Like me, I am sure you get annoyed when you open your morning inbox and see another email reminding you that “The deadline for submitting an abstract for Meeting XYZ is next week. Don’t miss your opportunity to share your knowledge with colleagues and further your career!”

So no, this isn’t a post to remind you one last time that the deadline for submitting an abstract for CMEpalooza Spring is tomorrow (even though, well, yes, it is. Derek is counting on you).

Today, I’ll be telling you about something of potentially monumental importance both to you and the organization you represent — sponsorship opportunities for CMEpalooza! Whoo-hoo!

OK, OK, settle down now. That’s enough whoo-hooing for one day. You’ll hurt yourself if this goes on any longer.

Since we introduced sponsorship opportunities prior to CMEpalooza III (it’s Super Bowl week, so Roman numerals are acceptable), more than 40 companies have come aboard to support one or more of our events. Every year, we tweak the goodies offered to sponsors, especially at the higher levels. Our initial batch of sponsors for CMEpalooza XI (that’s this year’s Spring meeting) were put up last week, but there are still many opportunities available at every sponsorship level.

Here are some little known facts about a CMEpalooza sponsorship:

1. You can have a session of your very own. That’s right, if you want to take the ultimate leap into a Gold sponsorship, you get the honor of working with Derek and I to plan your very own CMEpalooza session. Now I know what you are thinking – “In what world is working with Derek and you considered to be a ‘honor?'” OK, OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but at least it’ll be less painful than a mortgage/rent payment! I had a conversation with a colleague last week who works with a prior Gold sponsor. She told me, “We were going to do it again, but we didn’t have any good ideas for a session.” Hogwash, I tell you, hogwash! We have lots of ideas. They might not be good ideas, but they are ideas. We’ll figure something out.
2. Derek will write you a haiku. You all know how much I love CMEpalooza haiku. I have written about it before. It’s one of Derek’s favorite blog posts. He cozies up on the sofa with a giant bag of Cheetos, gets that orange cheese dust all over his keyboard, and bangs out what the New York Times literature reviewer calls, “Eh, something.” For the first time this year, all Silver and Gold sponsors of CMEpalooza get your very own customized haiku written by the esteemed Mr. Warnick. He is extremely excited about this opportunity to further advance his pathetic — I mean, poetic — career.
3. You will get tremendous exposure. Whenever sponsorship time rolls around, we always get the question of, “But, why sir, why?” Look, I can’t promise you that your company’s revenues will double if you decide to sponsor CMEpaloooza (though if they do, I will take full credit). But I can tell you that we have a lot of people read our blog (nearly 500 subscribers who get an email with every post as well as those who simply come to the website every hour), view our sessions (a record 644 unique visitors watched 1 or more sessions in CMEpalooza X last fall), and participate in our special sponsor events like CMEpalooza Bingo!! or CMEpalooza Pursuit!!. For some reason, people seem to like us, and by extension, they will like you if you sign up to be one of our sponsors.
4. You will have money left over to buy many, many “4 for $4” deals at Wendy’s. While I haven’t actually been to a Wendy’s since, I don’t know, the 10th grade, I won’t argue that their food is expensive (whether or not it is actually good, well, you can be the judge). The point is, CMEpalooza sponsorships aren’t terribly expensive. They start at the low, low price of $600. You probably have that much in your couch cushions right now! OK, maybe you don’t (but if you do, seriously, lift up those cushions more than once a decade). Regardless, you get the point.

If I’ve done enough to convince you to climb aboard the Sponsorship train, well, bully for me. Just send me an email with some very basic info, and we’ll get the process started. If you remain on the fence and want more info, you can check out the full Sponsorship prospectus. If you are laughing uproariously at this post’s shameless plug, the Pit of Despair is just over yonder.

We’re big fans of free here at CMEpalooza headquarters. Just ask our trusty interns, who constantly ask about things like “back pay” and “overtime” and “bonuses.” Ha ha, keep dreaming people!

But anyway, we know that a slice of the CME/CE community is decamping to the Alliance meeting in National Harbor, MD, this week, so we figured we’d come up with something special for our friends and fans in attendance.

Find Derek (he’s the tall guy with the goofy grin and the faraway look in his eyes) and utter the simple phrase “Shake Milton” to get a free — yes, free! — registration to CMEpalooza Spring (offer limited to the first 500 participants).

