Edmonton Notes for 12/10/2012

I’m back in Edmonton for the rest of the year now after trips to London, Dublin, and Miami over the last two weeks. It was an unplanned but welcome break from writing!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

I <3 YEGDT
The new I ❤ YEGDT banner on the side of City Centre Mall.

Here are some upcoming events:

Snow Bench

The Yeggies will recognize and celebrate online content creators in Edmonton

the yeggiesToday was a very exciting day for Edmonton’s vibrant social media scene! Adam Rozenhart of The Unknown Studio (among other things) officially announced the Edmonton New Media Awards, a.k.a. “The Yeggies”:

Edmonton has a particularly strong social media community. It’s quite remarkable, and I think pretty unique. I know other Canadian cities have enthusiastic social media users and communities as well, but — and I’ll admit to complete and total bias here — there’s just something different about Edmonton’s community.

You know what’s missing from Edmonton’s winning formula? True, unabashed recognition.

That’s where the new awards come in!

The Edmonton New Media Awards, or the Yeggies, is an annual awards show created to recognize and celebrate outstanding social media content creators in the capital region. It’s an awards show to highlight some of the amazing talent we have here in Edmonton — from people who code websites themselves, to those who write, speak, draw, all on their own time. Yeggies recipients inspire, evoke, inform, educate and entertain us, and they do it because they have a passion for it.

I’m really thrilled that this is really going to happen – there are so many creative people in our city making interesting things online. I am fortunate enough to be on the organizing committee, so I can tell you that coming up with the categories wasn’t easy. I’m sure we’ll hear lots of great feedback on how to improve, but I’m very happy with the award categories we decided upon for the first annual awards:

  • Best in Edmonton
  • Best in Political or Current Affairs
  • Best in Sports
  • Best in Food
  • Best in Arts and Culture
  • Best in Humour
  • Best in Fashion & Style
  • Best Twitter Persona
  • Lifetime Achievement Award

Yes, this means that a sports blog could be up against a sports podcast, for example. Blogs and podcasts are two different animals, but once you go down the path of having separate awards for each service or network you quickly realize it never ends. There is a special category for Twitter, but to me that’s a recognition of the outsized impact Twitter has had on the entire scene here in Edmonton.

Want to nominate someone? You have until the end of January!

Details for the awards show are still being worked out but it is currently slated to take place in the spring. If you’d like to get involved, we’re looking for both volunteers and sponsors.

Finally, I want to thank Adam for driving this forward. I think The Yeggies are going to be a big success, and I just hope I can play a role in helping him realize his vision for the project. Take a few seconds and thank Adam for once again giving meaning to the “Make Something Edmonton” idea.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #59

This week I want to first acknowledge that a number of readers have suggested I should improve the accessibility of my blog (link differentiation, appropriate alternate text and other features for screen readers, etc.). I have been planning to redesign for a little while now, and will make accessibility an important part of the update (the other big thing is responsive design). Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions – stay tuned!

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 11/25/2012

I’m in London, UK right now and will be working here all week. Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Pont Low Level Bridge, Edmonton, version 2
Nice shot of the Low Level Bridge by Luc Therrien

Here are some upcoming events:

Edmonton Skyline from Griesbach
Edmonton Skyline from Griesbach by Darren Kirby

Learning about poverty in Edmonton through a simulation

I recently had the opportunity to participate in Edmonton’s first-ever Poverty Simulation. Sponsored by the EPCOR Community Essentials Council (of which I was a member), the simulation was organized by the United Way of the Alberta Capital Region and brought a few dozen community and business leaders together to learn more about the challenges that low-income families in our community face. According the United Way’s Cost Poverty Report 2012:

The cost of poverty in Alberta is between $7.1 and $9.5 billion per year – a monetary cost incurred by us all. But the deeper costs are seen through the lives of those living in poverty, the effects it has on them, their children and families.

The poverty simulation attempts to provide some insight into those deeper costs.

After I arrived I was given a nametag that told me which character I’d be playing. Turns out I would be Diana Duntley for the morning, a 14-year-old girl. After breakfast, we were instructed to find the rest of our family, and to read the package that gave us more information about our particular situation. I was in school but unmotivated, my older brother had dropped out and was in trouble with the law, and my father was now out of the picture leaving my mother without a job but a bunch of bills to pay.

