Year: 2009

Signs of home in London

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:

London Tube Pocket Map

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

Maple Leaf 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

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

🙂

Recap: TransitCamp Edmonton

On Saturday, May 30th we held the first ever TransitCamp here in Edmonton. Overall I’d say it was a success, though it didn’t quite turn out the way I had expected! I guess that’s the way it goes with unconferences. We had about 50 people in attendance, and my primary goal of getting a group of interested citizens together with ETS to talk about transit was achieved. Most people I had a chance to talk to after said they enjoyed the event, which was great to hear.

The main issue was that we didn’t have Internet access at the World Trade Centre, despite being promised connectivity when we negotiated the space. We had a few other options (AirCard from Chris, going down to the ETS offices in Scotia Place) but they resulted in confusion more than anything. In the end we decided to cancel the two Skype sessions, which was really unfortunate but allowed us to continue.

During the confusion, however, something really interesting happened. People just started sharing and talking in little groups! It was great to see such conversations taking place, and I suppose the lesson is that they probably wouldn’t have if everything had gone according to plan.

The sessions were all great, I thought. Chris Moore started things off with an interactive discussion about Edmonton Transit IT, examining what we have now, what we’ll have if nothing changes, and what we could have if we consider some possibilities. Next up was Rhonda Toohey, who shared with us the 100 Year LRT Expansion Plan that will go before council on June 2nd. We had two ETS Platinum Bus tours with Dennis Nowicki, and everyone seemed quite impressed with the high tech buses. Brendan Van Alstine led a discussion about TRUE. I shared my presentation on Data for Developers – software developers, not land developers! Councillor Iveson finished the day off talking about “Selling Transit”, using Toronto’s Transit City (which is what Adam Giambrone was scheduled to present) as an example of a successful sell. Throughout the day we had a whiteboard where anyone could write down a question, and we answered most of them during the wrap-up session.

I’ll be working to update the TransitCamp Edmonton site with slides, resources, and more information over the next couple weeks. Be sure to check out Alain’s post on the event, and the iNews880 coverage also. Sharon took a few photos during the day, which you can see here. Eugene posted some photos here, and Grant recorded some video that you can watch here.

Thanks to everyone who came out to TransitCamp, and a special shout-out to the three who came up from Calgary! I hope we’re able to do it again soon (in a venue with Internet) – though maybe in a different format. Let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions, or other ideas!

Notes for 6/7/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

I’m loving the tube here in London, though I’m a little concerned about the possible strike. Service would be affected starting Tuesday at 7pm for 48 hours – basically, the last part of my trip.

Leicester Square Underground Station

Edmonton Notes for 6/7/2009

Travel has put a wrinkle in these posts for the last few weeks – all should be back to normal soon! Here are some Edmonton notes for this week:

London Trip 2009: Halfway Done

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.

LondonBig Ben

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!

HalibutLondon, UKMethane powered street lampOldest pub in LondonBoxingBoxing

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!

Borough MarketTraditional Cumberland SausageLeicester SquarePiccadilly CircusApple StoreMarks & Spencer

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.

BarCampEdmonton2 – June 13th

Almost an entire year has passed since our first BarCamp in Edmonton! We’ve had no shortage of events during that time, but nothing is quite the same as BarCamp, which is why I’m really looking forward to BarCampEdmonton2 taking place later this month. Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2009
Time: 10am – 5pm
Location: 6th floor, World Trade Centre (map)
Cost: Free

We’ve only got room for 110 people, and over 70 have already signed up. Make sure to add your name to the list! This is one event you definitely don’t want to miss. If you’re new to the idea:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering of people in and interested in the Edmonton tech community. BarCamp is a series of loosely scheduled 20 minute presentations/discussions about whatever the community is interested in.

The unique things are that the attendees are also the presenters, and the agenda is created first thing in the morning. You don’t need to present anything though, so feel free to simply attend (though I think you’ll get more out of it by participating). Lunch and drinks will be provided, and you’re sure to learn something new. It’s a great opportunity to meet others in the Edmonton community!

Be sure to use the #BarCampYEG hashtag on Twitter.

See you there!