Even better, this simple utterance will serve as an ice breaker to talk to Derek about any number of topics about which he is passionate. For instance: Cocoa Puffs, synchronized swimming, supply-side economics, the War of 1812, archipelagos, and postmodern architecture. He’s a fascinating guy.

We work in a strange industry.

Where else can you spend days/weeks slaving over an intricate document (ie, the dreaded grant proposal) with a total inability to talk to the party that will receive your work and get a sense of their general expectations? And then have absolutely no idea whether the “denied” request was “good, but not enough,” “just OK,” or “absolutely dreadful”?

Take the following scenario for example:

Little Derek W. (I have de-identified our “fictional” subject to protect his identity) is assigned a book report by his 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Mathewson. He is allowed to pick a book of his choosing and then must write about the topic of “I would/would not recommend this book to a friend because…”

Derek W. is an avid Nancy Drew fan, so chooses the classic, The Secret of the Old Clock. But Derek W. is confused. He goes up to Mrs. Mathewson to ask for her help.

“Is my ‘friend’ supposed to be a kid or an adult? And what if there are some reasons I would recommend the book, but other reasons why I wouldn’t? How long is this report supposed to be? Does it need to be handwritten or can I type out my response?”

Mrs. Mathewson completely stonewalls him. She ignores him as if he doesn’t exist (just like the girls on the playground). Derek W. asks his parents if they can help. “Sorry son. This whole book report thing is a mystery to us, too.”

So Derek W. does his best, trying to figure out what Mrs. Mathewson is looking for. A few weeks later, he gets a crumpled up note passed to him after class.

“You failed.”

Derek W. is apoplectic. Tears are streaming down his face. He goes up to Mrs. Mathewson, asks her, “Why did I fail? What was wrong with my book report?”

She said, “Sorry. I can’t tell you. It could be that we had too many reports on the same book, it could be that your report didn’t align to the criteria of our grading committee, it could be that we had already given out too many other passing grades.” That’s all I can really say.

Seems rather familiar to many of us, right?

Today though, you are in luck my friend, because I am about to unlock every secret to a successful abstract submission for CMEpalooza Spring. Perhaps you noticed last week’s Call for Abstracts where we provided basic information on how to submit an abstract for our upcoming Spring event (Wednesday, April 17) and you are noodling over an idea or two.

Well, just so you don’t waste too much time, I am going to tell you exactly what you need to do to guarantee* that your abstract gets accepted by our esteemed abstract review committee (* – not guaranteed):

DO – Read the guidelines carefully before you submit and follow all of the instructions
DON’T – Think to yourself, “Eh, they probably don’t mean this. I’m just going to submit for a boring, 60-minute, PowerPoint heavy presentation on a topic that is pretty dull and drab.”

DO – Recruit colleagues from a variety of professional settings. We love having a variety of viewpoints for our sessions. CMEpalooza veterans, CMEpalooza rookies – doesn’t matter.
DON’T – Only include your friend in the cube next to yours as a co-presenter. You certainly can only include people from your own organization, but there should be a reason for that beyond, “I am feeling lazy.”

DO – Submit a fresh idea that has never been presented before.
DON’T – Recycle a session that you have presented in the past at another venue. If you give it a fresh twist, great. But if you are simply submitting the same idea to us that you are presenting at another venue before CMEpalooza Spring, we can usually tell.

DO – Pay attention to the February 1 submission deadline
DON’T – Submit something on February 2. We don’t look kindly upon tardiness.

DO – Check your spelling and grammar before you submit your abstract.
DON’T – Submit an abstract written in a foreign language. Por favor.

DO – Take a chance. “I don’t know if this is going to work, but we’re willing to try” is good for CMEpalooza
DO – Think about the nuts and bolts of your session before you submit. “We think this is going to work and it’s going to be really cool” is even better
DO – Propose some sort of wacky format that is going to be fun for you, your co-presenters, and our audience. “We are super excited about this. It’s weird, but it’s going to be awesome” is even better still!

There, that should do it. A guaranteed* acceptance (* – not guaranteed).

Perhaps you have other questions for us. Great! We can answer every single one. If you are going to the Alliance next week, feel free to corner Derek and fire away. He loves talking to people for hours! (note from Derek: I do not.) Here are some topics he loves discussing to help you break the ice: fashion, tennis, Asian cuisine, dominoes, the Punic Wars, crocheting. And, of course, the Nancy Drew series.

Whoops, I just de-de-identified our “fictional” student, didn’t I? Oh well.