Year: 2009

Notes for 12/6/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

Edmonton Notes for 12/5/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton’s improved online City Council meeting agendas & minutes

A little over a week ago a new online system for Edmonton City Council’s meeting agendas and minutes went live. The long overdue update brings a number of improvements for public access, notably an integrated view of all information on the same screen. As someone who frequently accesses the agendas and minutes, I’m really happy the old system is gone, and at least so far, I think the new one is great!

The previous system for managing agendas and minutes, built in-house about 15 years ago, was called OCCTOPUS (Official Council and Committee Tracking Output Publishing and Updating Services). If you’ve never used it, consider yourself lucky! Based on Microsoft Word documents, OCCTOPUS was clunky and awkward to use. To get at the details for an agenda item, you often had to click through four connected Word documents. It always reminded me of the ETS Trip Planner, which loves to spawn dozens of new windows.

If you want to see the old system, check out the minutes for the November 10th Council meeting. Then compare that to the new system, by looking at the minutes for the November 24th Council meeting. I think you’ll agree that the new one is much better!

Some of the improvements & features of the new system include:

  • No more Word documents! Agendas and minutes now appear in HTML.
  • You can access the agenda, minutes, supporting materials, and archived video for a meeting from within the same screen.
  • Archived video and supporting materials (often PDF reports) appear in column on the right side and open with a single click.
  • If you really want to, you can get a print view of the agenda or minutes with a single click.

Aileen Giesbrecht, Director of Governance and Legislative Services in the Office of the City Clerk, told me that the project to replace OCCTOPUS started in the summer of 2007, and in the fall of 2008 SIRE Technologies was awarded the contract. SIRE provides “legislative management technology” for county and local governments, and offers a number of off-the-shelf solutions or modules. According to Sarah Ellington of SIRE Technologies, the City of Edmonton is using three such modules: Agenda Plus, Minutes Plus, and Workflow. Each of the modules have been configured to meet the City’s requirements for formatting, business processes, etc. The City of Edmonton’s implementation is the first major SIRE project in Canada.

The biggest challenge in getting the new system in place, according to Aileen, was simply “finding the time to make it happen.” The work isn’t finished yet, either! The project currently improves access primarily for the public, and Aileen and her team are now working on improving access internally too. She said the related internal systems being implemented will help with ease of use and will support the City’s paperless strategy.

The proposed 2010 budget for Corporate Services (PDF), which mentions $164,000 for operational maintenance and support of SIRE, offers some additional insight into what’s next:

Operational funding of SIRE will allow for: Maintenance of SIRE software, including ‘Agenda and Minutes Plus’ and web integration between SIRE and our current ‘Thunderstone’ web-based search function; licences associated with SIRE software, including access for Councillors (‘Agenda To Go’), as well as access for City Clerks and other Administrators, Bi-annual updates to the SIRE software suite; and one staff position to coordinate and maintain the entire SIRE system.

The new system isn’t perfect – it still uses Windows Media for video, and it would be nice to be able to click directly from an item on the agenda to the corresponding item in the minutes – but it’s much better than what we had previously. I think it’s great that the City is working to improve access to information for citizens, and I hope this is just the beginning (think: open data).

The Story Behind the Transforming Edmonton Blog

Today the City of Edmonton is launching its first official blog, called Transforming Edmonton. In some respects, it might be fair to say that a City of Edmonton blog was inevitable. After all, the City has a growing social media presence and is using its experience to experiment further. The reality is that the existence of the Transforming Edmonton blog was anything but a matter of time!

Though many City employees are involved, Raffaella Loro has been the driving force behind the new blog since March of this year. In fact, she has been working to get the City blogging since at least 2006. As an early NextGen volunteer, Raffaella suggested the group start a blog to engage with volunteers. The City seemed ready to support the project, but the idea just didn’t pan out at the time. While she was disappointed, Raffaella didn’t give up. When the opportunity arose early this year during her tenure in the environment department at the City, she pitched the idea of starting a blog again. This time, the idea was met with enthusiasm.

The original goal was to start the blog in time for the ICLEI Conference in June, but that was a busy time for everyone involved, followed by the summer, and it just didn’t materialize. Raffaella used the delay to refine the concept, and realized that an environmental focus was too limited. I like the way she described it to me:

Just as individuals have a perspective when writing their blogs, the City has a perspective too. The Vision and Strategic Plan represent the City’s perspective, and that will come through on the blog.

