Recap: 2010 EEDC Annual Luncheon

By Mack D. Male · April 19, 2010 at 7:53pm

Today I joined hundreds of other Edmontonians at the 2010 EEDC Annual Luncheon, held at the Shaw Conference Centre. The event was an opportunity for EEDC to share its accomplishments over the past year, and to provide thoughts and guidance on the economic outlook for our city. Outgoing EEDC board chair Randy Ferguson got things underway with some thoughts on two of his favorite subjects: downtown, and EXPO 2017. Randy reiterated how important a downtown is to a city, and said that we must have the courage and commitment to make EXPO happen.

Next up was EEDC President & CEO Ron Gilbertson. Something that Ron has been showing a lot lately is the Edmonton Economic Dashboard, which grades our city on eight different aspects. Here’s where we are today:

Income/GDP – A
Retail Sales – A
Unemployment – B
Insolvency – C
Office Vacancy – A
Housing – B
Air Service – B
Inflation – A

Overall, that gives us a B+. Looking long-term, Ron gave Edmonton an A, saying:

Though Edmonton was not immune from the 2009 global decline, our economic fundamentals remain strong. Few economies have as bright prospects over the coming decades as Edmonton and northern Alberta.

The 2010 EEDC Awards of Excellence were also handed out:

Leadership Excellence Award: EPCOR
Innovation Excellence Award: Innovotech
Recognition Excellence Award: Art Gallery of Alberta

EPCOR President & CEO Don Lowry, Innovotech President Ken Boutilier, and AGA Chair Allan Scott were all on-hand to accept the awards on behalf of their respective organizations.

University of Alberta President Dr. Indira Samarasekera closed out the event with a phenomenal speech about the importance of working together (which you can read online here in PDF, or here). She focused on innovation, smarts, and creativity, and shared some really interesting and scary statistics (such as the low percentage of Albertans that go to post secondary). My favorite part though, was the beginning:

“I would like each of you to take your trusty digital device – Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, whatever you use – from your belt or pocket, or out of your bag and purse, and hold it in your hand,” she instructed. “Now, take a second moment to take a good look at it. In your hand, you hold the symbol of innovation. We call them smart phones. These smart phones have transformed our lives – our social lives, our business lives, our family lives, even our emotional and physical well being.”

It was a great way to start. She said one of our biggest challenges is speed – we have shorter incubation times than ever before, and we need to keep up (Innovotech’s Ken Boutilier talked about that too in his remarks). She also said that we need some BHAGs – Big Hairy Audacious Goals. And she stressed that both the City and the University desperately need to diversity their talent and economic bases. Dr. Samarasekera is a great speaker, and was definitely the highlight of the luncheon.

You can read the 2009 EEDC Annual Report here in PDF. Stay tuned to @EEDC on Twitter for updates.

Recap: ONEdmonton Leaders Forum

By Mack D. Male · April 9, 2010 at 1:30pm

Yesterday morning was EEDC’s first ONEdmonton Leaders Forum. The series of events aims to “bring together the region’s most influential leaders to discuss key topics affecting our community.” I am honored to have been invited to participate, likely to represent “youth” along with Cary Williams and a few others. Just over 90 of the 150 or so invited leaders attended the event, and while I’m not going to name any names (aside from the speakers) rest assured it was a very impressive collection of individuals.

The morning started with a welcome and overview from EEDC Board Chair and COO of ProCura, Randy Ferguson. He invited EEDC President & CEO Ron Gilbertson to set the stage for the event. Ron talked about where Edmonton is today (one of 307 mid-size cities in the world) and where we’d like to be. He focused on two key areas: economic success, and quality of life, referencing the Conference Board of Canada’s prosperity ratings as he went. After providing some context, Randy and Ron shared EEDC’s Vision (PDF):

To ensure Edmonton is recognized as one of the world’s top 5 mid-size cities by 2030.

I like it, and I think others in the room did too. That’s the vision the group will be aligning on and working toward achieving. The idea is to try to speak with one voice, hence the title of the forum.

