Edmonton’s New First Impression

By Mack D. Male · February 1, 2012 at 6:34pm

About six years ago I travelled to Los Angeles for the Portable Media Expo. We had a great time at the event and got to spend a little bit of time afterward doing some sightseeing. I don’t remember much of that, to be honest, but there is one experience that has always stuck with me: my first impression upon arriving at LAX. Having never been to Los Angeles before, the picture I had in my head of the city and everything in it was modern and glamorous. I mean, it’s a famous city and is home to Hollywood, right? That picture applied to LAX itself too, especially considering its iconic airport code. The reality was much different, however. The part of the airport that we experienced seemed small, old, unattractive, and dirty. It certainly wasn’t a positive first impression.

For a long time, I think you could say the same about Edmonton’s airport. Things got a little better with the last expansion, but I still find that the first impression leaves much to be desired. You’ve probably heard the saying that “first impressions are lasting impressions” and I think that’s particularly true when you visit a new city. Even if a visitor makes it to the Art Gallery of Alberta, the river valley, or any of the other memorable attractions that Edmonton has to offer, it can be incredibly difficult to get over a negative first impression at the airport, especially considering you have to go through the facility again to leave.

That’s one of the reasons that I am particularly excited about Expansion 2012. It will change visitors’ first impressions upon arriving in Edmonton for the better.

When you fly through an airport like Heathrow in London, you rarely have to wait for your bags after arriving. That’s because it takes so long to walk from the gate to the baggage carousel – the airport is just so big! In Edmonton, you almost always arrive at the baggage carousel before your bags do. That frustrates travellers and contributes to the poor first impression. With Expansion 2012, the walk in from the gate will take longer, and that should mean less waiting around for your bags.

But don’t worry, chances are you won’t even notice that the walk takes longer. That’s due in part to the moving walkways that have been installed, but more importantly it is because of Flightpath, a digital light and sound system created by Electroland (of Los Angeles, wouldn’t you know it). The interactive installation features motion sensors that pick up movement and activate the sound and LED lights. It’s kind of hard to describe, so here it is in action:

At the end of the Interstitial Corridor is the new entrance, with Canada Customs on the main level (opening this summer) and the new International/Domestic Lounge on the second level (opening this fall). It’s big, open, bright, and inviting – everything our current entrance is not. Prominently featured is The Living Wall, a two-storey green wall that will serve double duty as an art piece and an air filtration system. Coming this summer is The Raven: Bringer of Light, a ceiling-hung stainless steel and embossed acrylic sculpture created by Michael Hayden that is 30 feet by 18 feet and weighs 3500 pounds. It sounds impressive, and I can’t wait to see it.

Airports need to be functional first and foremost, but they can’t stop there. A city’s airport plays a significant role in shaping a visitor’s opinions, and as such needs to deliver an experience that is both relaxing and memorable. Expansion 2012 no doubt makes the Edmonton International Airport more functional, but it also delivers a much improved first impression for visitors. That’s ultimately good for both EIA and for Edmonton.

You can check out a few more photos in my Expansion 2012 photoset.

Recap: Vacation in San Francisco

By Mack D. Male · September 15, 2010 at 11:59pm

Sharon and I got back to Edmonton last night after spending ten days in San Francisco. I had never been there before but had always heard great things. As a bit of a “food town” we thought it would be a great place for us to go to get away from things for a while. Here are some of the highlights.

Based on a couple of recommendations, we looked at the Kimpton Hotel chain. We chose Hotel Triton, located right near the Chinatown gate. It was fantastic!

Pretty much the first thing we did after arriving was visit the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market. It reminded us of our own City Market.

Chinatown was an early highlight for me. I’d never seen a Chinatown like the one in San Francisco!

Without a doubt the most touristy place we visited was Fisherman’s Wharf. Lots to see and do in the area. I enjoyed eating fresh crab there!

Another popular tourist spot is the crookedest street in America. No not Wall Street, Lombard Street.

Of course, no trip to San Francisco would be complete without a trip to the infamous rock! We actually watched The Rock before leaving for our trip.

This photo was taken from Coit Tower (you can see the reflection). If you can believe it, we ran into a couple we knew from Edmonton at the top of the tower! Small world.

We loved all of the fresh produce that was available (and Sharon was particularly sad that we didn’t have a kitchen available). Visiting the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market was pretty cool.

The tasting fees quickly added up, but our decision to take a tour of wine country turned out to be a good one.

