*Not a real conversation. I am totally making this up.

Caller: So I heard a friend of mine talking about CMEpalooza, and I’m interested in attending. Where is the meeting being held this year?

Me: Same place as last time and the time before. On your computer. Or your tablet. Or your cell phone. It’s all online. This is not an in-person meeting.

Caller: Really? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Me: Have you ever been on a webinar? It’s kinda like a whole series of those scheduled back-to-back-to-back, but much more interesting.

Caller: Um, OK. So do you provide lunch for all attendees? And a coffee break? I find that unless I have something to eat and drink every 2 hours, I start to doze off.

Me: No, not really. Since we’re not technically there with you, food and drink are on you. But really, feel free to get up and refill your pumpkin spice latte and grab an apple cider doughnut whenever you want. We even build in short, 5-minute breaks between sessions so that is a good time to refresh yourself.

Caller: That’s weird. So if you don’t give us food and drink, what exactly do we get for our registration fee?

Me: There is no registration fee. CMEpalooza is free for everyone.

Caller: Come again.

Me: It’s free. F-R-E-E.

Caller: Very funny, smart guy. But really, my employer puts aside a certain amount of money each year for “professional development.” Just tell me where to go to pay. It’s not a big deal.

Me: Sorry, but there is nowhere to go to pay. CMEpalooza is free. Always has been, always will be. But if you really have money you absolutely, positively need to spend, you can just send me a personal check. Here, let me spell my last name for you. K-O-B-

Caller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this CMEpalooza thing is all online and free? Who exactly wrote the business plan for this event? A 4-year-old?

Me: Something like that.

Caller: Whatever, it’s your deal. So where do I go to register?

Me: There is no pre-registration.

Caller: No pre-registration.

Me: Right.

Caller: So then how exactly do you know if people are going to show up?

Me: We’ve been doing this for a little while now. We’re pretty sure we won’t be speaking to an empty room.

Caller: Room? What room? I thought you said this wasn’t a live meeting.

Me: It was an expression.

Caller: Stop trying to confuse me.

Me: Sorry. I’ll only use words with less than 3 syllables from now on.

Caller: So no meeting room, no cost, no pre-registration. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, why would anything about CMEpalooza be, you know, normal?

Me: That’s sort of the point, actually. We offer something very different for the CME community. We make it as convenient as possible.

Caller: Since you seem to have all the answers, what do I do when I wake up on October 21?

Me: Optimally, you’d brush your teeth, put on some clothes, that kind of thing. But hey, if you want to watch CMEpalooza in your bathrobe, you can. All you need to do is go to the LIVE tab on our website at 9 a.m. ET to watch the first live panel broadcast. Every hour, refresh your screen at the top of the hour and the next broadcast will begin. Really, it’s quite simple.

Caller: Says you. I’m kind of an idiot when it comes to computers. I used the CD-ROM drive on my old laptop as a cup holder for 2 years before someone explained to me what I was doing wrong.

Me: Seems like an honest error.

Caller: Now you are just patronizing me. But with all the things I don’t have to do to watch CMEpalooza, why exactly is it worth my time?

Me: Ultimately, that’s your call, but we try our best to put together an interesting agenda of topics and speakers that will resonate with people who work in every aspect of CME. One area where we don’t skimp is in the quality of our education. We’re as excited as ever for this fall’s agenda.

Caller: Did you mail out a brochure with the agenda? I didn’t get anything!

Me: No, it’s all online on our website. There is no brochure and there was nothing mailed. You got exactly the same amount of material in the mail as everyone else – nothing.

Caller: OK, I’m looking at the agenda. Seems interesting… I know this woman, she’s good… Huh, I like that topic… Wait a minute, what the heck is pecha kucha?

Me (rolling my eyes): Call Derek.

Let’s face it — some people are good at public speaking and some are not.

I…am not.

Angelo Carter — moderator for our 10 a.m. CMEpalooza Fall session entitled Why Did My Grant Request Get Rejected? and subject of our most recent moderator interview — is. It’s a pleasure just to listen to him talk, even moreso when he’s talking about some of his best and worst experiences in CME (that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as a segue. Please hold your applause.)

Check out our conversation below and feel free to skip over the parts where I’m speaking. At the very least, be sure to listen to the section where Angelo describes a time when one of his superiors described his numbers supporting the value of CME as “hocus pocus.” It’s a great example of taking a potentially negative experience and turning it into something positive in the long term.

10. It’s the same cost whether one person from your organization attends or 50 people from your organization attend: nothing.

9. Dude, have you seen our agenda? I mean, c’mon…

8. Tell your boss you won’t be in because you’re watching CMEpalooza Fall at home. Spend the day curled up on the couch with your laptop, pajamas, and a cup of fair-trade, locally roasted, recently ground, French-pressed coffee (or watch from your office in a suit with a cup of crappy Keurig coffee if that’s what floats your boat.)

7. So we can tell our sponsors that lots of people watched (hey – at least I’m being honest.)

6. Three words: CME. Pecha. Kucha. Or is that five words? Is it one word for each letter since CME is an acronym? Five words: C. M. E. Pecha. Kucha. Forget it, let’s move on…

5. No sessions with “QI” in the title. Look, by no means am I poo-pooing the QI movement currently sweeping CME nation, but it does seem like we go through phases where a certain subject is the “hot topic” of the moment and we get one session after another about it at the various conferences we go to. A few years ago it was REMS. More recently it was the Sunshine Act. Now it’s QI. When Scott and I were putting together the agenda, we purposely stayed away from any QI-centric sessions, just to give people a bit of a break.

4. The scuttlebutt around the water cooler has it that Scott will be doing a how-to demo of the “Nae Nae” during one of the sessions. I can’t comment on the accuracy of this report or predict during which session it might happen, but I recommend watching them all just in case.

3. Get a new perspective on common issues. Are you frustrated with your faculty? Annoyed with the grant review process? Confused by millennials? Clueless about patient education? Bored with Moore’s outcome levels? Stumped by grand rounds? CMEpalooza Fall will touch on each of these topics and, hopefully, bring some fresh ideas for you to put into practice.

2. Because it’s gonna be good. I promise.

1. Have I mentioned it’s free?