We’re all about innovation at CMEpalooza – heck, Derek broke every rule of common sense and ate his bowl of Lucky Charms at his desk this morning with a spork (he claims, “You need to try it, dude” but I remain skeptical).

Hopefully we have a few more interesting innovations for the CME community in the next few weeks. We’re rolling out one of them this morning.

Our friends at PlatformQ approached us a few weeks ago and asked us if we were interested in using their online “Q Board” during one of one Spring sessions. Never one to shy away from people offering him something for free, Derek quickly answered, “Oh my God, yes, yes. Thank you so much, thank you. I love you, I love you, I love you…. er, wait, what’s a QBoard?”

Being the more grounded and logical part of our duo, I was a little more circumspect, but nonetheless after taking the platform for a brief test drive, I thought it would be worth a try this Spring.

And so we’re making a special CMEpalooza QBoard available in preparation for our 2 p.m. ET Spring session entitled, “What is Data Visualization and How Can I Apply It?”

It’s a very simple platform. Here is how it works:

1. Take a look at the description for the “Data Viz” session on our Spring agenda page and think about anything specific you’d like to hear or ask about during the session
2. Click on this link to open the QBoard
3. Either type in a new question using the “Ask” button or up-vote a current question to make it a higher priority for our panel

That’s really about it. Our crack interns have pre-populated the QBoard with a few questions of their own, but feel free to contribute others. Our panel has promised to gear their discussion as much as possible to the questions that come in.

 

 

One of the (many) perks of being a higher tier CMEpalooza sponsor is the special add-ons we offer throughout the year. This year, we decided to up the ante by throwing all of our Silver and Gold sponsors into a pile to select the winner of a complimentary CMEpalooza Company Spotlight this Spring (there will be another drawing before the Fall meeting). The winner, as we announced a few weeks ago, was Global Academy for Medical Education.

After a flurry of intense meetings and negotiations, we settled on noon ET on Wednesday, April 12 for the live broadcast.

So what exactly will be happening during this 30-minute pre-Palooza session?

Certainly, you’ll learn a little about Global Academy for Medical Education, but these Spotlight sessions are primarily designed to showcase how different organizations approach challenges in CME in unique ways that are applicable throughout our industry. This is not going to be mindless drivel where we go through the catalog of activities available on the Global Academy for Medical Education website – that would serve no one’s interests.

Instead, during this Company Spotlight you’ll learn about how to build learner and faculty loyalty to your education, when and why to build external partnerships to strengthen your education, and how to identify and leverage what is unique about your organization to benefit your overall educational program.

As with all of our regular CMEpalooza sessions, there will be ample opportunities to ask probing questions of our panelists. We hope you’ll join us.

 

Here at CMEpalooza headquarters, we take our internship program seriously. Only the best and the brightest from Grand Lakes University (home of business tycoon Thornton Melon) pass through these hallways.

We expect a lot from our interns, putting them in charge of important tasks such as “Make sure Derek isn’t wearing his shirt inside-out again.” They do vital research as well, such as their current project, “Set the clocks in Derek’s office 5 minutes forward every day and then document how long it takes him to figure out something is awry.”

No one takes advantage of free labor quite like we do.

Alas, our interns don’t always have all of the answers. Case in point — when I asked them for ideas for our Spring Sponsor event, the room turned quieter than the Warnick household when reruns of Alice come on TV (Derek loves his Vic Tayback).

So seeing as I was getting no help from “the kids,” I was thrilled to see an email from a medical writer colleague of mine, Carrie Noriega, arrive in my inbox.

General paraphrasing here — “It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to be able to contribute an idea to CMEpalooza. Is there anything — please — that I can do to help you out?”

Far be it for me to dash someone’s dreams, I took Carrie up on her offer, asking her to come up with an idea for our Spring sponsor event.

Admittedly, she initially struggled to come up with something as her first two ideas (brutal honesty coming) sucked. But the third try was jusssttt on the right side of mediocre – hey, we don’t set the bar too high here – and we ran with it.

And with a small seed of an idea, CMEpalooza Pursuit blossomed.

As always, there are prizes for those who successfully enter our Spring Sponsor event. We’re giving out $500 worth of Amazon gift cards to randomly selected entrants – a $100 grand prize, 5 $50 second prizes, and 6 $25 third prizes.

Here are the rules of CMEpalooza Pursuit:

1. Call up the Sponsor page on the CMEpalooza website. You’ll need this for reference purposes to access our Sponsor’s websites.

2. Download the CMEpalooza Pursuit question form by clicking on this link.

You’ll see that questions are divided into categories that will be familiar to anyone who has ever played Trivial Pursuit – Geography, Entertainment, History, Arts & Literature, Science & Nature, and Sports & Leisure. There are three questions within each category, the answers to which can all be found on the sponsoring company website.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to answer every question – just one per category. If you want to be the teacher’s pet, of course, you can answer every question, though you get no formal extra credit, just that all over warm feeling for a job well done.

3. Download the CMEpalooza Pursuit answer form by clicking on this link. This is where you will enter in your answers – remember, only one answer is required per category. I promise that none of the questions are tricky or difficult. If it takes you more than 10 minutes to complete the entire challenge, you are doing something wrong.

4. Email me your completed answer form. It’s scott@medcasewriter.com. All completed forms will be entered into our drawing. One entry per person. Perhaps you make this a company-wise challenge and have your entire team enter individually. Perhaps you keep this a secret so that your chances of winning improve. Whatever. Just make sure that your entry is submitted by the deadline of midnight ET on Thursday, April 6.

That’s about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, they just finished installing an extra springboard at our company pool. Our interns are going to try to teach Derek how to do the Triple Lindy.