After a quick break, we heard from four speakers:

Reg Milley, President & CEO, Edmonton Airports. Reg talked about the new Stop The Calgary Habit campaign, and about the importance of a healthy local airport. The slogan for the campaign, “when you go south, so does your air service” says it all. Reg implored everyone to “shop local” for air travel.
Jim Taylor, Executive Director, Downtown Business Association. Jim talked about the incredible transformations that have happened downtown in the last decade, and a little about what’s coming. He mentioned that the “cumulative story” is what’s important – all of the changes in aggregate are pretty impressive.
Sol Rolingher, C.St. J., Q.C., Duncan & Craig LLP, River Valley Alliance Chair. Sol talked about the importance of preserving, protecting, and enhancing the river valley, and about local heritage. He has been working with others to preserve some Edmonton artifacts throughout the river valley. I thought he was an incredible speaker, very passionate. He also gave everyone a copy of this awesome map.
Dave Mowat, President & CEO, ATB Financial, EXPO Bid Committee. Dave, with a little help from Randy, talked about the EXPO 2017 bid. I got the feeling that many in the room are excited for the bid, because it’s an opportunity to achieve big things all at once. There was nothing new for me in the presentation, but it was still a good overview.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of time for questions or further discussion, but it sounds like they’ll be working on improving that for future forums. I would have made the following comment, had there been time:

We know we have successes here, but we often don’t do a very good job of telling our story. Like Jim’s “cumulative story” on downtown, or the thriving local tech startup scene (reference by someone else in the group). We need to become better storytellers in order to achieve the vision.

Looking forward to the next forum!

What’s next for Edmonton Stories?

By Mack D. Male · February 25, 2010 at 11:05am

The last time I wrote about Edmonton Stories, I questioned the value of the initiative. Here’s what I wrote back in September:

I think Edmonton Stories is a great concept, and I’m glad to see that Edmontonians are contributing stories. The project was created to help market the city elsewhere though, and I don’t think it is accomplishing that yet.

I didn’t see any connection between the fantastic collection of stories that Edmontonians had contributed to the site and the marketing of Edmonton to others. Based on the reaction to that post, I don’t think I was alone in wondering what the next step was for Edmonton Stories.

Last week I sat down with Mary Pat Barry, Communications Branch Manager at the City of Edmonton, to try to get an answer to that question. We talked for about an hour in her office at City Hall, looking at the website itself, statistics, a case study, and marketing materials. The fact that I had been critical of the project in the past didn’t seem to bother Mary Pat. Not because she didn’t care, but because she was so excited to convince me of the value of Edmonton Stories. She could see the bigger picture, and she wanted me to see it too.

First, here are the latest statistics (May 14, 2009 to January 31, 2010):

272 stories posted

176 user generated
55 containing video
5 containing audio
6 non-English language stories

515 comments posted (100 stories have comments)
Users in 3,929 cities from 162 countries have visited the site
Total Visits: 203,685
Total Unique Visitors: 162,313
Total Page Views: 542,488
Time on Site: 00:01:42
59.3% of visitors came from outside Edmonton

The statistics have also been broken down into two phases: the contesting phase (May 14 to September 15) and the post-contesting phase (September 16 to January 31). The number of visits and page views have both declined from the first phase to the second, but after talking to Mary Pat, I’m not sure that matters much.

At its core, Edmonton Stories is all about labor and visitor attraction. It exists because the old or standard ways of attracting skilled labor or visitors to Edmonton either are not very effective, or are very expensive. It exists because the best people to share why Edmonton is a great city are Edmontonians themselves. With that in mind, I think it’s useful to think of Edmonton Stories as a two-stage project:

Gather stories from Edmontonians
Attract labor and visitors using those stories

Mary Pat said she was “awed” with regards to the first stage. That so many Edmontonians took the time to write and share their stories is not something to take lightly. The collection of stories is a great asset.

The second stage is the answer to what’s next. Instead of just explaining it to me, Mary Pat showed me a recruitment partnership case study with the Edmonton Police Service (EPS).

In the fall of 2009 EPS was set to launch a recruiting initiative in select locations in the United States (Seattle, Cleveland and New York City). Confident that the EPS Recruiting Unit could effectively extol the attractiveness of the police service and the work it demands, EPS turned to the City of Edmonton for advice on how they might promote Edmonton as a potential home for recruits and their families.