The Transforming Edmonton blog will consist of human interest stories and other content that illustrate the City’s progress on realizing the Vision and delivering on the Strategic Plan. Or put another way, the blog will “share stories about how the City is working on transforming itself.” This is reflected in the blog’s sections: Economic Diversity, Environment, Financial Sustainability, Livability, Transportation, and Urban Form.

It’s important to note that the blog is a pilot at this point. It’s an experiment. Raffaella won’t be the only author – she has been busy over the last month recruiting other City employees to contribute content. A large number are on board already, but that support will have to continue to grow for the blog to be successful. The initial goal is to have two new posts about each category per month. Comments are encouraged, though they will be moderated in accordance with the blog’s Comment & Trackback Policy. Where appropriate, posts will link to non-City of Edmonton websites.

In our conversation, Raffaella suggested that the blog is about encouraging a cultural shift in the way the City of Edmonton operates. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but so far I think the project is on track. It makes use of the City of Edmonton’s existing social media profiles, rather than creating new ones. Transparency is a key focus of the blog, demonstrated by the fact that it will serve both external and internal audiences (there is no separate internal-only blog). And though it is quite different from some of the City’s other online initiatives, the Transforming Edmonton blog was relatively inexpensive to create – essentially just staff time.

Raffaella had lots of praise for the many individuals at the City of Edmonton who have played a role in getting the Transforming Edmonton blog up and running, in particular Jason Darrah and the other members of the Social Media Advisory Committee. She said “it’s the right time for the City to be doing this” and I completely agree. Kudos to Raffaella for persevering and making the blog a reality. It might take a while, but I think the blog is going to have an incredibly positive impact on the City and its residents.

Check out the Hello World post and welcome Transforming Edmonton to the blogosphere!

Edmonton launches bid for EXPO 2017

Today the City of Edmonton officially launched its bid to represent Canada in the international competition to host EXPO 2017. The bid is the result of many months of work by the Edmonton Expo 2017 staff, as well as volunteers and others. It was presented today to both the Province of Alberta and Heritage Canada.

You can download the bid in PDF here.

There are three key components to the bid: theme, site and benefits & legacies. Here’s the theme:

Harmony of Energy and Our Future Planet is a theme with breadth and scope sufficient to accommodate future developments that might lie ahead, ensuring a sustainable, high-quality legacy at the conclusion of EXPO 2017. The theme will position Canada as a leader and innovator in new approaches to energy and sustainability, far beyond the traditional energy sources of oil, gas, coal and hydro.

To arrive at this theme, Expo staff surveyed key local officials, talked with BIE, ran focus groups throughout Alberta, and engaged a number of volunteers and other community members. I think that while “energy” is perhaps a little obvious for an Albertan city, it does play to our strengths, and it presents us with an opportunity to establish Edmonton and Alberta as being about more than just oil and gas energy.

The second component is the site. The proposed main site is South Campus, with West Rossdale as the proposed secondary site. The two sites are linked by the River Valley, and would also be linked by LRT and water taxi for Expo. South Campus was selected because of its size and potential for growth. West Rossdale was selected for its historical significance. Here’s a map of the proposed sites:

Here’s a rendering of what the entrance of the main site might look like:

Here’s a rendering of a potential Canada pavilion:

Here’s a rendering of a potential Alberta pavilion:

The bid highlights the redevelopment of the Legislature grounds, as well as the construction of a signature bridge connecting downtown and the south side.

The third key component of the bid is the benefits that hosting EXPO 2017 would provide, as well as the legacies it will leave behind. They are outlined as:

  • Knowledge
  • Putting Edmonton, Alberta, and Canada on the World Map
  • Transforming Community Spirit and Pride
  • Creating an Inclusive and Accessible EXPO
  • Sharing Canadian Culture
  • Appreciating Cultural Diversity
  • Promoting Arts & Culture
  • Positive Economic Impact
  • City Building
  • Growing a Tourism and Trade Destination
  • Leadership in Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability
  • Creating Global Change

Those are quite broad and high level, but as EXPO 2017 is such a large event, it will touch on all of the above areas. Check out the bid document for more detail on each.

