In 1982, a 9-year-old Derek liked nothing better than piling into the back of my family’s ’79 gray Mercury Cougar and heading out to the Milford Shopping Plaza, where I could buy a pack of Fleer baseball cards for a dime at Ames (RIP). [Brief side note: the 1982 Fleer set has some of the worst lighted cards of all time. Just check out hipster-Mike Schmidt’s card]

As soon as we came home, I would rip open the pack, throw out the bubble gum, and immediately file each card behind the appropriate team index card in my baseball card shoe box. That single shoe box turned into two shoe boxes, and then a 3-ring binder, and then multiple binders, and then boxes and binders, and eventually an entire closet in my bedroom (where they still are today. I promise to pick them up soon, Mom!) I spent hours and hours going through those cards, sorting and organizing, organizing and sorting. I was a little obsessed.

These days, I channel my organizing itch into other things, like categorizing our 300+ books by genre and author’s last name (I was not aware that other people don’t do this). Last week, I set my sights on the CMEpalooza archive, which I’ve never been very satisfied with. Now that we’re approaching close to 50 archived presentations, it seemed like we should have a better way of organizing them than just by date. I thought that stratifying the sessions by topic might make the archive more useful and beneficial to those not looking for one specific session.

In the end, I came up with eleven different topic areas, from Accreditation to Technology. Some sessions are listed under more than one area and some areas only have one or two sessions. Take a look and let me know what you think. Am I missing any topics? Do the names I gave the different areas make sense? Are there any sessions that are misfiled or missing from a topic area? I’m hoping this organization of sessions makes the archive a more valuable resource to all, so please feel free to tell me any way that it can be improved. All feedback appreciated!

For those of you who were unable to watch yesterday’s CMEpalooza Company Spotlight raffle, here is the video. It is eight minutes of the most riveting content you will watch today, unless, like me and Scott, you are a Sixers fan and plan to be glued to your TV for the NBA Draft Lottery tonight (they have a 0.28% chance of getting the #1, #6, and #11 picks in the draft. In Hinkie we trust!) If you’re wondering who won, I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but I’ll give you a hint: It rhymes with Meducational Easures.

Here are five things to look for in the video:

1. Unbeknownst to me, Scott showed up to the Hangout wearing a suit and tie. This made me laugh for a solid 5 minutes.
2. Yes, that’s a Duff beer shirt I’m wearing. Keeping it classy as always.
3. Scott apparently has no idea what a potluck is. He clearly didn’t grow up in a Mennonite home in Lancaster County like yours truly, where potlucks are a weekly occurrence at minimum.
4. A fairly decent explanation of what our vision is for the Company Spotlights. Like the original CMEpalooza, we’re going to give it a try and see how it goes. Hopefully it turns out to be something beneficial for the CME/CE community.
5. The hat hanging on the wall over my shoulder is different than the one hanging over my shoulder during CMEpalooza Spring. First person to correctly identify the difference wins the picture hanging behind Scott (I didn’t run this past him, but I’m sure he’ll be fine with it…)

er…what?

That’s what I imagine 99% of you saying when you read this title. Either that or “What the heck’s a pecha kucha?” In a nutshell, Pecha Kucha is a lean, mean, fightin’ machine presentation method. It has three core concepts:

1. 20 slides. Not 19. Not 21. Exactly 20.
2. 20 seconds per slide. Same deal as above. Exactly 20. How many of you are already feeling squeamish? Just wait…
3. Slides automatically advance. I love this!

That gives you a total presentation time of…um…6 minutes and 40 seconds? Something like that. Basically, the goal is to force presenters to strip down their presentations to their core essence and cut out the endless blabbing. Count me in!

The inventors of the Pecha Kucha format are two architects who developed it because (and I quote) “architects talk too much!” Sound familiar? It sounds gimmicky, but the streamlined format is an attempt to make presenters tell a story rather than just throw up some bullet points and talk at length about their data. Ultimately, they are supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to be both entertaining and informative. Kind of like CMEpalooza.