Year: 2008

Technologies I’ve Been Exploring Recently

code Tomorrow is Edmonton Code Camp 2008, so with that in mind I thought I’d mention a few of the developer-focused technologies I’ve been messing around with lately. Nothing too in-depth, but enough to get a feel for things.

MSMQ – Microsoft Message Queuing
This technology has been around since Windows NT 4 and Windows 95, but I’ve never really used it before. I decided to check it out after hearing John Bristowe sing its praises at ALT.NET Calgary. So far I’m really impressed. I still can’t believe I never looked into it before! I was able to get a decent sample going for both reading and writing from the queue (transactional too) in about 40 lines of code.

Ninject
This is a dependency injection framework for .NET applications. Dependency Injection (DI) is a technique that helps you create loosely-coupled, flexible code. I’ve looked at other DI frameworks, but was always turned off by the XML configuration files. In that regard, Ninject is a lot like SubSonic – everything is done in code! It’s pretty easy to get started with Ninject. Reading the User Guide on the wiki definitely helped me.

Json.NET
I’ve been doing a lot of work with the Twitter Search API, which returns data in either ATOM or JSON format. I figured JSON would be better, as it’s a little more lightweight. The .NET Framework doesn’t understand JSON natively, so I looked for a library to help. I can’t say enough good things about Json.NET – it’s fantastic!

jQuery
Okay this doesn’t really belong on this list, because I’ve been using it for a while now. I keep learning new things about it though, such as the data() method that Marc Grabanski wrote about recently. Very cool. I’ve also been enjoying Intellisense support!

There you go, a few of the things I’ve been exploring lately. I’m looking forward to Code Camp tomorrow! If you’re tagging photos, tweets, blog posts, and other things, use the tag #ecc08. Be sure to keep an eye on the wiki. See you there!

Halloween in Edmonton: Deadmonton

I was fortunate enough to be invited to an organizational meeting tonight for a new Halloween-themed festival here in Edmonton. More than just a festival however, the three principals behind the idea (Darryl Plunkie, Derek Clayton, Christian Nelson) have a vision to establish Edmonton as the Halloween Capital of Canada. I’ll admit that I don’t feel as strongly about Halloween as many of the individuals in attendance tonight do, but I am passionate about my city and I think they’re on to something.

Like many Edmontonians, I hate the word “Deadmonton” as it is often used. It’s entirely negative and disheartening. It’s no surprise that I fell in love with Christian Nelson’s presentation back at Pecha Kucha 2, where he suggested we reclaim the word and use it for good. Tonight’s meeting grew out of Christian exploring that idea with Darryl, Derek, and others. The general idea is to create a Halloween Festival to tie together all of the various events that already take place in the city. It was suggested that the festival be a week long, until Darryl said “it should be 13 days!” He also suggested that the organizing board be called the “Council of E-ville.” The meeting was both productive and fun!

i *heart* deadmonton

The first step was for everyone to introduce themselves (we had 17 people attend). The group was quite varied, which meant we had all kinds of experience and insight available. Kenn Bur from EEDC hosted the event and kept us on track. We had Ellen Finn from the Civic Events Office at the City of Edmonton, Shirley Lowe from the Old Strathcona Business Association, and John Mahon from the Edmonton Arts Council join us and they all shared their experience on how other festivals have been started and managed. The remainder of the group was made up of individuals in the Halloween industry, and Edmontonians-at-large like me and Debra Ward.

The three principals shared their ideas, and then we went around the group for additional comments. There were lots of great ideas thrown around, and a number of interesting questions were raised. What’s clear is that there’s passion for this event. Some of the ideas I found particularly intriguing included:

  • Taste of Deadmonton
  • Miss Deadmonton
  • Worst Yard Contest
  • Horror Theme Music by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
  • Some sort of Halloween Blood Drive

There are already many Halloween events that take place in the city of course, such as the Scarecrow Festival, Edmonton Ghost Tours, The Bear’s Halloween Howler, and many more. I think joining forces to share the marketing muscle of the Deadmonton brand is a great idea.

Some of the questions that came up included:

  • What kind of festival would it be? John Mahon said there are basically two models. The first is the Fringe/Heritage Festival model, in which the participants are mostly independent and just share the site and/or marketing of the festival. The second is the Folk Fest model, where things are much more controlled. The Halloween Festival would probably be the former.
  • Would the event need a dedicated venue?
  • Do we need a board? Where does the funding come from? Etc.

Finally, here are a couple comments I found particularly interesting:

“Edmonton has more goth stores than any other place in Canada.” – Rona Anderson

“Winnipeg can try to top The Fringe, but you can’t really top Deadmonton. It’s truly unique.” – Christian Nelson

The next step is to try to digest some of the ideas and excitement that came out tonight, and figure out a way forward. The goal for the first year is really to get the festival established, with a website and some common branding. We can then build atop that foundation.

If you have ideas or would like to get involved, please email HalloweenEdmonton@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment here if you like!

UPDATE: I should have linked to Kerry Diotte’s article on this meeting in the Edmonton Sun. Published on Tuesday, it has a bit more background information.

Social Media and Local News in Edmonton

My favorite media/journalism/news blogger is Jeff Jarvis. His blog, BuzzMachine, is a treasure trove of information and insight on how the web is transforming the world of news media. Jeff has spent a lot of time thinking about local news specifically, a topic I am very interested in. Yesterday he wrote a post summarizing his thoughts on where local news might go. These are the highlights for me:

“The next generation of local (news) won’t be about news organizations but about their communities.”

“News will emerge from networks.”

“Do what you do best and link to the rest will be a foundation of the future architecture of news.”

“News will find new forms past the article, which will include any media, wiki snapshots of knowledge, live reports, crowd reports, aggregation, curation, data bases, and other forms not yet created.”

I encourage you to read the entire post, it’s definitely worth it.

Thinking about Jeff’s post made me wonder what local news organizations here in Edmonton are doing to prepare for the future. Are they focused on communities? Are they creating networks? Are they specializing and linking elsewhere? Are they supporting news beyond the article?

In general, I think the answer to those questions is no. An examination of how local news organizations are using social media is somewhat encouraging, however. Why look at social media? Generally speaking, I think blogs, social networks, etc., address all four areas – communities, networks, linking & sharing, and life beyond the article.

These are some of the traditional sources for local news here in Edmonton, with links to their social media activities:

As you can see, there are quite a few organizations that still haven’t gotten their feet wet with social media (unless I missed some links – one thing all these sites have in common is that they are terribly messy and hard to navigate). The Journal appears to be the most active, with a Facebook application, Twitter account, and blogs and podcasts on its site. The relatively new iNews880 is similarly active. All the organizations offer RSS feeds except for Global Edmonton, Citytv Edmonton, and SEE Magazine (the Edmonton Sun recently added feeds).

These days, I get most of my local news from four main sources:

The trend I have noticed is that breaking news starts with the traditional organizations but is spread by individuals through services like Twitter, Connect2Edmonton, and Facebook (and good old-fashioned word of mouth too). Organizations like The Journal have people dedicated to gathering the news, so it makes sense that they’d be the ones to break the news (most of the time). They could definitely be doing a better job of interacting with the community and forming networks online to spread that news, however. And they pretty much do nothing beyond the article, at least at the moment (heck the Journal won’t even hyperlink URLs inside their articles).

Take yesterday’s story about the new arena concept, for instance. I first heard about the news on C2E. I understand that Citytv was the first traditional source to pick up on the story. I spread the news via Twitter and my blog, and others did the same. Today articles appeared in The Journal, on CBC Edmonton’s site, and elsewhere, but they didn’t really offer anything new, and they didn’t provide links to the images, video, maps, or other bits of information readers might be interested in.

I like the vision for local news that Jeff Jarvis has suggested, but it seems to me that the local organizations aren’t leading the way into that future. Instead, individuals are dragging them into it. I wonder if that will always be the case?

New Concept for Edmonton Arena in The Quarters Downtown

Earlier today, local architect Gene Dub released some conceptual drawings and a video rendering of a new arena for Edmonton’s downtown. The project would cost about $300 million, and while Dub has talked to the Katz Group they haven’t made any commitments. According to Global TV, the arena would be on the third floor of the unique-looking, reverse-cone shaped building with retail underneath.

Dub surprised everyone by unveiling his vision at a public hearing for The Quarters Downtown redevelopment plan. The new arena would be located along 103A Avenue between 96th and 97th Streets. I’ve drawn it on a map which you can see here. Currently there’s a whole lot of parking on the site and not much else. The visioning process for The Quarters Downtown began over two years ago. City Council approved the vision statement on September 26th, 2006:

The Quarters (Downtown East) will be a vibrant, healthy community comprised of five distinct areas, each with its own character, activities, and feel, structured around a unique linear park system running through the neighbourhood that provides a defining element for the community. The neighbourhood is well connected to the downtown core and river valley, yet has a distinct image that identifies it as a unique place in the city. Streets are improved with limited through traffic, making the streets safe and inviting for pedestrians and bicyclists. Large city blocks are broken into smaller, more inviting and walkable pieces. Activity abounds. There is a mix of parks, shops, employment, services, and housing. There is a diversity of ages, incomes, and cultures. Open space is surrounded by businesses and housing, creating a safe and inviting amenity year round. The Quarters is a place where community is important and pride and investment in the neighbourhood is evident.

