Some people probably think that the CMEpalooza team is super creative in coming up with ideas for our various sessions. While it pains me to disavow you of that idea today, I figure after more than a dozen ‘Paloozas have come and gone, I’d let you in on how we really get our best session ideas.

[Derek/Scott sit down at the dinner table]

Derek/Scott: “So kids, what did you do at school today?

Kids: “We played this cool new game with our class. It was called (fill in the blank).”

Derek/Scott: “Huh, that sounds interesting. How does it work?”

Kids: (Begin 5 minute circular explanation that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense)

Derek/Scott: (Make a mental note to check the Google after dinner to find out how the game really worked)

And that’s how the proverbial sausage is made. OK, maybe not always, but probably at least a handful of times over the years.

Perhaps you recall last week that Derek gave you all a sneak peak at one of the sessions we’re planning for CMEpalooza Spring (Wednesday, March 24) focused on the “Would You Rather” theme. Yes, that came from the Warnick kids.

Today, you get another sneak peak (does it stop being a “sneak peak” once we tell you about every session before publishing the actual agenda? Hmm) from me for a Spring session we have planned based upon everyone’s favorite elementary school game, Two Truths and a Lie. Guess where the idea came from for that one? Wrong! I came up with it totally on my own. It was 100% my idea. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool. A fool, I say!

See, that’s an example of what they call “a lie” to get you into the spirit of the game.

For anyone not familiar with how this is played, you read three statements. Two are true. One is a lie. Your job is to pick the lie. Easy enough, right? Let’s see how you do with a few pieces of biographical data from Derek and I, as well as a few CMEpalooza-themed items. Answers are at the bottom of the page.

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE – SCOTT

Question 1

A. I played backup bass guitar for a band while at Syracuse University, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Kurt Cobain randomly came on stage one night to sing Come As You Are with us.

B. At my local gym in Philadelphia, I once guarded NBA Hall of Famer Maurice Cheeks at a pickup basketball game

C. While vacationing in Vancouver, I ate dinner sitting next to Movie Hall of Famer (not a real thing) Liam Neeson

Question 2

A. My first job after college was in Yuma, AZ

B. My first CME-related job was in El Paso, TX

C. My last newspaper job was in Decatur, IL

Question 3

A. I hate mozzarella cheese

B. I hate cheddar cheese

C. I hate provolone cheese

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE – DEREK

Question 1

A. While not vacationing in Exton, PA (I worked there), I ate breakfast sitting next to NBA Hall of Famer Maurice Cheeks

B. My best friend in high school once went out on a date with Brooke Shields (but only one date)

C. While visiting a friend who was attending Oxford University, I played a round of laser tag with rebel billionaire Richard Branson

Question 2

A. As a kid, I would help my Grandpa Warnick nose ring pigs on his farm in southern Delaware

B. As a kid, I would help my Grandpa Landis wash parts at his transmission shop in Lancaster County,  PA

C. As a kid, I would help my dad setup new IBM computers for his business in Milford, DE

Question 3

A. I like dark chocolate

B. I like milk chocolate

C. I like white chocolate

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE – CMEPALOOZA

Question 1

A. The most watched CMEpalooza of all time occurred in the Spring of 2020

B. There have been 11 companies that have sponsored every CMEpalooza since its beginning

C. The most watched session in CMEpalooza history currently has more than 2,500 views

Question 2

A. Derek hosted the first CMEpalooza as a solo venture

B. CMEpalooza has twice taken place over the course of multiple days

C. We have never had a CMEpalooza panelist back out on the day of a live broadcast

Question 3

A. Lawrence Sherman moderated the only 2-hour CMEpalooza session in our history

B. Brian McGowan was the presenter of the first-ever CMEpalooza session

C. John Ruggiero has appeared as a CMEpalooza panelist more than anyone else

 

 

 

CORRECT ANSWERS: A, B, C, B, C, C, B, B, A

Among the many accolades that CMEpalooza has won over the years is the prestigious “Best Online Conference” award given by the National Organization of Online National Events (NOONE). In fact, we won it 4 years in a row between 2015-2019. With the banner year that CMEpalooza had in 2020 – record-breaking attendance, sponsorship, and blog readers – we thought for sure we’d win it again this year.

But, shocker to us all, we lost. To, of all things, a meeting called YEPpers. We don’t even know what that means, but eh, whatever? We’ve won enough over the years, right?

Wrong.

And so over the weekend, the much-aggrieved Derek Warnick decided to take matters into his own hands and had our crack lead intern, Meadow Marcus, place a call to Mary Bergeraff, who monitors the annual voting for this award at NOONE. Meadow secretly recorded the call to prove to her family once and for all that the stories she’d been telling them about the wacky things that happen at CMEpalooza headquarters are true. 

Here is a truncated transcript of their discussion. A full version will be online, well, never. It’s too embarrassing. 

Marcus: Ok. Alright. Mr. Warnick, everyone is on the line. This is Meadow Marcus, the CMEpalooza head intern. Just so we are all aware, on the line is, well, no one else. I’m not even sure what this call is all about, but I just do what I’m told. Mr. Warnick, er, I mean Derek, I’ll turn it over to you.

Warnick: OK, thank you very much. Hello everybody. So I’ve spent a lot of time on this, and I’d just like to go over some of the numbers. I think it’s pretty clear that CMEpalooza won. We won very substantially among female voters whose name starts with the letter “S.” You can see it by the number of people who read our blog. We get 250-300 people who read each post and the competition would get less than 100. It never made sense.