Where do we go from here? The timeline looks like this:

  • The bid process:
    • Spring 2010 – Selected by the Government of Canada
    • June 2011 – Submission of the international bid
    • October 2011-January 2012 – Enquiry mission by the BIE
  • And if selected:
    • June 2 or 3, 2017 – Opening day
    • July 1, 2017 – Canada’s 150th anniversary
    • September 2 or 3, 2017 – Closing day
    • Fall 2017-2018 – Legacy plans come into effect

Next week City Council will have to decide whether or not to approve $500,000 to continue EXPO 2017 operations until the national bid decision is made.

A couple of other relevant details:

  • It is my understanding that the site will feature no public parking. Transit is the focus!
  • Estimates call for 5.3 million visits, 1.9 million uniques (nearly half from out of province)
  • That translates to roughly 56,000 visits per day for three months (to put that into perspective, Capital EX recorded roughly 72,000 visits per day).
  • Close to 40,000 person years of employment would be created.
  • The event would boost Canada’s GDP by $2.6 billion, $2.3 billion of which would go directly to Alberta’s economy.

Edmonton EXPO 2017 LaunchEdmonton EXPO 2017 Launch

There’s a lot of information to read through, and until today few people except the Expo staff had seen it all. I’m going to take some time to digest things and I encourage you to do the same. I think the Expo team has done a great job of pulling everything together, but I think they have a lot of work to do in engaging the average citizen. They also have to make the financial case.

In general though, I’m very excited for the possibility of Edmonton hosting EXPO 2017. I think it could be another key part of our journey to becoming a world-class city.

You can see the rest of my photos from today’s launch here. Stay tuned to the website for updates, as well as Twitter and Facebook.

Reboot Alberta: Tweets & Blogs

A very interesting event took place in Red Deer this weekend called Reboot Alberta. Participants discussed the state of politics in Alberta, and explored ways to “reboot” things. I was invited, but decided to stay home. I’m not as well-versed in provincial politics as others and I was unsure what I would be able to contribute. Perhaps it would have been a good learning opportunity for me, but I got the impression that Reboot Alberta was (like ChangeCamp) looking for participants rather than observers. That said, I think I’ll start participating now!

There were a lot of tweets and blog posts written over the weekend, and during the week leading up to the event. I counted 1243 tweets with the #rebootab hashtag from November 21 until last night around midnight. After removing the hashtag, RT, and usernames, this is what you get if you combine them into a Wordle:

Likewise, there were a lot of blog posts written, with many more on the way I’m sure. Here’s a Wordle for them:

And here are the blog posts I included for that:

Watch for many more posts from participants and others, and be sure to check out Reboot Alberta.

Notes for 11/29/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

Edmonton Notes for 11/28/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Twittersphere: #yeg’s 25 Most Listed

In the December issue of Avenue Edmonton magazine there’s an article on Twitter, written by @Persepolian with photography by @bruceclarke. I was interviewed for the piece, and was asked by Avenue to supply a list of local users I’d recommend that newbies follow. There are so many great local users so it was quite a challenge! I think following the #yeg hashtag is probably more useful anyway.

Now that Twitter has had the Lists feature for about a month, I thought it would be interesting to see which users appear on the most lists. Let’s see who the community thinks you should follow! Here are Edmonton’s 25 most listed:

  1. dragonage (399)
  2. redneckmommy (379)
  3. revtrev (314)
  4. NHL_Oilers (293)
  5. wearestereos (200)
  6. gsiemens (199)
  7. lealea (179)
  8. edmontonjournal (164)
  9. cleversimon (159)
  10. patkSTEREOS (155)
  11. mastermaq (149)
  12. paradepro (148)
  13. Pat_Lorna (146)
  14. MilesSTEREOS (136)
  15. britl (124)
  16. CBCEdmonton (120)
  17. ctvedmonton (118)
  18. melanienathan (113)
  19. motherpucker (113)
  20. lyndasteele (112)
  21. CityofEdmonton (109)
  22. dancinginlife (101)
  23. Gen22 (97)
  24. GlobalEdmonton (97)
  25. pixelens (95)

This is based on a dataset of 3732 users, which is the number of users who posted at least 10 tweets from October 1st to November 25th (late last night). Of those, 1999 or 53.6% are members of at least one list, 561 or 15.0% have created at least one list, and 341 or 9.1% subscribe to at least one list. On average, local users are members of 10 lists, have created 3 lists, and subscribe to 3 lists. No one has created more than 20 lists, and just three users subscribe to more than 20 lists.

