With only about 6 weeks to go until CMEpalooza Fall and summer vacation officially over, our internal promotion team will be furiously working over the course of the next few weeks to give you a flavor of what to expect on Wednesday, October 21. Expect to see airplanes with colorful banners trailing behind in a city near you.

But first, we have our initial moderator interview with Erik Brady, PhD, CHCP, of Clinical Care Options ready to whet your appetite. The theme for this year’s interviews is “The Best and Worst of…” where you’ll hear a little bit about our moderators’ best (and worst) experiences in CME. This may entail a project that went fantastically well (or flopped miserably), a presentation of their own that rocked (or rolled), or something else along those lines. We give people latitude to interpret the theme as they see fit.

During these interviews, we’ll also be knocking off a little bit of the rust from our production team, as you may note from some of the spotty camerawork. Hey, that’s what you get when these are recorded the day before a holiday weekend.

Derek’s Commodore 64 finally crapped out so he was unable to join us for this broadcast, but in happier news, if you are in the market for a circa-1987 floppy disk drive, he’ll sell you one for cheap!

When Derek sent over his most recent post for me to rewrite entirely (I am nice and often just claim I “edit” his work), I was in a punchy mood. That’s what happens when you work from home and your closest conversation buddy is a Phillie Phanatic pillow.

Anyway, Derek asked people to submit questions for our upcoming CMEpalooza Fall session entitled “Why Did My Grant Request Get Rejected?” (incidentally, still plenty of time to submit yours by going here) and what follows is the first thing I thought of.

Maybe you’ll laugh. Maybe you won’t. Just don’t ask me to act out the scene. It’s been done poorly by too many others too many times. Just imagine the voices in your head.

You want answers?

I think I’m entitled.

You want answers?!

I want the truth!

You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world where grant requests get rejected every day. The education of an industry… no, the future of medicine and the health of the world is in my hands. I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. Who’s gonna educate our current and future healthcare workers? You, McGowan? You, Perez?

The truth is that you don’t want to know why your grant request got rejected because deep down in those places you don’t talk about at the Alliance meeting, you know that your gaps were flimsy, your educational design was laughable, and your outcomes were unmeasurable.

In our world, we use words like “needs assessment,” “quality improvement,” and “Level 7 outcomes.” We use these words as the backbone of a life improving patient outcomes. You use them as a punchline for CME knock knock jokes.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who supports his family thanks to my funding his $75,000 grant request. I would rather you just filed your outcomes report and reconciliation on time and be on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you fund your own educational activities. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Next month: We recreate one of the most memorable scenes from “Alf”  when we ask you to complete a brief survey or two from some of our other Fall panels.

Last week, we hosted our inaugural CMEpalooza Company Spotlight, gathering four employees from Educational Measures for a moderated discussion highlighting the company’s current work and the services they provide, and offering a glimpse into the future of audience response and engagement technology.

A week later, the Spotlight broadcast has been viewed by close to 100 individuals, including 33 who watched the live iteration.

I hear what you are saying, “100 people! That’s it? I could post a video of my cat sleeping for 5 minutes and I’d get 10,000 views in an hour!” And that’s probably true.

But Company Spotlights aren’t videos designed for quick entertainment. People who watched the live version of our 30-minute Spotlight broadcast watched for an average of nearly 20 minutes (engagement among those who watched the enduring version was somewhat less). That’s tells me that a good number of CME folks watched and learned about Educational Measures. Every one of them is a potential customer.

Can Derek or I guarantee that any of those viewers will lead to business? Guarantee? No. Hope? Of course.

Is this broadcast going to be more effective than spending 3 days in an exhibit hall, flying in a team to stand there and pray for traffic? We’d like to think so, but we’re biased. It’s just a different sort of approach, that’s for sure.

So why are we telling you all this? Why should you care?

It’s simple. We want to do more of these. And we think it’s a real opportunity for companies to expose themselves in an innovative way to potential funders and partners in the CME community.

Think about how much time and effort it takes just to get just one individual with any sort of decision making power to talk to you about your company. We’re talking days of emails and/or phone calls, scheduled and rescheduled appointments… all for 30 minutes of face time. With a CMEpalooza Company Spotlight, you get the undivided attention of dozens of people who have taken time out of their day to learn about you for far less effort and energy.

Alas, this is not a free service we are offering, so there is a value proposition that you need to consider. Organizations in the CME space are notoriously stingy about spending money on marketing. We are a face-to-face community, by and large. Catalogs and mailers and email blast campaigns simply don’t work in our field.

But when Derek and I brainstormed the seeds of Company Spotlights, we hoped we had hit upon a unique niche idea that solved a fundamental problem among CME-focused organizations – getting needed publicity without being obnoxiously and overtly pushy. At the very least, we hope it’s something you think about as you consider where your organization is going this year and into the future. We created a separate tab on the CMEpalooza website to host all of our spotlights, and it’s looking a bit lonely right now.

Maybe you are unveiling something unique that you want to promote. Maybe you just want everyone to know that you have talented people doing something better than anyone else. We’ll work with you on the agenda for your Spotlight so that it’s not obnoxious marketing but instead, an informational session that lets you show off your best side.

We have all the information you’ll need to see the ins and outs of these Spotlights right here. Or email/call us – we’re helpful people. Usually.