The City of Edmonton’s solution? Edmonton Stories. The idea was to use the content on EdmontonStories.ca, the personal, tangible experiences of real people, in a targeted way to help EPS recruit new members. I remember reading about the recruitment efforts, but the news articles never mentioned that Edmonton Stories was involved. Here’s what Edmonton Stories did to help:

Built a dedicated page featuring stories written by Edmonton police officers: http://www.edmontonstories.ca/eps
Created a guide for on-site recruits describing how best to use the dedicated page
Produced branded “conversation cards” to hand out at hiring fairs
Promoted the dedicated EPS page on Twitter, Facebook, and Google AdWords.

The experiment was a great success. Edmonton Stories had 6.7 times more visitors from Cleveland after the recruitment fair, and 8.1 times more visitors from New York City (the first city, Seattle, was sort of used to figure things out). According to candidate surveys, 74% had not considered Edmonton as a place to live before the recruitment fair, while after, 76% reported they would likely or very likely relocate to Edmonton, and 84% planned on submitting an application to EPS within the next six months. Most importantly, EPS received an “unprecedented” number of detailed applications from potential recruits met at the recruitment fairs. The total number is 6, but for an application process that can take 18 months, that’s seen as very successful.

It’s difficult, of course, to separate the effect Edmonton Stories had on the campaign from the rest of the EPS recruitment efforts, but those involved feel Edmonton Stories had a significant impact.

The City of Edmonton can now take what was developed for the EPS and apply it to other industries. They can provide specific industry stories, the recruiters guide, conversation cards, and much more to recruiters to help attract talent to Edmonton. The stories that Edmontonians have shared are finally being put to use.

I asked Mary Pat if the focus on helping recruiters would take away from maintaining the website itself. While she conceded that less effort has been put into attracting new stories, she said that the website certainly remains a focus. She highlighted two things – translations and a redesign. The team is working on 19 languages for 36 stories, with 10 languages available at launch. The translations take time, because Edmonton Stories works to get approval from each of the authors before posting. The redesign, live as of today, brings a fresh look, a news section, new ways of discovering stories, and tighter integration with social media services.

I think that asking whether or not Edmonton Stories is delivering a return on investment is still a fair question. However, it’s clear to me now that there’s direction and a way for the site to deliver on its core objective of attracting labor and visitors to Edmonton. I think the EPS case study is exciting, and demonstrates that Edmonton Stories can provide value.

Torch Relay Reporter Chris Wheeler comes to Edmonton

By Mack D. Male · January 12, 2010 at 6:15pm

Today I had the pleasure of hosting Chris Wheeler, a video journalist capturing the Olympic Flame as it makes its way throughout the country. I was asked by EEDC a few weeks ago if I’d be interested in the opportunity, and I said absolutely. I love Edmonton and I love meeting new people, so it was good fit for me! EEDC regularly hosts travel media from around the world, something that most Edmontonians probably don’t know, but which absolutely makes sense to do.

DISCLOSURE: I got paid for my time today, but I am not getting paid for this blog post.

Chris is the iCoke Torch Relay Reporter, a project of Coca-Cola, the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), and Tourism BC. This is the seventh time that Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympic Torch Relay! So far the videos have been getting lots of views and Chris says that as he works his way west, the excitement is definitely building.

I started today by meeting Chris at the airport. He was in Saskatoon until very early this morning, and I quickly learned that the last 75 or so days of his life have consisted of “wake up, shoot footage all day, then edit/upload/sleep/travel”. It’s a grueling schedule, but one that Chris is passionate about!

We first made our way to the new Art Gallery of Alberta, where we got a very brief tour amongst all the construction that is still going on. Chris interviewed AGA Board Chair Allan Scott, and I think was really amazed at how long he has been working to make the new AGA a reality for Edmonton. I’m very excited for the new AGA building, which officially opens on January 31, and I can’t wait to see it all finished!