One of the dinners we had made reservations for in advance was at Fleur de Lys. The highlight was getting to meet Chef Hubert Keller, one of our favorites from Top Chef Masters.

We decided to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. It started off foggy but quickly cleared. Other than being very windy, it was a great walk!

All the festivals we visited seemed to be extremely well attended, and the Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival was no exception. The lines were insane!

One of my favorite events was Opera in the Park. This year was San Francisco Opera’s 37th annual event.

This is me sitting in a POPOS – a privately owned public open space. I’m holding a Super Burrito from the San Buena Taco Truck, one of my favorite things we ate.

We did ride the cable car once. This photo also shows the hills San Francisco is known for, and a fire escape too (they were a very common sight).

Potentially my favorite dish – a pizza from Chez Panisse. I’m a sucker for eggs.

On our last morning, we visited Muir Woods. It was so quiet!

Sharon and I at the Domaine Chandon winery.

That’s really just a taste of our trip. You can see the rest of our photos (846 in all) here.

I really enjoyed San Francisco and would definitely visit again!

Trip to New Orleans: Day 1

By Mack D. Male · June 8, 2010 at 9:03am

I arrived in New Orleans on Sunday evening, but a mix of enjoying the city and unreliable Internet access have kept me from blogging so far. I’m here until Friday for Microsoft’s Tech·Ed North America conference.

I flew from Edmonton to Houston, where I met my conference buddy John Bristowe. After a short wait, we were off to New Orleans. The flight was only supposed to take about an hour, but thunderstorms in New Orleans kept us up in the air for about an hour more. Being in the holding pattern gave me an opportunity to see the area quite well – I was reminded of the Mackenzie River Delta (in the Northwest Territories where I grew up) because of all the water. Eventually we were able to land, and were shocked at all the water on the ground!

Stepping off the plane and into the corridor, I was hit with a blast of humid, hot air. I’m still not used to how humid it is here compared to home! More than a few times I’ve gone outside from a nicely air conditioned building only to have my glasses fog up. We snagged a taxi and made it to the hotel pretty quickly, passing by the Superdome and remembering Katrina along the way.

View from the hotel

For dinner on Sunday evening I joined a group of fellow Canadians at Palace Cafe. I’m going to write more about the food on Sharon’s blog, so all I’ll say for now is that it was delicious! Afterward, we walked down Bourbon Street, eventually making our way to Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub for a drink and some great music. It was quite the experience, both Fritzel’s and just Bourbon Street in general. Lots of people, though I know it’s not even close to the busiest time of the year, lots of beads, lots of music, and lots of drinks. The local Abita Amber beer is pretty tasty.

Fried oyster loaf

Canal Street

Bourbon Street

I’m really enjoying New Orleans so far, and can’t wait to check out some more sights, sounds, and eats throughout the week! You can see my New Orleans photoset here (I’ll keep adding to it).

I’m going to Tech·Ed North America!

By Mack D. Male · May 28, 2010 at 2:00pm

Tech·Ed is one of Microsoft’s most important annual conferences for developers and IT professionals, held in several places around the world. This year, Tech·Ed North America is in New Orleans in June, and I’m going to be there! I was invited by Microsoft Canada to attend, an opportunity I jumped at. I’ll be there with John Bristowe, taking in the sessions and labs, learning as much as I can, meeting other developers & IT pros, and generally having a good time. And of course, I’ll be blogging, tweeting, photographing, and otherwise recording & sharing the whole experience.

The conference runs from June 7 to 10. There are literally hundreds of sessions during the week, as well as a couple of keynotes and other special presentations. There’ll be some awesome parties too! The sessions are organized into 21 technical tracks, everything from Architecture to Office & SharePoint. I’m particularly interested in sessions on:

Open Data (obviously)
WCF and WF in .NET Framework 4
Windows Phone 7
Azure (cloud computing)

If you’re going to Tech·Ed, what sessions are you planning to check out? If you’re not going to Tech·Ed, what do you think I should see? Let me know!

I’m going to blog about my experience a little here, but also at Techvibes and the Canadian Developers blog. I’ll be tweeting about it too, using the official hashtag #teched. Can’t wait!