Anywhere from 150-200 votes were mysteriously submitted via SurveyMonkey. Much of that had to do with male voters between the ages of 49-52 who live in Uruguay. We think that if you check the IP addresses of everyone who voted from Uruguay – a real audit of their IP addresses – you’ll find at least a couple hundred of people logged in from the same computer and duplicated many, many votes.

It’s a tremendous number. We’re going to have our intern’s little sister – she’s a 10^th grader taking Calculus. I bet you couldn’t do that — she’s going to re-run the votes to give us an accurate number. It’s in the tens – and that’s people that went to vote online and were told they couldn’t vote because someone had already logged in using their username and password. And it’s a very sad thing. They didn’t complain because, let’s be real, no one else really cares, but I care.

I think the margin was 19 votes. Mary, you agree with that right? That’s a number that everyone agrees upon.

We had, I believe, 45 voters who voted but they weren’t on the eligible list of voters. One of them we found doesn’t even own a computer. Then you had 183 people who don’t have Internet access. They can’t log into a computer so how can their vote be counted?

In the Netherlands, they said very clearly that there was a large hack, and everyone logged off the Internet. But before they announced it was safe to get back online, there was that one family – I think it’s the Hjerkenbergers – who logged back online and supposedly submitted a whole batch of fraudulent votes. They weren’t submitted through the actual SurveyMonkey link, but they somehow hacked into a backdoor and entered their votes.

And that’s just for starters. I know you say you would like to get to the bottom of this, but I saw you interviewed on a podcast today – wait, you can’t see a podcast, right? – and you said you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know we didn’t lose the vote, Mary. People have been saying more people voted in this competition than have ever voted before. There was no way they beat us.

Marcus: So Mr. Warnick, er Derek, if I might be able to jump in, and I’ll give Mary a chance. In some of these areas where the facts are indisputable, in the spirit of cooperation and compromise, can’t you just tell the people that CMEpalooza won so Derek will stop whining about it?

Bergeraff: Well, I listened to what Mr. Warnick has just said. Mr. Warnick, we’ve counted the vote twice now, and, um, we don’t agree that CMEpalooza won. And we don’t agree with those numbers that you mentioned.

Warnick: Well, Mary, I’m just giving you minimal numbers. We have evidence that puts us many, many times above the margin. But what’s the difference between winning the competition by two votes or 200 votes? I think we probably did win it by 200. You look at all of the people who say they love CMEpalooza, the people who log onto our LIVE page the night before our events. It’s not possible to have lost.

Bergeraff: Well Mr. Warnick, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. We talked to the technical team at SurveyMonkey and, frankly, they said they had better things to do than interfere in a piddly competition like this, but I pressed the issue and they looked back at the IP addresses of the voters. The actual number of duplicate voters was two.

Warnick: I mean, look, Mary. We have a new tape that we’re going to release tomorrow. It’s devastating. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it shows massive, massive amounts of fraud. People being paid to vote for that other meeting. Did you know they paid people? Yes, we have it on video. Fifty cents changing hands. We have it magnified. Fifty cents. Terrible.

Bergeraff: Mr. Warnick, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.

Warnick: Oh this isn’t social media. This is the CMEpalooza blog comments. I don’t care about social media. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech never liked us since they shut down Google Hangouts On Air. I don’t even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate competition.

Bergeraff: We believe that we do have an accurate competition.

Warnick: No, no you don’t. No, no you don’t. You don’t have. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of votes.

So what are we going to do here, Mary? CMEpalooza only needs 20 votes. Give me a break.

Bergeraff: Mr. Warnick, you have your people – I guess your intern’s little sister – who calculate the vote and we have our people, who are actual adults with real jobs, who calculate the vote. We believe our numbers are right.

Warnick: Your numbers aren’t right. They’re really wrong, and you know they are really wrong. You said last year that you like CMEpalooza. Why don’t you just say that CMEpalooza wins again?

You guys are so wrong. Between you and your CEO, who I endorsed for a 10 percent pay raise, and like a schmuck I endorsed him and he got the pay raise, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.

We only need 20 votes. I have given you evidence of many, many times that number of fraudulent votes. Just 20 votes. That’s all we need. My kids aren’t speaking to me. They are calling me a loser. C’mon, I am not asking for much. Scott doesn’t even know we’re talking today. He says he doesn’t care. Please, Mary, I’m begging you. Just 20 votes. What will it take?

Bergeraff: Goodbye Mr. Warnick.

Warnick: Wait, please don’t hang up on me. (They hang up) Hello, hello? Meadow, get me Giuliani’s second cousin once removed on the line. She’ll know how to handle this.

Nothing says “the holiday season” like a special CMEpalooza event. You think Rudolph, you think Frosty, and you think CMEpalooza. Even though Derek may sometimes seem like quite a Grinch, he’s really very jolly this time of year. He’s been seen walking around his neighborhood many years toting around some mistletoe to spread some very personal holiday fear cheer, but alas, 2020. Another thing lost due to COVID-19 (note from Derek: bah humbug.)

So pour yourself a frothy glass of egg nog, cue up Bing Crosby on your turntable, and join us this morning at 11 am ET for a very special CMEpalooza Spotlight where we’ll be talking about “Outcomes: Creating Value for All Stakeholders.” I’ll be joined by Jacqui Brooks, Stephen Webber, and Annette Schwind from the Haymarket Medical Education team as we delve into ways that providers can perform an internal assessment of their outcomes processes to ensure that they are meeting the needs of all interested parties, along with a host of other topics.

You can watch this broadcast on our LIVE page, with the usual opportunities to ask questions of the panelists. If you happened to foolishly schedule another meeting during the 11 am ET hour, don’t worry, you can come back later and watch the recorded session in the same location. As with everything else CMEpalooza, there is no cost and no pre-registration necessary.