Next we walked to Blue Plate Diner for a quick lunch – tasty as always! It was really interesting to hear from Chris about the places he’s been on the trip, and some of the challenges he has faced along the way. One of the biggest, of course, is bandwidth. Chris shoots all his videos in high-definition, so even after editing and finalizing a video the files are still quite large, and hotels typically don’t have the fastest Internet. It’s pretty amazing that Chris has managed to continue posting new videos every few days!

Our next stop was West Edmonton Mall, and more specifically, Sea Lions’ Rock. We didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out that Chris was able to get up close and personal with Pablo, the largest of the sea lions. Chris got to hug Pablo, and even got a big kiss! We also stayed for the scheduled show, something I haven’t seen in quite a while. It’s very entertaining, and is definitely something to check out at least once! Right after we left, Rick Mercer and Danielle Smith showed up for a shoot. Both Chris and I are RMR fans, but resisted the temptation to interrupt them.

Chris is in Edmonton all day tomorrow as well, filming the Torch Relay and related festivities (on ShareEdmonton). After that he’ll be on his way to other locations in Alberta and eventually, back to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Best of luck with the remainder of your trip Chris!

Thanks again to EEDC for the opportunity. You can see the rest of my photos from today here. Keep an eye on Chris’ YouTube channel for the Edmonton video, which should be up in a few days.

EEDC’s 2010 Economic Outlook Luncheon

By Mack D. Male · November 24, 2009 at 7:48pm

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.

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!

Recap: Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally Open House

By Mack D. Male · November 18, 2009 at 9:37am

Last night was the open house for the City’s new Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL) initiative (you can read my previous coverage here). The event was meant to provide more details to the community, and to introduce the people behind the scenes. David Faber from the Deputy City Managers Office, Kamren Farr from TEC Edmonton, Keith Chorley from CoE IT, Bruce Beecher from CoE IT/Transit, and Cam Linke were all on hand to introduce the idea and answer questions. Roughly 25 people attended.

David began by giving the pitch, essentially providing the same information he shared with me last week. He stressed that this is a pilot program, and that it’s okay to fail. The City of Edmonton is hoping to learn from the experience, and will be reporting back to Executive Committee with the results. David highlighted the intent of LTEL:

To communicate the services that the City of Edmonton provides.
To build bridges with the local community, to enable small tech companies to use the City of Edmonton as a sandbox.

Next up was Bruce, who provided some information on the challenge – creating a replacement for Edmonton Transit’s Lost & Found system. The current database was built with Access 97, and the IT branch is keen to replace it with something more modern. A few details on the system:

Roughly 1700 items are tracked per month
Items are stored for 30 days, and if not retrieved are then donated, auctioned, or otherwise disposed of. Passports, for example, are returned to the government, and cell phones are returned to the carrier.
Items are stored tagged in bins in a storage room that is roughly 20 feet x 20 feet.
Most wallets, cell phones, backpacks, and purses are collected within 2 days.

The basic business processes are:

Enter articles – start tracking lost items
Search articles – when someone calls with a description
Claim articles – individual signs the tag upon retrieving the item
Purge articles – items removed from database after retrieval or 30 days

Some of the opportunities identified include:

Improved security and access control
Multiple item search (currently you can only search one item at a time)
Track people inquiring about items
Enhance reporting
Potentially something generic enough that other CoE departments could use it

Kamren was up next, to provide the preliminary market assessment. He talked about the “lost and found” industry, and highlighted solutions at TransLink and the New York transit authority as best-of-breed. There are four existing types of lost and found systems:

Public – transit, etc.
Private – hotels, etc.
Return service – you pay for tags or some incentive to return
Online classifieds – lost and found posters, basically

He went on to talk about market segments, and highlighted some of the market drivers, opportunities, and challenges.

The challenge was eventually described as:

Use technology to reduce costs for the customer (City of Edmonton) and increase recovery rates for users (people who have lost things).

All of this information will be made available on the LTEL page. The only other pertinent detail is that the upper limit for the budget is $75,000. Technical requirements and other details will also be posted on the website.

My Thoughts

I talked with a number of people after the session to get their perspective. Most folks seemed excited about the idea. Andrew from dub5, in particular, said he was impressed that the City of Edmonton took the time to get this pilot started, and suggested that it was a big step in the right direction. Bruce Winter echoed that sentiment, but like me, was hoping for something a little more visual.