Poverty Simulation
Photo supplied by United Way

Our task was to survive for a month and to get all of our bills paid. To simulate the time, each week took 15 minutes, and each weekend an additional 2 minutes. Services and organizations were setup all around the room – the school, the grocery store, the utility company, the bank, etc. To get from place to place, you often had to surrender a transit ticket, to try to simulate the transportation challenges people face.

I went to school for three of the four weeks (one was a holiday so there was no school) while my brother and mother did their best to try to find ways to pay our bills. My mother managed to get a job, and my brother turned out to be quite adept at getting vouchers and assistance from the services in the room. In the end though, we did not manage to pay all of the bills.

Poverty Simulation
Photo supplied by United Way

The experience was an eye-opening one for me. I think the word most often used by participants to describe how the simulation made them feel was “hopeless”. It’s a simulation, but it really does give some valuable insight into the difficult decisions that those “living on the edge” in our community face each month. Here are the key things I took away from the simulation:

  • We had no idea where to start, and I suspect many people in our community face that challenge. What’s the best strategy or approach to ensure you can make ends meet? We do have 211 here in Edmonton but unfortunately that did not exist in the simulation. I have been asking people about it ever since, and not many know about it.
  • The teachers at school spent a significant chunk of their time dealing with issues that had nothing to do with teaching the curriculum. Following up with students for fees, needing to send letters home to parents, etc.
  • There’s doesn’t always seem to be a lot of support for families who are just barely making it each month. When we think about the less fortunate we often think about shelters, but there’s a whole range of services needed to help the families that are just trying to pay the bills. From the United Way’s Pathways Out of Poverty: “Poverty is not having sufficient resources, capabilities, choices, security, and power necessary to enjoy an adequate standard of living.”
  • When you spend all of your time and energy of just making sure you have heat or just getting food on the table, there’s no opportunity to ensure the food you’re buying is healthy and nutritious, nor is there any time or money to save for a better future. You’re always dealing with right now, instead of preparing for tomorrow.

I thought the simulation was really well-organized. It was developed by the Missouri Association for Community Action, and it has since been used all around North America. The United Way localized the program to make it fit the Edmonton context, and I expect they will continue to improve and tweak it based on feedback. One suggestion I would make is to try to simulate the transportation challenge more realistically. The cost per ticket is now $3, not $1 as it was in the simulation, but more important is the amount of time it can take to get from place to place. In the room everything is conveniently located close together and close to where everyone lives, but in the real world services may actually be quite far away. Another improvement would be to provide more concrete actions or next steps to the participants. Going through the simulation is great, but what happens next? How can you take action to make a difference?

Poverty Simulation
Me talking to the utility company. Photo by David O.

I wanted to share some of the statistics that everyone who participated in the simulation left with. On education:

  • Approximately 9000 students drop out of high school each year in Alberta.
  • 40% of adults in Alberta have low literacy skills and 50% of adults have low numeric skills.
  • Approximately $142 million is incurred annually by the Province of Alberta for high school drop outs (that’s unemployment, lost tax revenue, social assistance, judicial system and health care costs, etc.)
  • 73% of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit students in EPSB do not graduate within the first 3 years of entering Grade 10.
  • Over 2100 children received food through E4C’s School Lunch program during the 2010/2011 school year.

On income:

  • As of September 2012, there were 2459 people on the wait list for social housing in the Capital Region.
  • In 2009, roughly 123,000 people in the Capital Region were living in poverty (using the Statistics Canada measure of Low Income Cut-Off).
  • Approximately 15,000 individuals were served every month by Edmonton’s Food Bank in 2011.
  • Approximately 44% of food bank users are under the age of 18.
  • Three of four children living in poverty come from homes where at least one parent is working.

On wellness:

  • In Edmonton, there are more than 40 youth gangs which engage in drug related crimes, extortion, and auto theft, among other crimes. Approximately 80% of the people involved in the drug trade in Edmonton are estimated to be 18-30 years old.
  • In 2011, the Edmonton Police Service responded to 6292 reported cases of domestic violence.
  • One in five people in our community will likely experience a mental illness in their lifetime.
  • The Capital Region is the second largest growth area for government-related services, and 211 has experienced a 10.2% increase in call volume recently.