Notes for 6/1/2009

Today was my first full day in London, UK. Weather was great, and I thought it was a productive day in terms of work. I’m here until the 11th. Here are my weekly notes:

  • One of the coolest things about Heathrow is seeing all the different types of airlines. Every plane seems to have a different logo and paint job. It was particularly interesting to see so many planes with the F1 logo, though the British Grand Prix isn’t until June 21st.
  • I completely agree with these comments on Flickr’s current UI/implementation for Creative Commons. It could be much better.
  • This was announced earlier in May, but I only recently had a chance to look at it – AWS Import/Export. Basically you can now send hard drives full of data to Amazon and they’ll upload them to S3. Very cool.
  • The product I’ve been working on at Questionmark was recently released: Introducing Questionmark Live.
  • Apparently the number of homeless people with laptops is on the rise. I guess I’m not entirely surprised at that, considering my experience at Homeless Connect (almost everyone was familiar with Facebook).
  • Bing is now live. TechCrunch notes that Bing 411 also launched.
  • As you’ve no doubt heard by now, General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection.

Fish & Chips & Beer

Fish & Chips, and Beer in London tonight. Oh yes.

Edmonton Notes for 5/30/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

TransitCamp Edmonton: Data for Developers

I’ve been looking forward to this presentation for a long time! As you may know, I’ve been one of the more vocal citizens asking for an API or data dump from Edmonton Transit. I think only positive things will result from giving everyone access to the data! ETS simply doesn’t have the resources to build interfaces for the iPhone, SMS, etc., so releasing the data would enable other people to build them instead!

Today at TransitCamp Edmonton, I’m pleased to share with you that ETS has become the 2nd transit authority in Canada (and 29th in the world) to release their route and schedule information for free in the GTFS format!

Here are the slides from my presentation:

TransitCamp Edmonton: Data For Developershttp://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=datafordevelopers-090530112739-phpapp02&stripped_title=transitcamp-edmonton-data-for-developers

The ETS GTFS data is about 16 MB compressed and 177 MB uncompressed, so it’s quite a bit of data. If you’re looking for some help getting started, I’d suggest checking out the googletransitdatafeed project and the timetablepublisher project.

We’re also going to be holding a programming competition, as a little extra incentive for you to build something cool and useful with the data. So far we’ve got three prizes: 6 months of free transit for first place, 4 months for second place, and 2 months for third place (to clarify: that’s 6 months for the team, not for each individual on the team). I don’t have all the details yet, but stay tuned. I’ll be posting more information on the TransitCamp site (and here).

I think this is fantastic. Open cities are the future, and this is a big step in the right direction for the City of Edmonton.

artsScene Edmonton Launch Party

Tonight I attended the artsScene Edmonton Launch Party at Planet Ze Design Center in Old Strathcona. I was quite excited when I heard back in April that the initiative was coming to Edmonton, because I think it’s a great idea. From the press release:

artsScene is a new initiative that brings together young business and creative professionals (ages 18-40) to grow the arts, culture and creative industries in our community. artsScene is an initiative of Business for the Arts, a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting business leadership in the arts, facilitating funding relationships and connecting business volunteers to the arts. artsScene has been established in Toronto, Halifax and Montreal, and now Edmonton and Calgary.

Tonight’s event was a party, one of five different types of events that artScene will be hosting. Others include BoardLink (speed networking), Roundtables (breakfast sessions), Behind the Scenes (engage with artists), and a Creative Summit (two-day conference). The next event will be a BoardLink in June, followed by a summer party in August.

artsScene EdmontonartsScene EdmontonartsScene EdmontonSharon & MackMichael & KenCadence Weapon

Featured artists this evening included Denise Lefebvre, Patrick Higgins, and Shelby Wallace. Other special guests were Edmonton’s newest poet laureate Roland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon), and DJ Marc it Fresh (Marcus Coldeway). CBC Radio3 was also in attendance. Organizers said over 100 tickets were sold ahead of time, and there was strong interest at the door. I’d say there was easily 125 people there by the time I left. It was a good mix of people too! SmibsTV was recording some interviews, so keep an eye on their site for video.

I think artsScene events could quickly become “must attend” events for creative professionals in Edmonton. Check out the website, and stay connected – artsScene Edmonton is on Twitter, Facebook, and has a mailing list. You can see my photos from this evening here.