Year: 2009

Lucy The Elephant on Twitter

As you may know, Lucy the Elephant is the talk of Edmonton right now. Former game show host Bob Barker visited yesterday, trying to secure Lucy’s release from the Valley Zoo. There has been a lot of controversy over whether or not Lucy is healthy and happy in her current home or whether she should be moved to an elephant sanctuary elsewhere. One external veterinarian has examined her thus far, and advised against moving Lucy (critics will point out he was the only one of eleven veterinarians who advised against moving a similar elephant out of Alaska a few years back). For more, check out Paula’s latest article.

I don’t know anything about elephants or zoos, and I haven’t taken the time to do any research, so I don’t really have an opinion on the matter. I do think it’s silly that Barker travelled all the way here just to stir the pot (and that William Shatner has also gotten involved). And sillier still that this will probably go to the courts now, costing everyone a lot of money.

People will continue to talk about it though, until there is some kind of resolution. One of the places they are doing that is on Twitter. Here’s what the chatter about Lucy over the last month and half looks like on Twitter:

To clarify, that is the number of tweets per day about Lucy (or the Valley Zoo, or Bob Barker, or William Shatner) written by local Twitter users. As you can see, it jumped quite a bit yesterday with Barker’s visit and is pretty high already today.

In addition to conversations, Twitter is a good place to find the latest news. I was looking for Lucy-related stuff on Twitter, and figured I could make it easier for others to do the same! Ten dollars and an hour and a half later, and LucyTheElephant.ca was born!

Basically it pulls in the latest tweets related to Lucy (written by local users) and displays them in a manner similar to Twitter Search.

It was a fun experiment for me to create. It uses ShareEdmonton for the data, which means I got to validate some of the work I’ve been doing. If you have a moment, I have a couple questions about this:

  • Do you find single-serving Twitter search sites useful?
  • What else would you want quick access to alongside tweets?

Thanks and enjoy!

ENTS Grand Opening

Tonight was the grand opening of ENTS, the Edmonton New Technology Society. Located just a short walk from downtown at 10575 114 Street, ENTS is “a group of people from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada sharing a collaborative space in Edmonton to teach, learn and work on projects together.” Don’t be confused – ENTS is both a society and a physical space. It’s a place for members of the local tech community (by members of the local tech community) to go to work, socialize, and learn.

ENTS Grand OpeningENTS Grand Opening

The space has come a long way since I last saw it over the summer! Vice-President Rob Davy was our host for the evening. He started in “the middle space” by thanking everyone for coming (over 40 people were there at 7pm, with more coming and going throughout the evening) and gave a brief introduction to ENTS. He then led us to “the orange space” for a virtual ribbon cutting using the Microsoft Surface! The ribbon app was developed by ENTS member Grant Bowering.

ENTS Grand Opening

Bruce, the landlord of the building, cooked free hotdogs for everyone downstairs. I chatted with him a bit, and asked what the most interesting part of the journey with ENTS had been thus far. His reply? “The stuff they bring in…there’s always something else interesting coming in!” Tonight was no exception – about a dozen ENTS members helped move a giant (and very heavy) rack server enclosure up to the space. It was a good team building experience! There was also a “punch-bag revolution”, Rock Band, a sound board, various robots, a Roomba with a netbook strapped to it, and lots of other cool stuff on hand.

ENTS Grand OpeningENTS Grand Opening

The rack server and all of its components came from local social networking company Nexopia. What is ENTS going to do with it? No one is really sure. Like the rest of the tech stuff they have acquired, it’s there for members to learn about and use, if they are creative enough to come up with something. “Think about the potential, and let’s make it happen” is what Rob told everyone.

Congrats to ENTS for a great event and on making the vision a reality! I know there is still work to be done, but they’re now ready for regular use by members (you can become one here). It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here. Follow ENTS on Twitter or search #ents for updates!

What I’m up to this weekend!

I like to keep myself busy with stuff, that’s no surprise, but this month seems exceptionally busy! There’s definitely a lot going on in Edmonton. Here are a few upcoming events that I’ll be at this weekend:

  • ENTS Grand Opening
    Thursday, September 17th at 6:30pm
    10575 114 Street
    http://www.ents.ca

I’m looking forward to checking out the ENTS (Edmonton New Technology Society) space – I haven’t been there in a while, unfortunately. ENTS is going to play an important role in Edmonton’s tech space.

An annual event for software developers in Edmonton. I’ll only be there in the morning, but I’m looking forward to it!

Part of Alberta Arts Days! The Citadel is hosting a free open house featuring backstage tours, rehearsals, design presentations, information about the upcoming season, and more!

The project architect is on hand to chat about one of the most unique building projects in the city. Randall will discuss the architectural philosophy and will provide an update on the new gallery’s construction.

Sharon and I did the walk last year, and we’re excited to take part again this year! It’s for a great cause. If you’d like to sponsor me, you can do so here.

An entire event devoted to local non-profit organizations. Learn about the services they offer and the many volunteer opportunities available.

Other stuff happening this weekend that I probably won’t get to check out: Best of the West Skate Contest, Symphony 101, Alberta Fall Classic, and the City Centre Market.

If all goes well I’ll hopefully get time to finish some coding on ShareEdmonton. I’m excited to get it up and running – it’ll make posts like this completely unnecessary.

State of the Calgary Twittersphere – August 2009

Welcome to the sixth State of the Calgary Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Calgary. You can see last month’s stats here.

The source of the data this month is the same as last, primarily Twitter Search but also from Twitter directly. If a user has his or her location set to Calgary, Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane, Strathmore, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered a Calgarian. If a tweet is “about Calgary” it contains either the word Calgary, the #yyc hashtag, or both.

For August 2009:

# of local users: 6852 (an increase of 226 from July)

To clarify, that means there were 6852 users who posted at least one tweet in August 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Calgarian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Calgary users without their location set or that were not captured for some other reason.

Here are the rest of the stats for August 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 244330
# of tweets by local users containing #yyc: 5463 (2.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 75678 (31.0%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 67295 (27.5%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 9466 (3.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 6945 (2.8%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates. UberTwitter doesn’t seem to be as popular in Calgary as it is in Edmonton:

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Final Thoughts

Like the Edmonton numbers, growth in August for Calgary was minimal. It’s the summer, after all! I suspect that growth in September will be higher.

Since March, I have identified just over 13,500 local users. The number above, 6852, is how many of them were active in August.

ChangeCamp Edmonton – October 17th

As you may have heard, we recently picked a date, time, and place for ChangeCamp Edmonton! We’ve been talking about it for months now, and for a while it really felt like we’d never make any progress. We had a really hard time defining the event, though it sounds simple in concept:

Let’s get as many citizens, politicians, policy-makers, technologists, design-thinkers, change agents, and media creators as possible together in the same room to explore one central question: “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?”

Was it a single day or many? Physical or virtual? A spark or a process? How much should we define up front? How do we get people interested? Should we borrow from cities that have already held ChangeCamps or try something completely different?

We still don’t have all the answers, but we’ve decided to move forward anyway. In the spirit of ChangeCamp and other unconferences, we’re going to have a conversation, and you’re invited! Here are the details:

WHO: You, everyone!
WHAT: ChangeCamp Edmonton
WHEN: Saturday, October 17th, 2009 from 8am to 4pm
WHERE: Lister Conference Centre, University of Alberta (map)
WHY: To start a conversation about re-imagining government and citizenship in Edmonton, Alberta

We are still working on defining how the day will unfold, but it’ll be similar to ChangeCamps in other cities. Stay tuned to the official website as well as our Google Group for updates.

If you’d like to help out, just let us know! Right now we need help spreading the word, more than anything else. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, tell your elected representatives. Let’s make October 17th a day to remember in Edmonton!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – August 2009

Welcome to the eighth State of the Edmonton Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton. You can see last month’s stats here.

The source of the data this month is the same as last, primarily Twitter Search but also from Twitter directly. If a user has his or her location set to Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Nisku, Stony Plain, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Spruce Grove, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered an Edmontonian.

For August 2009:

# of local users: 5365 (an increase of 232 from July)

To clarify, that means there were 5365 users who posted at least one tweet in August 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Edmontonian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Edmonton users without their location set.

Here are the rest of the stats for August 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 206318
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 12808 (6.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 72060 (34.9%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 41015 (19.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 9947 (4.8%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 6828 (3.3%)

Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates. I’m pretty impressed by the rise of UberTwitter:

And by popular demand, a new stat this month! Here are the number of local users by community (besides Edmonton itself) for August:

Keep in mind that is based entirely on the text inside the location field of the user’s profile, and is definitely a minimum. Still, gives you an idea of the breakdown.

