Phew – what a day!

We had a record 986 of you join us yesterday for a fantastic day of education. Both Derek and I had did a double take when we saw the final number (Derek texted me multiple times, “Are you sure that’s right?” and yes, that’s what our web analytics say. Plus, we can see how many people are watching each live session and it was clear very early that this was going to be a banner year) (note from Derek: I’m still pretty sure Scott is making that number up. I’m not sure how he’s manipulating the WordPress analytics dashboard, but I know he’s watched Weird Science multiple times, so maybe that has something to do with it.) Thanks to all of you for joining us – it’s humbling and rewarding to see the impact that CMEpalooza continues to have on our community.

I always learn a lot as I listen to our panels expound upon their particular areas of expertise, which energizes me as least for the next few days until I go back to relying on caffeine to do that for me.

A few notes and tidbits as we put a bow on this year’s event:

1. All of the CMEpalooza Fall sessions are now available to be viewed in the CMEpalooza Archives (thank to our Archive sponsor, Array). Just go to the Fall 2022 tab on our website and find the session you missed and want to watch. Or if there is some nugget of knowledge you missed when the Amazon delivery guy knocked on your door, you can go back and catch it again now.
2. There is still time to participate in the special CMEpalooza Scavenger Hunt. Just go to the website of this special promotion’s sponsor, Broadcast Beat Studios and look for the CMEpalooza logo. Click on it and see what happens! I promise it’s nothing bad. We’ll leave this promotion running until this Friday at 5 pm ET before we pick 10 winners of $100 Amazon gift cards.
3. If you did not complete the short survey on our LIVE tab after watching our sessions (get to it by clicking here), we’d greatly appreciate if you would do so. It really does give us ideas for the future and allows us to fine tune our education for the CME community. Plus, you get to share your favorite jokes with us (like this one — “Why does a duck have tail feathers? To cover up his butt quack.” Hah!).
4. For those of you who simply cannot get enough of CMEpalooza, we’ve got some good news for you. There is more of CMEpalooza on the way very soon! In less than 2 weeks, in fact. Yes, indeedy-do, we’ve got a special CMEpalooza Spotlight on tap at 11 am on Tuesday, Nov. 1. What better way to start a new month than with our smiling faces (no promises on the smiles). For this Spotlight broadcast, we’ll be talking with the team at Broadcast Beat Studios about the role of the live video studio and get some “show and tell” about all of the cool features that today’s production studios offer. So set some time aside now to join us. If nothing else, I promise it won’t be boring.

I know, I know. There are a lot of competitions and giveaways right now in CMEpalooza World (and yes, more are coming on Wednesday, October 19 – just wait and see).

But yesterday, we held our first massive gala to pick the winners of CMEopoly, our special Sponsor event that wrapped up on Friday. Derek gave some sort of long-winded speech about how our announcement should usurp the announcement of the Nobel Prizes going on right now, but that seemed a bit over-the-top, and I stopped listening when he got to No. 18 in his list of reasons (note from Derek: Reason #18 was that Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize in Literature over Salman Rushdie. Outrageous!!) I am sure he’ll pick right back up when the list of winners for our CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored by Talem Health, are announced next week.

Anyway, without further ado, here are your winners of CMEopoly, all of whom were awarded a $100 Amazon gift card to spend on whatever whimsical item they desired (a Phillies rally towel would be totally acceptable):

• Jeannine Creazzo, MLIS, MBA, AHIP, Director, Medical Library, Continuing Education, and Research, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
• Carrie Roberts, BS, CHCP, Director, Continuing Medical Education, Steward Health Care
• Christina Casanova Lider, Manager, Development Support, PeerView Institute for Medical Education
• Cindy Davidson, Scientific Editor, Global Learning Collaborative
• Dawn Sinclair, Accreditation Coordinator, College of Pharmacy, Office of CE & PD, Purdue University

Thanks to everyone for playing!

On the Jewish calendar, today is Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement when we are supposed to acknowledge and repent for our sins over the last year. Since so, so many of you have pointed out various issues and errors with our CMEopoly sponsor event that rolled out on Friday, I thought it would be only be fair to own up to all of the issues in this public forum, even those that aren’t of my own doing,

1. “There are 12 spaces on the answer form but you said we only needed to provide 11 responses”
   Yes, my math skills are apparently eroding. Go ahead and skip a color block if you want to. No penalty. Yup, my fault.
2. “Company X’s website is down”
   Unbeknownest to us, one of our sponsors was migrating to a new server in the hours when we launched CMEopoly last week, causing all sorts of chaos among those of you delving deep for clue answers. Their site was back up in a few hours. Patience, people, patience. Nope, not my fault.
3. “There are two ‘Purple Space’ blocks”
   What can I say, there are only so many colors in my mental color palette. I guess I could have given a Violet or Plum category, but I didn’t. So go ahead and mush all of the purple clues in one big category and give us two answers. Yup, my fault.
4. “These clues are too easy. Everyone is going to get them right.”
   The purpose of CMEopoly isn’t to make you work extremely hard to find right answers, but rather to expose you to some of the great work our many sponsors are producing right now. Nope, not my fault.
5. “You made yourself one of the clue answers. How arrogant.”
   Call it arrogance, call it laziness, call it shameless self-promotion. I won’t, however, tell you which question this refers to. Yup, my fault.
6. “The wording of one of these questions is terrible. I don’t understand what you are asking.”
   This is why we offer multiple options in each category. Writing 36 good clues is a lot of work – they aren’t all going to be perfect. But I did double check to make sure there is nothing erroneous or misleading – we’re good. Nope, not my fault.

So there you have it – another year where I’ve wiped the slate clean. I’m sure there will be plenty of replenishment in the coming months (note from Derek: I guarantee it.)

And just as a reminder, you still have time to complete your CMEopoly entries and earn a chance at winning a $100 Amazon gift card. Entries are due at 5 pm ET on Friday, so get cracking!