Here are my thoughts on the open house:

The City needs to do a much better job of spreading the word. I realize they wanted to manage expectations, but I don’t think enough people knew about last night’s event.
I would have loved to have seen the format of the event mimic DemoCamp. Instead of slides full of bullet points, why not demo what they currently have?
I get that a lost and found database isn’t particularly exciting, but that doesn’t mean that the presentation can’t be. Instead of telling us there’s a 20×20 room packed with items, why not show a photo?
This is going to sound harsh, but Kamren’s presentation wasn’t much more than a Google search. Very basic business concepts (competition, market segments, opportunities, challenges) and nothing more than the names of some other lost and found systems. I’m still wondering what exactly TEC Edmonton and EEDC bring to the table, besides a couple more names?

My biggest concern however, is related to the very first question I asked. I wanted to know if there were any technical requirements, and specifically, if the application had to be on-premise (meaning the City of Edmonton hosts and manages it). Keith answered yes, tech requirements would be provided, and that yes, the solution needs to run in the City of Edmonton’s existing infrastructure. One of the stated goals of LTEL is to expose the City of Edmonton to some of the innovative ideas of the local tech community, so this seems like a big step in the wrong direction. Maybe there’s a good reason for this particular solution, but if so it was not made clear. I think putting up big restrictions like that right from the start limits the potential solutions the City could learn about. (Also, I was under the impression the City wanted to get out of the tech business, by not doing custom development and reducing the burden of hosting and managing systems.)

This criticism is meant to be constructive. Overall I think LTEL is a good thing, and I want to see it succeed. I look forward to the rest of the process!

Stay tuned to the website for updates and an application form. Companies interested in developing a solution have until December 15 to express interest.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally – Open House on November 17

By Mack D. Male · November 13, 2009 at 4:00pm

As you may have heard by now, the City of Edmonton is hosting an open house on Tuesday, November 17 (on ShareEdmonton) at City Hall to present a pilot project to interested members of the local tech community. The initiative is known as Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL), and the open house follows on the report that was presented to Executive Committee back in August. I’ll get to some of the event details in a second, but first I want to offer some background.

I heard about the open house late on Monday afternoon, and immediately posted a tweet. You might think that the City’s IT department would be behind it, but many of them only learned about it because of my tweet! And that’s where things get interesting.

I had the opportunity this week to sit down with David Faber, one of the folks making this initiative happen. David is the Executive Director of Enterprise Strategic Management in the Deputy City Managers Office. His involvement means that this initiative is happening at a level slightly above IT, as David is (along with his team) charged with strategy, direction, accountability, and stewardship for the entire City of Edmonton, not just IT. David’s job is to bring the City’s Vision and Strategic Plan to life, and LTEL is just one of the ways in which he’s doing that.

As you might expect, David oozes passion for Edmonton. He’s been with the City of Edmonton for 12 years now, and even spent some time working in IT, so he has some experience in the field. For David, the LTEL initiative is about innovation and economic development, as well as the opportunity to simply connect with startups and other small tech firms in Edmonton. He outlined a few key goals of the initiative:

To bring the community together with the City, and to open the door at CoE for smaller companies.
To build shared learning by using the City as a sandbox and by not being afraid to fail.
To be supportive of the City Vision, which is to say that the LTEL pilot must be repeatable and sustainable.

I agree with Chris LaBossiere – this sounds like we’re on the right track.

I did explain to David that I was highly critical of the original report, and that I along with others in the tech community are concerned about EEDC and TEC Edmonton’s involvement. Unfortunately, David didn’t say much to alleviate my concerns when I asked how specifically those organizations would be involved, suggesting only that they would provide resources. I’m willing to wait and see how things turn out, because it certainly sounds like TEC Edmonton is less central to the pilot than was suggested in the original report.