In Search of the Northern Lights by way of Edmonton

By Mack D. Male · May 13, 2010 at 3:00pm

As I mentioned back in January, I’ve been doing a little work for EEDC, hosting travel media when they come to visit Edmonton. Usually it’s just a casual lunch, which I really enjoy – I get to learn a little about where they’re from and they get to ask me anything about Edmonton! The only thing I don’t like about the experience is that I don’t always get to see the result of their trip (because the article or video or audio clip is generally created for audiences somewhere else in the world). Fortunately, that’s not always the case!

A couple of months ago I had lunch with a group of four travel journalists from the UK. Twitter came up as we were chatting, and I learned that one of them, Sarah Foden, was on Twitter! A couple of weeks ago she sent me a tweet to say that the video she created for her trip was online. Here it is (click the image below, I can’t seem to embed the video):

Her video is called “In Search of the Northern Lights” and Edmonton was just one stop along the way. She wrote:

Fortunately, as I discovered, the great thing about visiting both northern Alberta and the city of Edmonton is that these places are about so much more than the Northern Lights.

It turns out that Sarah’s video is now one of the top videos on Sky.com (the company she works for). Congrats Sarah!

As someone who loves to promote Edmonton, it’s great for me to get another perspective on how our city is being portrayed abroad. Can’t wait to do it again!

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.

Signs of home in London

By Mack D. Male · June 8, 2009 at 3:13pm

It’s not exactly culture-shock visiting London for an Edmontonian such as myself, but you do notice differences. The elevators all talk, warnings to “mind the…” are everywhere (gap, elevator doors, etc), locals call the pound a quid, and the Coke bottles are oddly thin, among other things. I’ve also come across a few things that remind me of home.

One of the first things I picked up upon arriving in London was the pocket tube map. To my surprise, there was an Ikea advertisement on the back which included a list of locations:

And here I thought Alberta was the only place with an IKEA Edmonton! Another thing I found, near Leicester Square, was a Canadian pub:

The Maple Leaf is located at 41 Maiden Lane, and serves local and Canadian beer such as Sleeman’s. As I stood in the road taking the photo, a small group of people passed behind me and I heard a lady remark, “Why go to a Canadian pub when you can go to a British one?” I chuckled.

Finally, here’s another pub – this one is for Albertans!

The Northumberland Arms is located at 119 Tottenham Court Road. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, read this.

London Trip 2009: Halfway Done

By Mack D. Male · June 6, 2009 at 9:49am

I’ve been in London, UK since late Sunday evening. I had a good week in terms of work, and actually got to see and do some things around the city as well! The first time it rained was yesterday, which I figure is pretty good for London. Had to use the umbrella again this morning.

On Tuesday evening, John (Questionmark’s founder & chairman) drove Jim and I around to see some of the sights (Jim was in for the week from North Carolina). It was actually a really interesting way to see the city, and I made some mental notes of things to revisit. The following evening Jim and I found a nearby pub for more beer, fish & chips.

A few of us went out for dinner on Thursday evening to Skylon, a restaurant located in the Royal Festival Hall. The food was excellent, though I suppose the service could have been a bit better. Afterward Jim, Chris and I ventured out to a couple of pubs, including Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, apparently the oldest pub in London!

Last night I joined Andrew and some other Questionmark colleagues at York Hall in Bethnal Green to watch boxing (Andrew’s brother was fighting). I had never been to a live boxing match before, so it was pretty neat to see. Oddly, there were dozens of girls “glammed up” – they stood out like a sore thumb. A local pub was up next, where I was introduced to Old Rosie (cider). It continued pouring as we rushed to catch the last train north!

This morning I went to the Borough Market, which was recommended by Stella and Sharon before I left. It was really impressive – in both size and contents. Unlike our markets back in Edmonton, or even the Eastern Market in DC, the Borough Market had almost no craft traders(I probably could have counted them on one hand). Everything was food – fruits and vegetables, breads, lots of cheese, meats, fish, candies, and more. I bought a few things, including a traditional Cumberland sausage sandwich for breakfast. Yum!

I spent the rest of the morning/afternoon walking around, first near the London Bridge, and later near Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. The Apple Store near Oxford Circus was a nice place to stop for free wifi and a brief reprieve from the crowds (there are so many people everywhere, it’s awesome). After some more exploring I picked up some lunch from Marks & Spencer (at Sharon’s urging/request) and came back to the hotel for a bit.

Tonight I’m off to a party at Noel’s! Assuming I can find it, that is. You can see the rest of my photos here.

