I realize that Derek and I put on a brave face, and because of it, many of you are probably under the illusion that CMEpalooza headquarters is all balloons, video games, and cotton candy. It’s not – we don’t like cotton candy.

And in reality, most of our growing staff is busy with the usual drudgery of managing our global media appearances, making sure our luxury corporate jet is stocked with Evian water, and answering fan mail. It sucks, believe me.

That said, there are a few things that happen during the day that make us put down the Wall Street Journal (Derek is still looking for the funny pages) and smile. Such as:

1. A compliment on our sense of humor. From a recent fan: “This is the most hilarious post I’ve read in months….on any blog.” She’s right, you know.
2. A well-crafted abstract for CMEpalooza Spring. Don’t forget to check them all out on our Poll page this week and vote, people!
3. New sponsors. We’ve got two so far, with a few others coming soon (promise).
4. Repeat sponsors. There are 10 of those, which hopefully means we’ve done something right in the past that people think we’ll repeat again this year.

You can see listings and descriptions of all of our sponsors on our newly-launched Sponsor tab. Here is the current rundown:

Gold Sponsor: Genentech

Silver Sponsors: PlatformQ Health Education, Global Academy for Medical Education, LLC, and ASiM

Bronze Sponsors: Vivacity Consulting, Vindico Medical Education, RMEI Medical Education, infograph-ed, Impact Education, LLC, Educational Measures, CMEology, Clinical Care Options, and Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning

We’re humbled and grateful to all of them for their support. In return, we have a few impromptu things planned this year to bring some extra attention to our sponsors (just you wait and see). Certainly, we encourage you to learn about the various services and specialties of all of our sponsors – I’ve collaborated personally with many of these folks over the years on projects of varying shapes and sizes, and they really are among the best of the best in our profession.

Of course, it’s far from too late for other interested parties to join in the fun. In fact, we’ll be adding in some additional new sponsors in the next few days. We often get new sponsors coming aboard right up until the day of our Spring event in April, so if you want to see all of the value a sponsorship brings, please take a look at our 2016 Prospectus. Derek and I are happy to answer any questions you might have as well – we have a crack team of interns who are constantly crunching numbers and doing research on our behalf. I believe Derek posted images of them hard at work in the past.

(Trumpets blare)

Hear ye, hear ye! By the order of King Scott and Derek (our Fool), it has been decreed that voting for CMEpalooza Spring abstracts is officially open.

Our apologies in advance to residents of both Iowa and New Hampshire – we recognize that that the nation has pandered to you because of the extra value of your votes in the presidential primaries, but here in the democracy that is CMEpalooza, everyone gets to vote at precisely the same time. Funny how that can work so well.

We received 16 submissions for our Spring meeting from faces both old and new, so thank you for everyone who took the time to come up with creative ideas for potential sessions. As always, it’s an interesting mix of topics and concepts.

You can view descriptions of all of the submitted abstracts on our Poll page.

Here is how the voting process works.

1. When you open up the Poll page, you’ll first see the poll with all of the abstracts that are available. Scroll down until you get to the first session listing.
2. Take a close read through all of the sessions. Be sure to rub your chin and say, “Hmm… interesting” a few times as you peruse the options.
3. Come up with your top 5 session choices that you’d like to see on the agenda for CMEpalooza Spring
4. Scroll back to the top of the page where we have the poll itself
5. Vote for your faves

It’s really quite simple. Even someone who supports Donald Trump can figure it out (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

But anyway, voting will remain open for one full week, closing at 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 9. You can only vote once per device. The sessions that get the most votes will be included on the CMEpalooza Spring agenda. No delegates, no recalls, no controversy.

For those of you wondering about the voting for our Pecha Kucha session, so as to avoid confusion, we’ll keep you in suspense for another week before unleashing our plan to select participants for that session.

Let the jousting begin!

Last Friday, I was flipping channels and stumbled across The Godfather Epic on HBO. This is the version where they recut The Godfather I & II to run as a single film in chronological order along with a extra scenes cut from the originals. A young Vito Corleone was just being placed in quarantine on Ellis Island, and I was hooked. Three hours later, I had barely moved and was screaming at Sonny Corleone not to stop at the tollbooth. Alas, it was the end for both of us: Sonny stopped and was gunned down, and I headed to bed way too late. What a great, great movie(s).

You know what’s not a great movie? The Godfather III. The same people were back in charge, but Francis Ford Coppola made the fatal mistake of casting his daughter, Sofia, in a key role. She, unfortunately, was awful and the entire movie suffered because of it. The lesson here is that your next movie is only as good as the people you have in it.

This brings me back to CMEpalooza. We need your abstracts for CMEpalooza Spring and we need them today. It doesn’t matter how many times Scott and I have done this and how good the past versions have been — the next version of CMEpalooza will only be as good as the people we have in it. And we want it to be good!

This is the last day we will accept submission. So, one last time:

To submit and abstract for CMEpalooza Spring, click here.

To submit a PechaKucha abstract for CMEpalooza Spring, click here.

Leave an abstract. Take the cannoli.