In this cycle of “he said/she said” divisiveness where tall tales linger around every corner, it can be extremely difficult separating truth from all the lies. Unfortunately, in recent weeks, Derek and I have been slandered with CMEpalooza sponsor-related rumor and innuendo, and much as we hate to rake muck with the dregs of society, we feel that’s it’s time to speak up. Most of this information you can find for yourself on our Sponsor tab, but to save you time and energy, I’ll do the dirty work for you.

Here is the truth behind the vicious lies:

1. You have one – and only one — sponsorship option. Baloney! There are three primary levels of sponsorship for CMEpalooza Fall – gold, silver, and bronze. As you move up the rungs, you get more for your money. We also offer sponsorship of our CMEpalooza text line and are always open to other innovative sponsorship suggestions (though we’ve never gotten one of those… yet). You can find out all of the specific details in our short Sponsor prospectus.
2. All of the premier levels of sponsorship are gobbled up quickly. Bollocks! While we have 1 Gold and 4 Silver sponsors locked in for CMEpalooza Fall, there are currently sponsorship opportunities at every level. It’s all there for the taking people!
3. No reputable organizations sponsor CMEpalooza. Poppycock! I guess it’s up to you to determine how “reputable” our sponsors truly are, but the 19 organizations who have currently aligned themselves with our Fall event come from a variety of different segments of our industry. They can’t all be flimflam artists, can they?
4. If you don’t sponsor CMEpalooza at least 3 months prior to each event, you’ve lost your chance at visibility. Malarkey! While the sooner you confirm your sponsorship with us, the sooner you get listed on our Sponsor site, we regularly attempt to drive traffic to all of our sponsors. Of course, the most eyes come on the day of our CMEpalooza broadcasts themselves, so even coming in the day before will give you plenty of visibility.
5. You guys don’t do anything creative to drive attention to your sponsors. Preposterous! Surely you remember our Fun Fact Challenge from the Spring where we gave away nearly $400 in Amazon gift cards. For the Fall (big announcement alert), we’ve got the Sponsor Scavenger Hunt coming up. Details coming later. It’ll be like that Pokemon thingie, but better (note from Derek: My 12-year-old strongly disagrees).
6. It’s too hard to sponsor CMEpalooza. Horsefeathers! In fact, nothing could be easier. Just send Derek or I an email indicating which level of sponsorship you are interested in committing to and we’ll let you know what information we need from you (ie, company logo, description, etc.). For many sponsors, they make the formal commitment and have their sponsorship up on our site the same day. Yeah, yeah, we’re good like that.
7. It’s too expensive to sponsor CMEpalooza. Rubbish! Our bronze-level sponsorships cost only $500 – that’s $1.37 a day for 1 year. I mean, really people.

I hope that was helpful. Naysayers, consider yourselves exposed.

When the calendar moves over into August, it’s often a bittersweet time. Yes, it’s still summer, but you can see the warning lights on the horizon – the nights are getting shorter, your favorite baseball team has thrown in the towel on another season, and the “BACK TO SCHOOL SALE: YOUR CHILD NEEDS THIS $75 LUNCHBOX OR ELSE HE’LL GET BEATEN UP AT RECESS!” flyers start to jam your mailbox.

From a work perspective, August’s arrival means that things are soon going to get serious again. No longer is your inbox going to be filled with messages that read, “I am currently on vacation and will not be checking email for the next month. I know you probably have a deadline you need to meet, but it’s the summertime, pal. I’m well into my 5th margarita of the day. Go away.” Instead, things will actually start to get done again, which is admittedly kinda nice.

Here at CMEpalooza headquarters, we’ll soon be saying goodbye to the lifeguards at our rooftop Olympic-sized pool as we start getting serious about our Fall meeting. Fortunately, we’ve been getting ready for a while. Unlike many other folks, the summertime is not “shut-it-down” time for us, not with our crack summer interns yearning to stuff more envelopes, send more Snapchats, and find every friggin’ Pokemon that they can on our expansive, 300-acre campus.

Here is what you have been missing in the last few weeks while applying your SPF 80:

• Our Fall agenda is out. We’re trying out a bunch of new formats and bringing to you a cadre of new presenters. It’s gonna be awesome.
• The deadline for our Puntua Lortu session has passed. Derek is busy qualifying and quantifying the merits of the thousands of submissions he received. You should soon see who has been lucky enough to be chosen.
• Our Sponsor page is filling up. We’re up to 1 Gold sponsor, 3 Silver sponsors (1 more is coming soon), and 13 Bronze sponsors (several more to be added shortly). Believe it or not, sponsorships remain available at every level, though if you are interested in joining us at one of our more premier levels, there are only a few spots left. More coming soon on sponsorships, and our special plans to provide added exposure for those organizations wise enough to align themselves with CMEpalooza with a neat little activity in September.
• Our Archive is bigger than ever. You can view and learn from every session that has ever been presented at CMEpalooza in its history. For free. Whenever you want.

Poor Derek.

There are few things in life that get him excited – the prospect of his beloved Philadelphia 76ers winning more than 20 games this season, a 24-hour Quantum Leap marathon on the Sci-Fi Network, signing a petition to remove green clovers from boxes of Lucky Charms.

And Puntua Lortu. Don’t forget that.

In case you have been sleeping (or ignoring us), Puntua Lortu is Derek’s CMEpalooza pet project. Introduced as Pecha Kucha last fall and then reborn as Puntua Lortu in the spring, it’s our session where presenters are put under the heat lamp and asked to do a lightning-round presentation with 20 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds.

It’s 6 minutes of your life that you’ll never forget… if you dare to be bold enough (queue the eerie Scooby Doo music).

But the session only happens if people stand up and are willing to give it a go. We’re still looking for a few abstracts to fill out our Fall roster, and you’ve got until July 29 (that’s next Friday) to cobble something together. What’s a good topic? I dunno – that’s up to you. Something that is simple and straightforward and compelling. Tell a story. Do an impression. Pantomime.

Surely you’ve seen all of the other cool people involved and interesting topics we’ll be talking about at our Fall event. Join us, and them. Before Derek starts crying again and curling up in a fetal position. It’s not pretty – trust me.

Click here to submit your Puntua Lortu abstract