away $500 in Amazon gift cards. We’re in the midst of the CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored by Talem Health, for all of you exercise types (it ends Friday so still time to “step on up” to the challenge). That’s another giveaway of $500 in Amazon gift cards.

And now I’m here today to announce another special giveaway event that is going to put some food in your belly and keep some change in your pocket (does anyone keep change anymore? Let’s just assume for now that the answer is yes). It’s the return of our CMEpalooza Feeds the People promotion, this year sponsored by epocrates®.

I am not a breakfast guy so I consider lunch personally to be the most important meal of the day. I love a good sandwich and will often search far and wide to add a new stop to my list. My friends and family are probably tired of hearing me talk about my favorite sandwich in the whole wide world (it’s called Give Me Liverty or Give Me Schmaltz! and is served at Kenny and Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen in Houston, TX). I desperately wish I could have it delivered to me, but it’s a few thousand miles door to door. Probably a good thing for my cholesterol level.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy my favorite sandwich, or whatever other lunch delicacy seems particularly enticing, when CMEpalooza Fall rolls around next Wednesday, Oct. 18. And best of all, we’re picking up the tab!

Here are the very simple “rules” of CMEpalooza Feeds the People:

1. Click on this link to sign up for your $20 Grubhub gift card
2. It’s a very simple registration process. You don’t have to do any research or complete any onerous tasks. Just give us your email and tell us why you eat three bowls of Count Chocula for breakfast every morning.
3. We’re giving away 75 of these gift cards – that’s a lot of free food! One per customer.
4. For our “winners,” we’ll be sending a electronic Grubhub gift card over early in the morning of CMEpalooza Fall. Our hope is that this giveaway will allow you to order lunch delivery so that you can watch each and every session of CMEpalooza Fall without leaving your home or office. You never know what tidbit you might miss that will revolutionize your professional life, so better to nosh and listen through your noontime meal.
5. Based on previous years, we expect this promotion to fill up quickly, so probably best not to hem and haw too much. Again, click here to sign up.

CMEpalooza Feeds the People sponsored by: