When the calendar moves over into August, it’s often a bittersweet time. Yes, it’s still summer, but you can see the warning lights on the horizon – the nights are getting shorter, your favorite baseball team has thrown in the towel on another season, and the “BACK TO SCHOOL SALE: YOUR CHILD NEEDS THIS $75 LUNCHBOX OR ELSE HE’LL GET BEATEN UP AT RECESS!” flyers start to jam your mailbox.

From a work perspective, August’s arrival means that things are soon going to get serious again. No longer is your inbox going to be filled with messages that read, “I am currently on vacation and will not be checking email for the next month. I know you probably have a deadline you need to meet, but it’s the summertime, pal. I’m well into my 5th margarita of the day. Go away.” Instead, things will actually start to get done again, which is admittedly kinda nice.

Here at CMEpalooza headquarters, we’ll soon be saying goodbye to the lifeguards at our rooftop Olympic-sized pool as we start getting serious about our Fall meeting. Fortunately, we’ve been getting ready for a while. Unlike many other folks, the summertime is not “shut-it-down” time for us, not with our crack summer interns yearning to stuff more envelopes, send more Snapchats, and find every friggin’ Pokemon that they can on our expansive, 300-acre campus.

Here is what you have been missing in the last few weeks while applying your SPF 80:

• Our Fall agenda is out. We’re trying out a bunch of new formats and bringing to you a cadre of new presenters. It’s gonna be awesome.
• The deadline for our Puntua Lortu session has passed. Derek is busy qualifying and quantifying the merits of the thousands of submissions he received. You should soon see who has been lucky enough to be chosen.
• Our Sponsor page is filling up. We’re up to 1 Gold sponsor, 3 Silver sponsors (1 more is coming soon), and 13 Bronze sponsors (several more to be added shortly). Believe it or not, sponsorships remain available at every level, though if you are interested in joining us at one of our more premier levels, there are only a few spots left. More coming soon on sponsorships, and our special plans to provide added exposure for those organizations wise enough to align themselves with CMEpalooza with a neat little activity in September.
• Our Archive is bigger than ever. You can view and learn from every session that has ever been presented at CMEpalooza in its history. For free. Whenever you want.

NOTE: Portions of the blog post below were originally used in an August 2014 CMEpalooza newsletter that approximately five people read. You can call it self-plagiarism if you want, but if Donald Trump, Jr’s speechwriter doesn’t have a problem with it, then I don’t have a problem with it, either.

In Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts, she postulates that 30-40% of the members of any audience would identify himself or herself as an introvert. That’s not a small percentage. Now, think about the primary methods most conferences still use for audience engagement with the faculty. At smaller sessions, you raise your hand; at larger meetings you go up to the nearest mic and wait your turn. Either way, a certain amount of aggression is needed to get your question asked and you’re required to talk in front of an audience. Many of you are able to do this without a second thought and have little difficulty with hopping up in front of a crowd of people to ask a question. It is a method that definitely favors the communication style of the extroverts in the audience.

But for that 30-40% introvert audience, getting up in front of a group of people and asking a question is just not going to happen. It’s not. It’s not that we don’t have questions (yes, I’m including myself in this group) – we often do – but if the only way we can get it asked is by being put in a spotlight with everyone around us waiting to hear what we have to say, well, we’ll just wait until later and figure out a different way to find an answer, thanks. To be fair, more and more meetings I attend are starting to include alternative means for audience interaction, such as notecards for questions or the ability to send in questions via an iPad. But in general, most of the engagement still comes via live questions, and that’s fine. Live conferences cater to an extroverted audience, which is understandable since that is the dominant cohort.

One of the (many) things I love about CMEpalooza is that it is a haven for introverts. You can attend a day-long conference without ever leaving the comfort of your home, office, or home office. You don’t need to arrive early to grab a “good” seat (i.e. in the back) and then spend the next 15 minutes looking at your phone in order to avoid awkward small talk with the person next to you. No walks through the exhibit hall to refill your coffee, avoiding eye contact with any of the exhibitors you see watching you out of the corner of your eye. And no standing up in front of a crowd of people to ask a question. You can ask questions, sure – just not in the usual “stand-up and be recognized” manner.

During every version of CMEpalooza, we have three designated methods for the audience to ask questions: the Google Hangout Q&A app, #cmepalooza hashtag on Twitter, and our text line. All three have worked well for us and provide a means for our audience to engage with our faculty.

Moving beyond just the audience, we have found that the Google Hangouts format has appealed to some of our more introverted presenters, as well. The thought of standing up in front of a live audience, regardless of how large or small, and delivering a presentation can be very intimidating to some. I’ve talked a number of people into presenting at CMEpalooza simply by reminding them that there’s no audience to look at or to look at you. The only people you will see is me (or Scott, which is another issue entirely, but I digress) and the other presenters. That has proven to be a comfort to some and I’ve been pleased that we have had a few “first-time” presenters participate in what they felt was a manageable environment for them.

I’ll close with a reminder that we are still accepting abstracts for our Puntua Lortu session at CMEpalooza Fall. If you are someone who has been looking for an opportunity to present in a casual, low-stress environment, I’d encourage you to consider submitting an abstract. The due date for abstracts is July 29, so don’t wait too long!

Poor Derek.

There are few things in life that get him excited – the prospect of his beloved Philadelphia 76ers winning more than 20 games this season, a 24-hour Quantum Leap marathon on the Sci-Fi Network, signing a petition to remove green clovers from boxes of Lucky Charms.

And Puntua Lortu. Don’t forget that.

In case you have been sleeping (or ignoring us), Puntua Lortu is Derek’s CMEpalooza pet project. Introduced as Pecha Kucha last fall and then reborn as Puntua Lortu in the spring, it’s our session where presenters are put under the heat lamp and asked to do a lightning-round presentation with 20 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds.

It’s 6 minutes of your life that you’ll never forget… if you dare to be bold enough (queue the eerie Scooby Doo music).

But the session only happens if people stand up and are willing to give it a go. We’re still looking for a few abstracts to fill out our Fall roster, and you’ve got until July 29 (that’s next Friday) to cobble something together. What’s a good topic? I dunno – that’s up to you. Something that is simple and straightforward and compelling. Tell a story. Do an impression. Pantomime.

Surely you’ve seen all of the other cool people involved and interesting topics we’ll be talking about at our Fall event. Join us, and them. Before Derek starts crying again and curling up in a fetal position. It’s not pretty – trust me.

Click here to submit your Puntua Lortu abstract