Two caveats: this only reflects public lists (I have no access to private lists obviously) and it reflects the entire Twitter community (dragonage is on 399 lists, many of which may have been created by non-local users). I hope to have some more detailed stats for the next State of the Edmonton Twittersphere (you can see October’s stats here).

As a total aside, I also looked at the new geo support that Twitter recently launched. You have to go into your Settings to enable it. Turns out just 40 users or 1.1% of the dataset have done that.

Stay tuned for more stats in the next couple weeks!

EEDC’s 2010 Economic Outlook Luncheon

Today I had the pleasure of attending the 2010 Economic Outlook Luncheon, hosted by Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) at the Shaw Conference Centre. More than 700 people attended. In addition to lunch and networking, the event featured an expert panel offering insight into the year ahead. The panelists included:

  • Hon. Iris Evans, Minister of Finance & Enterprise, Government of Alberta
  • Leo de Bever, CEO, Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo)
  • John Hokanson, retired entrepreneur
  • Dave Mowat, CEO, ATB Financial
  • Dr. Mike Percy, Dean of the School of Business, University of Alberta

Lesley MacDonald moderated, and EEDC President & CEO Ron Gilbertson gave the opening and closing remarks. Each panelist had an opportunity to make some remarks, and then members of the audience could ask questions. I live tweeted the event – here are some of the highlights:

  • Opening remarks from EEDC’s Ron Gilbertson: Canada’s economy is above average, Alberta and Edmonton average in Canada. #yeg
  • Iris Evans: over $1 billion, that’s the amount of aerospace and defence projects in #Alberta. #yeg #yyc
  • Leo de Bever: to have financial sustainability in #Alberta going forward, we need productivity growth.
  • John Hokanson says the livestock industry in #Alberta is shrinking at an alarming rate, affecting the entire agriculture industry.
  • John Hokanson says #Alberta and #yeg government spending are on unsustainable trajectories.
  • Dr. Mike Percy says it’s capital investment, particularly oilsands, that will lead #Alberta out of the recession, not consumers. #yeg
  • Dr. Mike Percy says a climate change policy in Canada not integrated with the US would be "insane at best". #yeg
  • Dr. Mike Percy says looking ahead, expect growth of about 2% in #Alberta, and it’ll be more robust north of Red Deer. #yeg
  • John Hokanson says young ppl entering the #Alberta workforce recently have no idea what goes into a day’s work. #yeg
  • Iris Evans says the new Alberta Art Gallery will be a very positive thing for #yeg and we need to recognize that.
  • Ron Gilbertson: #Alberta is one of the highest wage regions in North America. To compete, we need increased productivity. #yeg

I enjoyed economics enough during my time at the University of Alberta to minor it the subject, but I admit I felt quite rusty listening to the comments today. Especially Dr. Percy’s – he spoke with such confidence, knowledge, and ease. As you can imagine, I found John Hokanson’s dig at youth rather annoying. And I had no idea that Alberta’s aerospace industry was a billion dollar business. A quick Google search turned up this article (PDF):

The aviation and aerospace industry is comprised of firms that make aircraft and aircraft parts, perform aircraft maintenance, offer aircraft-related services and invent new technologies. The industry generates $1.3 billion in annual revenue, is home to 5,000 jobs exclusive of the airlines and airports, and exports 40 per cent of its products and services.

Fascinating! Apparently Canada’s aviation and aerospace industry is the fourth largest in the world, generating more than $22 billion in annual revenue.

EEDC's 2010 Economic OutlookEEDC's 2010 Economic Outlook

I thought the panelists sounded relatively optimistic, and though there are definitely challenges ahead, Edmonton and Alberta seem well-positioned to emerge from the recession to start experiencing growth once more.

One other thing I wanted to mention was the Edmonton Journal advertisement that everyone received. It was a small cardboard box advertising that the Journal is “Mobile Ready!” on both the iPhone and BlackBerry. Inside was a card with instructions on adding a shortcut for a variety of devices, as well as a small “EJ” screen cleaner. I think pushing mobile right now is a smart move, and I thought the advertisement was very well done.

Thanks to Jenifer Christenson for inviting me out today!