A Sneak Peak with… Erik Brady

~ scottkober ~ 1 Comment

When Dr. Erik Brady stunned the CME world by announcing that he was moving to the ivory towers of academia (he is now the Director of Graduate Education Programs at Wake Forest University), we thought we had seen the last of him in the world of CMEpalooza.

No such luck.

(I kid, I kid)

One of the seasoned veterans of our events, Erik is back this Spring to lead a panel of 3 experts who will bring a variety of perspectives to the topic of “No Hail Mary’s Required: Novel Ways to Use Data for Continual Program Assessment.” Erik recently joined us – bow tie and all – to offer some brief insight into what learners can expect from the session in the video below.

Erik and his co-presenters are also hoping for some insight regarding program assessment from the broader CME community and have made a short, 5-question survey available for everyone here. Please help them out folks.

And don’t forget: For everyone attending this week’s World Congress on Continuing Professional Development, our #CMEpalooza Challenges start tomorrow (Thursday) morning! Follow Derek and/or I or Twitter (@thecmeguy and @medcasewriter) to follow along and win some money!

A Special CMEpalooza Promotion at the World Congress

~ scottkober ~ Leave a comment

I like to joke with Derek that I am good for one new creative idea a year (really, it’s one idea every other year). Consequently, I think he knocked over the bowl of Cookie Crisp he was eating at his desk when my latest bit of creative genius slapped down into his inbox.

Nevertheless, I hope you will all enjoy it.

Here is the gist of it:

There are hopefully a few loyal readers of this blog who will be attending this week’s World Congress on Continuing Professional Development in San Diego (don’t forget to come to Friday morning’s 11 a.m. Innovation Lab in Cortez Hill AB where Derek and I will be doing some cool demonstrations).

In preparation for this event, we have been collecting “fun facts” from our CMEpalooza Spring sponsors, little Twitter-friendly tidbits that highlight something special or unique about each organization. We pretty much gave our sponsors carte blanche regarding what they wanted to say, so some of these tidbits are stone-cold serious, some are strange or silly, and some fall somewhere in the middle.

Starting on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. PT and running all the way through Saturday morning at 11 a.m. PT, we will be posting a variety of “#CMEpalooza Challenges” on our Twitter feeds (@medcasewriter and @thecmeguy), each of which will be tied to one of our sponsors.

These challenges will vary in nature – some could involve completing a certain task ( “Be the first to give @thecmeguy a piece of red paper”) or answering a trivia question (“Be the first to tell @medcasewriter who wrote the theme song to The Facts of Life“) or something else that is relatively straightforward. It won’t be anything too tricky or embarrassing… we promise.

But there will be a few tricks to winning:

  1. You must be in attendance at the World Congress. We know this is a seriously limiting factor, so if you won’t be going, sorry, you can’t win.
  2. You must follow us on Twitter (again, @medcasewriter and @thecmeguy). Since that is the only place where each challenge will be posted, that is the only way to find out about it.
  3. You have to be smart and nimble to complete each challenge.
  4. You have to figure out where we are sitting/standing/walking around (don’t worry, we won’t be hiding) to give us/tell us the solution.

And the best thing of all is that there is a reward tied to every #CMEpalooza Challenge! We have a fistful of $10 Amazon gift cards to give away to the first person to successfully complete each task. With (for now) 15 sponsors who have provided us with “fun facts” about their organization, that $150 up for grabs.

You can win once, you can win twice, heck, you could even win all 15 times if you follow both of us around like a loyal puppy dog (not recommended) and are really skilled .

And if no one wants to play? Well, that’s $150 in Amazon gift cards that Derek and I can spend on our wives ourselves. 

At the end of each day, we’ll post a summary on our blog of that day’s sponsor fun facts,  as well as the challenges and challenge winners.

And really, that’s all there is to it.

 

 

Why the Fear of Google Hangouts On Air?

~ scottkober ~ 6 Comments

A little more than a week ago, Derek wrote a meandering post about how faith in the Philadelphia 76ers’ “process” of losing over and over again is akin to having faith in the power of Google Hangouts On Air (the free broadcast platform we use for CMEpalooza).

Frankly, he lost me about 2 sentences in – not that that is terribly unusual. I remember there was something about the Bible, a reference to Growing Pains (where have you gone Joanna Kerns?), and maybe a commentary on 17th century French politics. Like I said, it was all pretty confusing.

The one thing I can agree with, however, was Derek’s admonition that you don’t need to think of Google Hangouts on Air (GHOA) as this scary, complicated monster that requires years of testing and training to figure out. As Paul Pasqualoni (Google him) would so ineloquently say, “It ain’t rocketship science.”

Unfortunately, I get the sense that the majority of the healthcare community still sees GHOA’s as this mysterious platform that they don’t even want to mess with. It’s unfortunate, as my experience using GHOA’s to deliver accredited education has shown that faculty overwhelming enjoy using the platform once they understand how simple it is and how it can be a powerful way to reach learners.

Don’t believe me? Take a quick look at a broadcast I produced this week at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN6mtgaT1Ao (note that this was actually not an accredited program, but the content is similar to what one would expect from accredited education). This is just one example of many in my personal portfolio.

You had 4 individuals on the call – 1 from her office and 3 from their respective homes. Does it look different than a studio broadcast? Yes, of course. But is the quality of the education any worse? Is it more complicated to follow along with? I’m biased, but I really don’t think so.

I’ve done quite a few Google Hangouts over the course of the last 5 years, both as part of CMEpalooza and as part of my other day-to-day responsibilities (indeed I have a “real job” as well). There have been very few issues over the years – I’m not saying the technology has always been perfect, but it’s usually worked exactly as it should. Oh, and you do realize it is FREE to use, right?

That said, I am not personally familiar with anyone else in the CME field who has used the GHOA platform to broadcast a live discussion or event (yes, you can film a live symposium/event and use GHOA to broadcast it live if you think creatively). If I’m wrong, please point me toward another example.

At this point, since it’s not new technology and we’ve consistently shown through CMEpalooza how GHOA’s can work and work well, my questions to other CME providers are these:

What is preventing you from using the GHOA platform for enduring education? Is the technology still too new and mysterious? Are you afraid potential funders won’t understand it (and fund it)? Are you afraid faculty won’t want to give it a try?

Next week at the World Congress of Continuing Professional Development, Derek and I will be pulling back the “magical curtain” and demoing how easy it is to set up and use a GHOA at an Innovation Lab session (11 a.m. PT on Friday). During our demonstration, we’ll walk learners through the simple, step-by-step process of how to set up and moderate a GHOA (yes, you too can learn our secrets!). There are a number of how-to videos and written guides online that we’ll probably plagiarize brilliantly adapt as a handout. Perhaps we’ll even post it to this blog when we’re done.

In the meantime, I’ll be curious whether anyone wants to provide any feedback on their views of GHOA as a platform for accredited CME either via comments to this blog or in person next week in sunny San Diego.