I don’t think the proposed arena goes against that vision, but it’s not exactly a perfect fit, either. I’ve been critical of a new arena before, primarily because I don’t feel that public funding should finance the bulk of the project. I’d reconsider that if the arena was part of a redevelopment project such as The Quarters, however. It remains unclear whether or not the proposed site would be large enough for more than just the arena.

Here’s the video render:

It’s definitely eye-catching.

Wondering who Gene Dub is? He’s the architect behind Edmonton’s City Hall. His firm has received a number of awards over the years, including at least six for the glass-and-stone pyramids of City Hall. Dub also served one-term as a city councillor.

It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of this proposal – I’ll be keeping an eye on it. You can find more comments on the design here and here.

UPDATE (11/25/2008): The Edmonton Journal wrote about the concept here, with few additional details but comments from Dub and a couple councillors.

Notes for 11/23/2008

Here are my weekly notes:

Edmonton Notes for 11/22/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

  • The big news this week was the meteor (video is embedded below too). Everyone was talking about it, and Edmonton was mentioned on newscasts throughout North America. Very cool. You can read more about it here.
  • Local tech firm Nirix announced a new marketing competition for students in Alberta called sparkIT. The deadline to register is January 26th, 2009.
  • The Olympic torch will be making its way through Edmonton in 2010. The route will include 1020 communities across Canada.
  • All of Edmonton’s high schools have been equipped with portable, lunch box-sized defibrillators. A grant from the Canadian Legion of Frontiersmen made it possible.
  • Edmonton has been named a finalist in the 2009 Intelligent Community Forum’s Smartest Community in the World competition. The top 7 will be announced on January 21st, 2009 with the winner named on May 15th, 2009. Last year’s winner was Waterloo, Ontario.
  • Homeward Trust finally released the report for this year’s Homeless Count to the media. The final number is 3079. Hopefully it’ll be posted to their website next week.
  • Local radio station Sonic 102.9 FM has joined Twitter! You can follow them here. The popular Edmonton Fire Radio also joined, you can follow them here.

Suggestions for getting started with Twitter

twitter As a fan of Twitter, I often find myself telling others about the service (you might argue that me being a fan is not as relevant as me being addicted). I do my best to explain that you can’t really explain Twitter. It’s one of those things that you have to experience before you get it. Michael Martine does a good job of describing this in his post Twitter is like sex.

I also try to offer some advice on how to get started. The most important thing I mention is actually #8 on this list, but I wanted to approach it from the perspective of just registering for the site.

Here are my top ten suggestions for getting started with Twitter:

  1. Pick a good username. If you already have a username you tend to use around the web, stick with that. If you’re coming up with something new, make it easy to type and to say verbally. Try to avoid names that might look “spammy”, such as “john351” or something like that.
  2. Keep your tweets public. I’m not really sure what the point of joining Twitter is if you’re just going to keep everything private. Besides, Twitter truly shines when it can aggregate everyone’s tweets together, and it can only do that with public tweets.
  3. Change the default background/theme. I see that there are a bunch of new defaults, but I still think it’s a good idea to personalize your profile a little. It makes a difference when others are looking at your page deciding whether or not to follow you. Don’t go overboard here though. Some services let you create a background full of text and other information, but I think those look messy.
  4. Enter your website URL if you have one. One of the first things I’ll do when looking at a new profile is click the web link. It’s a great way to learn more about the person. It won’t drive a ton of traffic to your site, but it doesn’t hurt either.
  5. Set your location correctly. It might seem funny to set your location to something random like “my room” but setting your location properly makes it easier for others to find you. I think the format “city, state/province, country” works best because then others can search by all three criteria.
  6. Post some tweets before you follow others. Shortly after you follow someone, they’ll likely be looking at your profile. If it is empty or contains only a tweet or two, chances are they won’t follow you back.
  7. Go easy on the following at first. If you try to follow hundreds of people all at once, you’ll likely be flagged as a spammer by Twitter. Even if you aren’t, it looks bad to be following 500 people without any followers of your own.
  8. Follow users who live where you do. This is my favorite suggestion, because I think it’s the quickest way to get value out of Twitter. People often complain that a tweet like “Calgary Trail is a parking lot” seems mundane, but to others in the area it can be really useful (that’s a busy road here in Edmonton). By following other locals, you’ll reduce the number of tweets that seem mundane.
  9. Learn the lingo and etiquette. It’s quite simple really. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, an update is called a tweet. If you start your tweet with @username, then it’s a reply and it’ll show up on the replies tab for that user. Something like #yeg is called a hashtag, and it’s basically a way of categorizing your tweets. If someone tweets something that you’d like to reshare, start your tweet with RT @username (or you can use “retweet” instead of “RT” if you like).
  10. Start using Twitter Search right away. I can’t stress this enough – Twitter Search is what really makes Twitter useful. I always have a tab open with a search for “mastermaq”, so that I can see any tweets that reference me. I also use it to find out what people think of the latest movie, or to find links on a topic I’m interested in. Make Twitter Search your best friend – you won’t regret it!

