For those of us who live and die by the fickle nature of grant applications/approvals/rejections, designing potential educational initiatives is both an exciting and frustrating endeavor.

Exciting because we get to put on our creative hats, map out new approaches to educating healthcare providers, and collaborate with colleagues to come up with innovative solutions that (hopefully) will improve patient care.

Frustrating because if these proposals are not funded, well, we all know what happens. The ideas die on the vine, never to see the light of day. There are few things more frustrating in our industry than proposals which take weeks to put together, all amounting to nothing. My virtual trash can is full of these.

And then there are simply some ideas that are “not fundable” either because they focus on an educational area that is too niched and for which funding is unavailable, or because the design is so unique that no one would take a chance on funneling money into something whose outcome is largely unpredictable.

This isn’t me whining (OK, maybe just a little), but rather a little bit of insight into why serving as the co-producer of CMEpalooza is so professionally energizing.

My proposals always get approved! I can implement every new idea I want to!

As long as I make sure to ply Derek with his monthly supply of Fifth Avenue bars, I always get the same reply to every kooky idea I come up with – “Well, if you think it will work, I guess it’s fine with me.”

Those of you who have looked over the Agenda for CMEpalooza Fall that we first put out earlier this week were presumably dazzled with the variety of approaches we’re trying out (and if you weren’t, just pretend please). Really, there are currently only 2 “traditional” CMEpalooza sessions on the agenda with a moderator and a group of panelists, and even these have unique twists. For the others, we’re either trying out something new or improving upon something previously piloted in earlier Paloozas.

This is the kind of stuff that makes our careers interesting. I mean really, after maybe 3 times of getting a group of faculty together to talk about “New and Emerging Therapies for Treatment of Disease XX,” the same old/same old can get pretty dull.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing with everyone more details on some of our new educational designs for CMEpalooza Fall, giving insight into what we were thinking when we came up with each idea and how we envision things playing out. Undoubtedly, the vision in our mind isn’t exactly how each session will truly come together – that’s the unpredictable nature of education – but we’re hopeful that we have the right people in place to make everything work and keep people interested in watching.

A few months before every iteration of CMEpalooza, Derek and I organize a brainstorming session in a secret location a few miles off the Amalfi Coast. It’s in a cave. Underwater. You’d never find it in a million years.

But I digress.

Our agenda during this session is rigorous – we each bring mounds of spreadsheets, cases of 5-Hour Energy shots, and enough technological might to power a small country (like Liechtenstein, for example). By the end of the day, we’re both exhausted, but during these powwows, we’ve always managed to accomplish what we intended to and put in motion the plans for our next event.

Subsequently over the course of the next few months, things start coming together. Emails are sent, invitations are proffered, negotiations are carefully massaged with agents, sponsors, and all of the major networks. It’s a full-time job (and yes, we have other full-time jobs, too)

I won’t lie – planning for this fall was perhaps the toughest challenge yet. With a variety of new session formats and twice as many faculty as we’ve ever had for a previous Palooza, there were a lot of bumps to overcome.

But overcome we did. Overcome we did.

And so without further ado…

(Clearing throat) Hear ye, hear ye… On behalf of the esteemed CMEpalooza planning committee, we are proud to present the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall 2016 (click the link, dummy).

You’ll be hearing more about each of our sessions in the coming weeks, including what we were thinking when we chose the topic and format, who the people are that you’ll see in front of the camera, and all the way that things might (but won’t) blow up in our faces.

Needless to say, we’re excited about the Fall meeting. It could either be really cool and interesting, or it could totally blow up in our faces (but it won’t).

Just in case though, I’m going to start pushing #Liechtenstexit.

In the bowels of CMEpalooza history emerge the details – we first hired temporary help only to man the phones on the weekends before our events, then we taught our fearless crew a year later to multitask by adding in the need to respond to email.

This year, for the first time we are requiring that our temps ($15.01 per hour, just to stay one step ahead of you, California) perform three tasks with their usual aplomb – answering phones, responding to emails, and perusing Twitter conversations.

Just trying our best to stay up with the times.

As a service to our loyal community, we thought we’d share with you one of the dozens of CMEpalooza-related conversations that took place in the Twittersphere over the weekend to get you prepared for our Spring extravaganza on Wednesday, April 6.

As always, this is a transcript from a real* conversation that took place over the weekend.

(* = not real)

@EBW2005: My dad told me I could skip school on Wednesday if I watch CMEpalooza instead. I don’t even know what CMEpalooza is. Can someone help?

@CMEpalooza: We’re the premier online event for CME/CE professionals, with 7 hours of live broadcasts during our Spring event on April 6.

@EBW2005: What’s a CME/CE professional?

@CMEpalooza: We educate doctors, nurses, and other practicing healthcare professionals.

@EBW2005: Education is boring.

@CMEpalooza: Doesn’t have to be. We’ll show you ways some people are creating education that is a little more interesting. You can share what you learn with your teachers.

@EBW2005: How much does it cost to watch? My dad cut my allowance to $0.50 a week. He’s kind of a cheapskate.

@CMEpalooza: Good news for you then. CMEpalooza Spring is free. Always has been, always will be. You can save your allowance for something important, like candy.

@EBW2005: Candy messes with my braces. OK, so free. Free is good. How do I watch this CMEpalooza thing?

@CMEpalooza: Just go to the LIVE tab on our website starting at 10 a.m. ET. You can look at the agenda on our Spring tab. Every time a new session is ready to begin, go the LIVE tab and click the refresh button.

@EBW2005: What if I want to eat lunch or play a video game for, like, 12 consecutive hours? My dad would never know – he’s kind of clueless.

@CMEpalooza: That’s OK. Every CMEpalooza session gets archived as soon as it’s over on the Archive tab. You can come back and watch whatever session you want when it’s over.

@EBW2005: Are the archived sessions free, too?

@CMEpalooza: They are.

@EBW2005: Sounds like quite the money-making machine for you guys.

@CMEpalooza: We’ll ignore that comment.

@EBW2005: Hmm, I don’t know. They are supposed to be serving Pizza Boat in the cafeteria for lunch. You sure this CMEpalooza thing is worth it?

@CMEpalooza: Up to you. We’re all for the value of school, but you’ll learn a lot from our Spring event too. Maybe you can sell it to your teachers as an extra credit project.

@EBW2005: Fat chance of that. If it’s not about “preparing for the test,” they don’t care.

@CMEpalooza: In case it matters, there is no test with CMEpalooza. We have a survey, but it’s optional.

@EBW2005: OK, so free, check out the agenda, watch live or in the archives. Anything important I am missing?

@CMEpalooza: I don’t think so. You might want to watch a previous session from the Archives in advance to get a sense of what our sessions look like.

@EBW2005: That sounds like homework. I don’t do homework.

@CMEpalooza: You must be one of Warnick’s kids.