We’re back! Did you miss us? No? I’ll rephrase: Did you miss me? Yes? Awww, thanks!

Anyway, I’m here to announce two things (drumroll…)

1. CMEpalooza Spring is going to be held on April 6, 2016
2. The opening of the CMEpalooza Spring abstract submission process is going to be…now (deadline is Feb. 1)

As you may recall from last year, CMEpalooza Spring is a bit different than CMEpalooza Fall in that instead of Scott and me picking the agenda, we let you pick the agenda. We do that through an open abstract process where anyone is welcome to submit their idea for a CMEpalooza Spring session and then we post all the abstracts online and ask the CME/CE community to choose the five sessions they are most interested in. We had over 800 votes last year and we’re hoping for even more this year!

How do you submit an abstract for CMEpalooza Spring you ask? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezee. It’s only takes 5 steps:

1. Come up with an good great amazing idea
2. Go here and complete the form
3. Make yourself a cup of coffee. I recommend using an AeroPress. If you’re going to use a Keurig, I suggest just boiling water and adding brown food coloring. Pretty much the same thing.
4. Twiddle thumbs
5. Click the submit button

And you’re done!

I should add that, based on the success of the CME Pecha Kucha at CMEpalooza Fall, we are planning to bring it back for CMEpalooza Spring. We’ll have a separate application process for that, which we’ll announce later on, so keep that in mind while you’re brainstorming abstract ideas.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to let Scott or I know. Below is a picture of our new intern triaging all of the CMEpalooza questions that flood in every day. He’s waiting for your call/email now!

You may remember last summer that we launched a new offering called “CMEpalooza Company Spotlight.” No, you say, you don’t remember? For shame, pilgrim, for shame!

OK, OK, I’ll forgive you this time and provide a quick refresher. The CMEpalooza Company Spotlight was launched as an opportunity for MECCs/universities/providers/etc. to take advantage of the CMEpalooza brand and our built-in audience to get out information about all of the cool and innovative things your organization is doing. You can check out the pilot we did with Educational Measures on the Spotlight tab of our website.

In a nutshell, here is how these Spotlights work:

1. You go to this link and complete the form expressing interest in being a “spotlighted” company (alas, these are not free, but really, how many new Ferraris do you need for your garage?)
2. We work with you to come up with a focus for your spotlight. Seeing as we are an external audience of sorts, hopefully we’ll be able to help you come up with issues that our broader Palooza audience would be interested in learning about. The last thing anyone wants is a snoozer presentation.
3. You can have up to 4 people from your organization participate as panelists. You can create slides if you want. We’re flexible.
4. We’ll schedule a time for your 30 minute spotlight. We’re planning on holding these from noon-12:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday afternoons. How many will we schedule? No idea. Could be 1, could be 10. Won’t be 500.
5. We’ll use our social media channels to build interest and an audience. I will “moderate” the session based on a jointly agreed-upon discussion guide that highlights the value of your organization/company and is of prospective interest to our viewers.
6. As with all CMEpalooza sessions, anyone can watch live. For free. Anyone can watch after the broadcast is over. For free. As an added bonus, you can take the video and embed it onto your website if you want. We’ll have a special tab set up on the CMEpalooza website so that people can watch these easily on our site whenever they want.

I’m embarrassed for Derek that he spent hours coming up with this concept only to see it gain momentum at about the same rate as the new Justine Bateman workout video. It’s not pretty seeing a grown man cry (though it can sometimes be funny).

Anyway, feel free to reach out to either of us if you have any questions or want more information. We need the entertainment.

This is a tale of two men.

One of the men — let’s call him, oh, how about…Skott? — used his downtime after CMEpalooza Fall to do something productive. Skott was a busy beaver and updated the CMEpalooza archive by taking all of the new CMEpalooza Fall sessions and adding them to the archive page by category. Good job, Skott!

If you’ve never had a chance to check out the archive page, you really should, especially if you have a particular topic you’re interested in. Need a refresher on educational design? There are eleven sessions you can watch. Suddenly thrust into the role of “outcomes expert” at your organization? Get a crash course in outcomes from the fourteen(!) sessions housed in the archive. It’s a pretty handy resource.

The other man — let’s call him Erek for anonymity’s sake — used his extra free time to write a 3000 word CMEpalooza-themed ghost story supposedly based on the events that transpired the night before CMEpalooza Fall. Erek is a bit of a wacko and admits that this may not have been the best use of his time. Skott just thinks it’s weird. In his defense, Erek would like to point out that he once wrote an even longer story about a hard-boiled CME Detective, so this should come as no surprise to anyone. He has posted a link to it here for those bored enough to take a gander.

Both of these men would like to once again thank everyone who participated in last week’s successful CMEpalooza Fall and wish you all a Happy Halloween!