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.

 

 

I have done three CMEpaloozas (CMEpaloozi?) now and it never fails to amaze me how exhausting they are. It’s not as if they’re physically demanding or anything, but at the end of the day, I feel completely spent. I just want to sit on the couch in a stupor and watch Sex in the City Game of Thrones reruns. But now that Scott and I have had some time to recover, we want to give a big thank you to everyone who contributed and participated in CMEpalooza Spring. Here’s a brief list of thank yous:

• Thank you to our presenters who were fabulous. Whenever someone offers me a compliment on CMEpalooza, I always tell them we’re only as good as our presenters. Fortunately for us, they’ve been great.
• Thank you to our sponsors (all 19 of you!) who make producing CMEpalooza much easier. A special thank you to our gold sponsors ArcheMedX and Intelligent Medical Decisions, Inc. for putting together two really excellent sessions.
• Thank you to all of you who watched a CMEpalooza Spring session. We had a very nice turnout (more details below) and good interaction during Q&A time.
• Thank you to my wife for making me a sandwich and coffee and sliding it to me off-screen. She’s a keeper!

So, how may people actually watched CMEpalooza Spring? Good question, Derek — I’m so glad you asked. YouTube has developed a nice analytics platform for the Hangout videos, both live and “on-demand”, which makes determining participation much easier. Below is the amount of Live Views for each session in the order they were presented (the amount of views each session received while it was “live”):

• Bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap: Quality Improvement as a Path to Change – 147
• Let the Sun Shine In: Perspectives and Insights on the Implementation of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act – 151
• Secrets of CME Outcome Assessment…Revealed – 151
• Data-Driven and Agile Educational Design: Ensuring Your Courses Intelligently Evolve – 134
• Achieving Level 7 Outcomes: A MEC Perspective – 72
• 5 Tips to Make You a Survey Measurement Rock Star – 86
• Revamping the Satellite Symposium: Enriching the Learner Experience – 142
• Style and Substance: The Evolution of Content Presentation in Medical Education – 123
• Why We Matter: Successful Strategies for Demonstrating the Value of CE within Your Own Organization – 104

I’m always thrilled that anyone watches, so, yes, I’m happy. The most disappointing thing about the entire CMEpalooza Spring experience was that we only received one joke on our survey :-(. Here it is:

A little boy wasn’t getting good marks in school. One day he tapped his teacher on the shoulder and said, “I don’t want to scare you, but my daddy says if I don’t get better grades, somebody is going to get a spanking.”

Hmmm…maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t get more.