palooza haiku
back for at least one more time
but probably more

coming up next week
cmepalooza fall
online and awesome

9 AM ET – The Case of the Rejected Grant Request: A CMEpalooza Whodunit

you like mysteries?
here’s one: the case of the
missing syllable

10 AM ET – Surviving 2020: How COVID-19 and Social Justice Issues Impact the Health of Under-Represented Communities

this stellar panel
will help you survive the year
no murder hornets

11 AM ET – The 5-Year 5-Month Plan

five year predictions
will be as successful as
a fork stirring soup

Noon ET – Industry Updates & Supporter Positioning: Building Long-term Competencies, Agility, & Resilience

oh to be a fly
on the IACE meeting wall
this is your one shot

1 PM ET – The CME Dictionary

goal: define words like
needs assessment, spaced learning
terms of endearment

2 PM ET – Program Managers: We Get the Job Done!

when the going gets
tough the tough stop and call a
program manager

3 PM ET – The CE Report Card: Rating the Industry Performance in a Virtual World

hey, how you doin’
asked joey tribbiani
these guys will tell us

4 PM ET – CME Pop Trivia

pop goes trivia
because trivia goes pop
and CME too

Sponsors

three precious metals
but if you want a haiku
it’s gold or silver

Gold

PER translates
science of medicine to
art of patient care

a better poet
would rhyme john ruggiero with
Daiichi-Sankyo

president tim hayes
Academic CME
four time gold sponsor

Silver

Projects in Knowledge
is a much better name than
Ignorance Projects

PlatformQ is not
the same as AvenueQ
there are no puppets

If you like pina
coladas and love the rain
write me and Medscape

hey-o Healio
a silver sponsor this year
very coolio

what did the shopper
say to the supermarket
Haymarket…get it?

when two become one
CCO and PCE
back for more haiku

This Fall marks the 14th iteration of CMEpalooza. That includes the inaugural two-day free-for-all in the spring of 2014 during the BSE (Before Scott Era) and then 13 Spring/Fall events featuring the best duo since the Captain and Tennille. Every year, Derek and I try to make some minor changes to the way we do things, many of which our audience probably doesn’t even notice. Like the year when Derek suggested that we “get crazy haircuts” the week before our live event. I went to my neighborhood barber to give him carte blanche and he laughed at me. He’s mean.

But anyway…

For this Fall’s event, being held next Wednesday, October 14 between 9 am-5 pm ET, there are more “new” things than usual, so I wanted to get everyone prepared:

1. The biggest change is with our LIVE page, otherwise known as the page where you view our sessions. In previous years, we would stream each session on the same page and force learners to refresh their page every hour to view the next session. No more. Thanks to technological advances of our production platform, StreamYard, we are now able to pre-schedule all of our sessions, which means that we can also create unique pages to view all of our sessions. So now, when you go to our LIVE page on the day of our live broadcast, you just need to click on the link to the session you want to view. If you are really, really bored, you can even click on each link now and just sit there staring at the screen until the session begins. The staring record is 22 hours, 17 minutes, 19 seconds. Email Derek if you beat it.
2. It’s not that Derek and I are cheap (OK, maybe we are), but we’ve always used the “free” version of whatever recording platform we were using at the time (note from Derek: we did this to make a point. Mission accomplished, I think.) Consequently, you would always see a little icon with the logo of that platform on the screen of our sessions. This year, I finally convinced Derek to be a grownup and pony up some of his hardly-earned cash to upgrade to the lowest tier of StreamYard’s paid plan. So now you’ll see the CMEpalooza logo in the top right corner of each session. Super important, I know.
3. A few years ago, we offered all of our brilliant CMEpalooza sponsors the opportunity to embed a promotional video beneath their listing. We would typically have 2 or 3 sponsors who took us up on the offer. For whatever reason, this fall we’ve had way more people asking us to put up their videos than usual. As of this writing, there are 10 promotional visits you can check out. Many of these are quite slick.
4. We’ve used Poll Everywhere as our audience response technology for the last few CMEpaloozas. It’s fairly simple to program and run, so we now offer it to our session panelists. I don’t know that everyone will use it this Fall, but a fair number will (and for the anchor 4 pm Trivia session, you absolutely will need Poll Everywhere to play along). Not a bad idea to download the app to your phone/device in advance. Our meeting “handle” is CMEpalooza000. If you don’t want to download another app, you’ll be able to go to this link.
5. While it’s totally voluntary, we are asking everyone to tell us a little about yourself by going to this link. Like I said, not mandatory, but if you want to let us know how amazing you are, this is the link you need to click on. So please, click on this link.