We’ll learn more about the project at Tuesday’s event, but here’s what we know already:

The problem is to come up with a replacement for Edmonton Transit’s current electronic Lost and Found system.
Prospective participants must be incorporated companies by February 3, 2010, must have annual revenue of $2 million or less, and must be located within the City of Edmonton’s boundaries.
Prospective participants have until December 15, 2009 to express interest.
Potential solutions will be presented on January 28, 2010.
A selection announcement will occur on February 3, 2010 with the pilot project starting March 1, 2010.

The Lost and Found system was selected for two important reasons: it’s tangible, and already has funding attached. Representatives from IT, DCMO, ETS, and TEC Edmonton will be on hand to provide more information.

I’ll be there on Tuesday to learn more about it, and I hope you’ll consider attending as well.

Taking Edmonton’s Technology Community to the Next Level

By Mack D. Male · August 27, 2009 at 11:00am

I’m always thinking about the technology community in Edmonton. Some very positive things have happened in recent years, and I want to see that trend continue and even accelerate. To take our tech community to the next level however, we’re going to need everyone to bring their unique strengths and abilities to the table. Community organizers, researchers, investors, public policy makers, educational institutions, small and large enterprises, and most importantly, entrepreneurs, all have a role to play.

For a while now I’ve felt that something is holding us back, something that we can change. That’s what this post is about.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally

There were two interesting items at the top of the City of Edmonton Executive Committee meeting yesterday. The first was the TEC Edmonton 2008 Annual Report (PDF). The second was a report entitled Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (Word).

I read the second report with great interest. It is based on a consultation with TEC Edmonton, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC), and City Administration and is in response to the following motion from the May 6, 2009 Executive Committee meeting:

That Administration consult with TEC Edmonton, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, and the general technical community on opportunities to facilitate and better capitalize on incorporating work and research done via the City’s purchasing, standards and business practices, and report back to Executive Committee.

The report is relatively short at just two and a half pages, so I encourage you to read it for yourself. Here’s my summary:

One of the four principles of the City of Edmonton Strategic Plan is innovation, loosely defined as “exploration in the adoption of new techniques, technologies, products and ways of operating in order to improve results and lead progressive change.”
With that in mind, EEDC, TEC Edmonton, and City Administration want to challenge the status quo with a pilot project that connects them with one another and the “general technical community”.
The pilot project would provide benefits to local technology firms (such as opportunities to use the City as a reference customer) and to City Administration (including exposure and access to technologies that previously had not been realized).
The pilot project would leverage concepts similar to “the University of Alberta Idea-Fest or local technology Demo Camps” and would consist of two sessions.

It’s nice to see DemoCamp and IDEAfest both get mentioned. Kudos to Cam Linke, Michael Janz, and everyone else who makes those and other events successful.

The above points seem logical enough and if that’s all I had read, I’d happily support the recommended pilot project (which sounds like a couple of events). Unfortunately I kept reading, and as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

First, the scope of the pilot project is defined as:

Small entrepreneurial organizations
Prototype the approach – keep it simple
TEC Edmonton would identify potential attendees and review with Administration
Products must be usable and available for testing

If by “small entrepreneurial organizations” they mean “startups” then I think the first point is spot on. There are so many local startups that could use a leg up with the City. The second point makes sense also – simplicity and iteration are key. The fourth point is similar to the rules of DemoCamp – we’d like to see action rather than talk. I’ll come back to the third point.

Next, the two sessions are defined as follows:

The first session, held in Q3 of 2009, would focus on the City of Edmonton identifying business problems and communication of priorities to TEC Edmonton associated companies.

A second session would be held approximately four weeks later with TEC Edmonton members presenting possible solutions to opportunities identified.

Can you spot the pattern? It continues in the report’s final remarks:

This pilot also supports the concept of the knowledge economy and leverages the capability of local educational institutions.

It focuses on retaining and accelerating the success of high-impact innovation-based start up companies in the Edmonton area by strengthening the partnership between TEC Edmonton and the City of Edmonton. This in turn promotes the development of an entrepreneurial culture and the infrastructure to nurture and sustain scientific and technology-based enterprises.

What started out as a promising attempt by the City to leverage and work with the wonderful technology community we have here in Edmonton quickly became all about TEC Edmonton. According to the recommendation, TEC Edmonton would be responsible for picking the attendees and for driving the dialogue.