Those are my suggestions. The only other thing I would mention is to be interesting, but that’s harder to define. I think the most interesting users on Twitter post a combination of random tweets, replies, and links. As with anything else, you can learn a lot by simply paying attention and observing others.

Have I missed anything? What are your suggestions? Let me know!

Happy Tweeting 🙂

CanUX 2008 Attendees on Twitter

canux Even though we spent more time doing than tweeting at CanUX, Twitter was still there in the background. Those of you who couldn’t make it to the event could at least follow along remotely, and some of us at the event used it for informal discussions. You can find nearly all the related tweets at Twitter Search. There’s some value there, but I think following the people who attended is even more valuable, because you can learn from them over time. With that in mind, here’s a partial list of CanUX 2008 attendees on Twitter.

nForm

Presenters

Attendees (in no particular order)

If I’ve missed you, let me know and I’ll update the post!

UPDATE: Here’s my list of links and resources for CanUX 2008.

Sketches from CanUX 2008

I had a blast at CanUX 2008 this week! It was my first real introduction to Canada’s User Experience community, and a great opportunity to meet some interesting people. I learned a lot, and have tons to read and think about! You can read about the sessions at Techvibes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. You can find all of my photos here.

We ended up doing quite a bit of sketching and drawing at the conference, which was something I didn’t expect. It was fun though, and something I think I will practice. Here are a few sketches from the sessions (I originally wrote these in my Moleskine and re-did them using my tablet):

This one comes from the creativity session on day 2, led by The Banff Centre. It’s a representation of David Snowden’s Domains of Knowing.

This one comes from Jerome Ryckborst’s session on Designing with Developers. It illustrates the different types of people that your team likely has. Ideas are created on the left, and refined or implemented on the right.

This one was shown in Brandon Schauer’s session on Sketchboards. It shows the two basic types of sketching. Exploratory sketching results in lots of rough and varied ideas. Refinement sketching results in fewer, better ideas.

The visual alphabet was something Dave Gray shared with us. Early on in his career, he started searching for the ABC’s or 123’s of drawing, and this is what he found. Can any drawing be made just from these simple characters? Probably!

Thanks to Gene, Yvonne, Jess, and the rest of the nForm team for putting on a fantastic event!

Thoughts from CanUX 2008 Day 2 in Banff

I skipped breakfast this morning but still found the day extremely packed! Fortunately it seemed to go by quickly, which means I wasn’t bored or overwhelmed. You can read more about today’s sessions in my post at Techvibes. Once again I am enjoying the size of CanUX 2008, as I’ve had a chance to chat with many of the people in attendance.

CanUX 2008Sally Borden Building

In the first session today, Luke Wroblewski used a metaphor I really like:

“No one raindrop believes they are to blame for the flood.”

It’s simple, effective, and applies to so many things! In terms of software development, I immediately thought about requirements. It might seem like asking for a feature enhancement is just a raindrop, but eventually you’re going to have a flood.

Another concept that stuck out for me came during the creativity session. We broke into three groups, and mine focused on improv. Our first activity was called the sun and the moon. We started as a big group in a giant circle. Everyone then had to pick out two people from the circle and keep their choices to themselves; the moon would be your protector, and the sun would be “too hot to handle”. Then we were to pretend we were at a party, walking around meeting people, but always keeping your moon in between you and your sun. What we found was that being so focused on moving around and staying away from your sun meant that you couldn’t actually get beyond a simple hello with anyone.

You have to decide whether or not it’s worth getting a little burned if it means you can have that meaningful conversation.

The entire session was full of activities that generated similar thoughts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, and I’m looking forward to it. The last session is on Microsoft Surface, so that should be interesting. As is often the case, I’m both enjoying my break from a regular schedule and feeling a little behind on my normal day-to-day tasks. I’m glad to be learning some new things though, and I definitely have a lot to think about when I get back. You can see my photos here.