You know what’s not changing about CMEpalooza? The cost. CMEpalooza remains and will always be free for everyone to watch. No pre-registration, no credit cards numbers, no nothing. Every year, we always get a few people emailing us to ask “How do I register for CMEpalooza?” We tell them the same thing – you don’t. You just show up whenever you want to. Missed a live session? View it in the Archives. Also for free.

Like a mother hen gathering her chicks around her, I love all of my CMEpalooza sessions with equal affection. But I will admit that I do have a special fondness for whatever session ends up in the last slot of the day. That slot always has the toughest row to hoe and regardless of topic or start time, always has the fewest number of viewers. It has always been the case with live conferences and it is the case with virtual conferences, too. (Note from Scott: Derek, stop giving away our secrets!)

With that in mind, I would like to give a plug for everyone to stick around for the last session of CMEpalooza Fall 2020: CME Pop Trivia! I, Derek (not Scott), will serve as the all-knowing Quizmaster for four rounds of CME trivia…and a sprinkling of pop culture, too. I have requested the services of four noble Questionmasters to develop four questions in four topics and they all graciously accepted.

• From Questionmaster Brian McGowan: CME History
• From Questionmaster Scott Gorman: ACCME Commendation Criteria
• From Questionmaster Tricia Wilson: Standards for Commercial Support
• From Questionmaster Jon Simmons: Your Editor’s Top Pet Peeves About Your Proposals

After each set of 4 questions, there will be an extra question based on some piece of arcane pop culture trivia that will have no relation to anything else. Why? Because it’s fun!

There will be music. Why? Because it’s fun!

There will be drinking. Why? Because it’s fun!

Lengthy side note: It is the last session at the end of what is always a long day, so yes, I plan to take advantage of the situation and have myself a beverage while hosting trivia. Feel free to join me.

The drink of the day will be a Manhattan (note from Scott: Yes, Derek is an old man). No need to Google a recipe when I am here to help.

My preferred Manhattan is as follows:

• Fill a cocktail shaker half full with ice
• Add 2 oz rye (Bulleit is nice, Rittenhouse is better, and Dad’s Hat Vermouth Finish Rye is my favorite)
• Add 1 oz sweet vermouth (Antica Formula is excellent and Dolin Rouge is also nice. I suppose you can use Rosso, too, just don’t tell me.)
• Shake in 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
• Cover and shake until the shaker freezes your hands
• Strain into a glass (you’re supposed to use a coupe glass, but seriously, who even has those?)
• Add one, maybe even two, Luxardo cherries. DO NOT USE GENERIC MARASCHINO CHERRIES. Look, if your idea of fine dining is a 4:45 reservation at Applebees, well-done steak with ketchup, and a bottle of Bud Light, then maybe regular old Maraschino cherries are for you. Otherwise, trust me on this one and spend a few extra bucks on Luxardo. They make everything better.
• Pro tip: after adding your cherries, scoop out a little of the cherry syrup and mix it into your drink. You will thank me later.
• Grab your drink and get ready for trivia!

There will be prizes. Why? Because of the generous support from our prize sponsor Haymarket! (First place gets a $250 Amazon gift card. Second place gets $150. Third place gets $100.)

We will be using Poll Everywhere, so if you want to be super-prepared, you can go ahead and download the Poll Everywhere app.

I really hope that some/many/all of you can join. It should be a fun time and who knows? You might even learn something.