Some other interesting stats for the month:

 

Final Thoughts

A little bit of growth this month, but not much. It’s the summer, after all! Hopefully that means everyone was outside enjoying everything Edmonton has to offer. Growth in September should be higher.

Since January, I have identified just over 10,400 local users. The number above, 5365, is how many of them were active in August.

I’ll have the Calgary stats posted in the next couple of days!

Notes for 9/13/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

September Picnic & Walk

Edmonton Notes for 9/12/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Recap: Twestival Local 2009 in Edmonton

Tonight we held Twestival Local in Edmonton, a tweetup to raise money for the Youth Emergency Shelter Society. It was great to see a mix of new and familiar faces come out! In all I think we had about 30 people attend, a little less than our last Twestival but still pretty good!

As you probably know, the local community decided in an online vote that YESS would be our cause for this Twestival (each city got to pick a local cause to support). While we didn’t decide specifically what the money raised would go toward, YESS is about to launch a new facility called the Armoury Youth Centre, and that kind of thing doesn’t happen for free! I’m happy to report that we raised $565 tonight for YESS – well done everyone!

Twestival Local 2009Twestival Local 2009

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here. Shout out to @GregWalker, @thalegion, and @JonProject for taking most of them!

Twestival Local 2009Twestival Local 2009

We’re thinking our next tweetup might be in October, so stay tuned! Thanks to everyone who came out tonight to support YESS.

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton8

I almost can’t believe our last DemoCamp was so long ago! I think it’s safe to say that DemoCampEdmonton8 was worth the wait, however. We had probably our largest crowd ever – the entire room at ETLC was packed. I’m not sure the pictures do it justice! We also had a great set of demos – well done to all the presenters this evening, everyone really brought their ‘A’ game.

Here are the six demos we had tonight:

  • First up was Dub5, demoing an application they built for the Student Health Initiative for the Needs of Edmonton (SHINE). Essentially it is a scheduling application that solves the common problem of assigning volunteer shifts and dealing with cancellations and other issues. Very slick interface, which was a trend for the evening.
  • Next up was Skeptographers, a project of the Edmonton Skeptics. The application is best described as a collaborative podcast. Anyone can submit a segment for inclusion in the next podcast, and the community can comment and vote on each segment. Really cool stuff.
  • Third was an iPhone app called MyStops. While Google Maps is great at giving you transit directions from one point to another, it sucks at repeat routes. MyStops lets you save your usual routes, so that you have easy access to bus and LRT schedules. The cool thing about it is that it uses the ETS Google Transit data that was released back in May. The app will work with both iPhones and iPods.
  • Fourth was Yardstick Software. The product they demoed is called Yardstick Measure and is an online tool that enables anyone to quickly generate a professional testing site. Very slick UI and focused feature set, whereas its sister products (ProTraining & ProExams) are much more complex and feature-rich.
  • Fifth was Digital Media Jobs, a job board for individuals and organizations in the digital media space. Unlike other job boards, the goal with DMJ is to help the local community get connected with one another. Again, DMJ featured a very clean UI.
  • Last but not least was one of the most interesting demos we’ve ever had at DemoCamp in Edmonton: ReJoyCE from Rehabtronics. It’s a combination software-hardware solution to help rehabilitate people suffering from neurological impairments. They’ve successfully gone through a number of clinical trials and are looking to commercialize. Patients play a number of “games” that were designed with the help of therapists. Truly amazing stuff.

All of the demos were so great, it’s hard to pick a favorite. I think ReJoyCE is fascinating because of the impact it will have on the lives of so many people (and the fact that it is backed up by real medical research). I’m really happy we got to see some homegrown technology from the health sector. My favorite was probably MyStops, however. It’s something I’d use every day, and for 99 cents, I think plenty of other Edmontonians will as well. It’s also a great example of what can be done with open data. The team behind it plan to add support for the other cities that publish Google Transit data as well.

DemoCampEdmonton8DemoCampEdmonton8

Fortunately, no one showed us their registration page tonight. I think that contributed to the overall quality of tonight’s demos.

A couple of announcements about upcoming events:

  • Twestival is happening Thursday, September 10th! Come help us support the Youth Emergency Shelter Society!
  • Next Thursday, September 17th, ENTS is holding their grand opening!
  • Edmonton Code Camp is taking place on Saturday, September 19th.
  • FITC Edmonton is taking place on October 17th and 18th.

Thanks to everyone who came out tonight. See you at DemoCampEdmonton9!