Washington Trip Recap

By Mack D. Male · May 27, 2009 at 11:55pm

I sometimes look back at the posts I wrote while Sharon and I were on vacation in New York a couple years ago, and I wish they were a little more organized. I decided that I’d make an effort to organize my posts and photos from our most recent vacation, to Washington, DC.

We arrived in DC on May 18th, and left May 23rd. Though I posted each day of our trip, I didn’t include any photos after the first day. Uploading was taking so long that I decided to just wait until I got home. I have since gone back and added some thumbnails to each of the daily posts:

We took nearly 900 photos on the trip, and uploaded 607 of them. Here are a few of my favorites:

As Sharon said on the flight home, we should have taken a pedometer with us! We did so much walking and it would have been interesting to know exactly how much. We made use of the Metro quite extensively too. Here is a map including all the major stops we made:

View Washington DC Trip 2009 in a larger map

A few places in particular that we wanted to visit but didn’t: Arlington National Cemetary, the Washington National Cathedral, and the International Spy Museum. Some of my favorites from the trip: the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Newseum, Ben’s Chili Bowl, Founding Farmers, and the Capitol.

I had a great time in Washington, and I’d definitely go back. There is so much to see, and so much history. I’m sure we could easily have filled another six days!

When Sharon has posted her entries about the trip, I’ll update this post with links.

Washington DC Trip: Day 6

By Mack D. Male · May 24, 2009 at 12:40am

Today was our last day in Washington. We left the hotel just after 9:30am and headed toward the Eastern Market, a large farmers market east of the Capitol Building. We both like markets, but Sharon in particular was excited to see what the locals have available to them. Eastern Market is just a block or two away from a metro stop, and is situated in a neighborhood seemingly full of little shops. The market consists of the primary food vendors indoors, and additional food vendors and craft tables outdoors. Today there was also a flea market set up outside.

We walked past a number of the tables, before deciding we should get coffee before going any further. We spotted a shop called Port City Java across the street and stopped in to get an iced coffee. I liked the vanilla flavor shot (for some sweetness) while Sharon liked the crushed ice. Coffee in hand, we continued through the outdoor tables, purchasing a couple peaches (which we ate at the airport), half a pound of coffee, a necklace for Sharon, and an Obama/McCain photograph for me. Before heading back to the metro, we took a quick walk through the indoor market with all the food just to see. Two primary observations: they sell non-local produce (such as bananas and pineapples), and the line-up for Market Lunch (where they serve their famous blueberry pancakes) was out the door!

Our next stop was Tabard Inn, where we had a brunch reservation. The closest Metro stop was Dupont Circle, in what is called the Golden Triangle. We were dismayed to discover that both up escalators at the station were not working, which meant we had to walk up probably 200 steps! Everyone struggled to make it to the top, laughing along the way. It was quite the workout!

Tabard Inn was one of the places we had written down as a potential place to stay. but I’m glad we didn’t, because it was further from a Metro stop than GWU, and while quaint and homey inside, didn’t seem as comfortable. We found the restaurant in the back, and were happy to sit indoors away from the sun and heat. One of the neat things they serve are donuts, which we were told are usually eaten as an appetizer. I can best describe the donuts as large mini-donuts! For brunch, Sharon ordered the Blueberry Pancakes, while I went for the Scrambled Eggs with Sausage. Everything was pretty good, but I particularly liked the bread they served.

After brunch we slowly made our way back to our hotel, stopping briefly in Dupont Circle to watch an impromptu drumming performance and at Macy’s to discover their shoe selection was relatively weak (compared with the one we visited in NY anyway). We retrieved our bags, and set off for the Rosslyn Metro station, where we planned to catch the bus to Dulles International Airport.

We arrived at Rosslyn just as the bus was loading, but were turned away because it was full. That meant we had to wait another hour for the next bus! This was both good and bad: good because we didn’t have as much time to kill at the airport, bad because we had to wait in the crazy heat and sun! Fortunately we didn’t spend the entire time outside, seeking refuge in the nearby McDonalds for a while (but we wanted to make sure we were near the front of the line for the next bus so didn’t venture too far).

We caught the bus (air conditioned, thank goodness) and made it to Dulles with time to spare. Our flight into Ottawa was uneventful, as is the one we’re currently on back to Edmonton.

It was a great vacation but it seemed relatively short. I guess the best ones always do! I’ll be posting all our photos this weekend, as well as a final recap post. Sharon will be making her posts over the next week or so also, with more detail than mine I’m sure.