This is bad for two reasons:

TEC Edmonton does not represent the whole of the technology community in Edmonton.
TEC Edmonton has a very poor track record when it comes to “promoting the development of an entrepreneurial culture” in Edmonton.

TEC Edmonton Background

Formed in 2000 and ratified in 2006, TEC Edmonton is a joint venture between the University of Alberta and EEDC. It’s mandate is to “help navigate the commercialization process – transitioning science solutions into business opportunities” in the greater Edmonton region. A few highlights from the annual report I mentioned above:

TEC Edmonton received 98 reports of inventions in 2008. A total of 77 patent applications were filed and 48 patents were granted. A total of 23 technologies were licensed.
TEC Source provided free business advice to 70 entrepreneurs in 2008.
A total of 160 entrepreneurs participated in TEC VenturePrize in 2008.
The TEC Centre is home to 22 tenants.

TEC Edmonton represents the Information and Communications Technology, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Agri-Value industry sectors. There’s absolutely a need for an organization to facilitate the commercialization of research coming out of the University of Alberta. TEC Edmonton needs to continue that work – they’re good at it and they’ve proven they can get results.

The Problem With TEC Edmonton

TEC Edmonton automatically gets a seat at the technology table in Edmonton, whether it deserves one or not. The City of Edmonton and EEDC cannot pursue their objectives in the technology space without involving TEC Edmonton, which is a problem because TEC Edmonton isn’t interested in much of what it would take for those organizations to achieve their objectives.

Startups have little to no interaction with TEC Edmonton and are very rarely impacted by TEC Edmonton programs. Software-based startups are even further removed from TEC Edmonton’s activities. The organization is completely geared toward monetizing expensive high tech research from the University of Alberta, not helping local startups.

Patents are meaningless in the world of software, but are at the heart of nearly every deal that TEC Edmonton does. The very first question mentioned on the TEC Source page is: “Do you have intellectual property or a business plan?”
The TEC Centre is an incubation facility for TEC Edmonton companies, not technology companies in general. You can’t just drop in.
Alberta Deal Generator doesn’t help startup companies prepare for investment, it helps later stage companies. And the private sector does a better job of that anyway.

Quite simply, TEC Edmonton has been ignoring software startups for nearly a decade now. Why does this matter? If we want to move beyond our current energy-based economy to nurture and capitalize on the incredibly smart and talented people we have in Edmonton and Alberta, we need to start paying more attention to software. That’s where innovation is happening and value is being created.

What We Really Need

We don’t need two events to talk about business and communication problems for TEC Edmonton associated companies, nor do we need an organization filtering communication between the City and the technology community. What we really need is for TEC Edmonton or an organization like it to help software startups by doing the things the community can’t.

Easy exchange of knowledge and ideas is something the community has proven it can do well with events like DemoCamp and BarCamp. The ability to get started without a lot of initial investment is another thing the community is addressing through initiatives such as ENTS (you can read more about ENTS here).

Something the community can’t do is provide smart seed funding. I’m talking about YCombinator and TechStars. Tiny amounts of money to get entrepreneurs going, with ongoing mentorship and other networking opportunities. These programs likely aren’t going to make anyone rich, but that’s not the point anyway. The point is to invest in people, to encourage entrepreneurship. TEC Edmonton could do this right away if they really wanted to by scrapping Alberta Deal Generator and taking a fraction of the money spent on that program and putting it into a local YCombinator. I’ve heard about some members of the community working towards this, but I think it would be a great opportunity for TEC Edmonton.

Final Thoughts

If we want to take the technology community in Edmonton to the next level, we need the City of Edmonton and EEDC to recognize that as it currently exists, TEC Edmonton is holding the community back, not helping it move forward. TEC Edmonton certainly has a role to play, but it’s not the catch-all they’ve been given. We need to focus more attention and energy on software startups, an area that TEC Edmonton has historically ignored.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend or listen to the meeting yesterday, so I’m not sure what the Executive Committee did with the report. I’m hopeful that the right people will read this however, so that we can start down the path to positive change.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who provided me with context and thoughts on this topic over the last few months – you know who you are.