And finally, here are a few related statistics provided by the Edmonton Social Planning Council:

  • The average weekly cost of a nutritious food basket for a family of four in Edmonton has increased by 6.6% from $186.88 in April 2010 to $198.93 in April 2012.
  • Average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Edmonton has increased by 4.2% from $994 in April 2010 to $1,036 in April 2012.
  • The cost of water, heat and electricity in Edmonton has increased by 12.4% in the two years between 2009 and 2011.
  • The cost of a monthly bus pass has increased by 11.1% from $75.25 in January 2010 to $84.65 today.
  • The cost of regular unleaded gasoline in Edmonton has increased by 28.7% from 87.2 cents/litre in June 2010 to 112.2 cents/litre in June 2012.

I understand the United Way will be organizing more simulations in the future, so if you ever get the opportunity to participate I would highly recommend that you do!

You can learn more by reading this post by Karina Hurtado about a poverty simulation that took place recently in Calgary, and this post by ABC Head Start.

EPCOR’s Community Essentials Council was a fantastic experience

I wrapped up my term on EPCOR’s Community Essentials Council (ECEC) a couple of weeks ago with the final meeting of 2012. Some members had three year terms and will be continuing while the rest of us have made way for a new group of EPCOR employees and community representatives to take part. The ECEC was officially announced in May 2011 with the goal of enhancing EPCOR’s commitment to the communities it serves:

We’re committed to supporting the communities where we operate. In 2011, we established the EPCOR Community Essentials Council (ECEC) with the objective of creating a positive impact in our communities. The ECEC includes community leaders and EPCOR employees who meet quarterly to award up to $100,000 to selected eligible applicants.  The ECEC donates up to $400,000 per year.

Before the Q4 2012 meeting, the ECEC had already donated over $598,766 to 34 organizations. You can see some of the amazing programs and organizations that we’ve supported here.

ECEC 2012
From left to right: Jeffrey Lloyd, Liz O’Neill, Mack Male, Matthew Herder, Jamie Pytel, Brian Gerdes, Patti Lefebvre, Ruth Kelly, Simon Farbrother, Frank Mannarino, Not pictured: Robert Walker

Every quarter we met to review applications from a wide range of organizations. Over time we became more efficient at the adjudication process, but it never got any easier to decide against a worthy cause. I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn about so many of the great things happening in our community (for instance, I got to teach kindergarten). I also had the opportunity to learn about some of the challenges our community faces. There’s a lot of work to be done.

Getting to know my fellow council members was definitely a highlight of the experience. We all came from different perspectives, but everyone was pumped about the opportunity to help EPCOR make a difference, and I think we worked really well together. I felt pretty honored to be at the same table as all of them. Ruth Kelly served as our chair and she set the tone and kept us on track. The ECEC is lucky to have her!

I want to thank everyone at EPCOR who has worked on making the ECEC possible, but I especially want to thank Diane Allen. I know she put a lot of work into the ECEC and clearly it has paid off. Her contributions cannot be understated, and I’m very grateful that she was there to guide us through the process. I can’t wait to see which interesting challenges she decides to tackle next!

My seat on the council was the “Youth Representative” position, and I’m very happy to share that fellow Top 40 Under 40 alum Emmy Stuebing will be taking my place. She is currently the Executive Director of the Alberta Emerald Foundation and loves to get involved in the community, volunteering her time for a number of causes. She brings a lot of experience to the ECEC and I know she’ll have a positive impact.

You can learn more about the ECEC here and you can sign up for the quarterly e-newsletter here. If your organization would like to apply for ECEC funding, make sure you qualify and have a link to at least one of EPCOR’s three pillars for community support, then fill out the application form online.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #58

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

xmas music on the radio

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 11/18/2012

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

  • Tunneling crews working on the North LRT extension to NAIT broke through the wall at Churchill Station this week, a major milestone for the project. The $755-million project is expected to be completed and operational in 2014. Here’s a video of the celebration:

A Winter Crapperland
Great photo of a snowy residential street by Nico Humby.

Here are some upcoming events:

Light Up the Square 2012
The tree is now lit in Churchill Square! Paula Kirman has more photos from the light up event here.

Edmonton benefits from seconded Oilers employees during the lockout

oilersThe players and the owners get the spotlight whenever the NHL lockout is discussed, but the lack of hockey affects many more people than that. At many teams, the employees that run the organization have been laid off or have had to take pay cuts due to the lack of revenue coming in. But for many of the Oilers staff, secondment to other organizations throughout the city has been a welcome alternative.

“Our biggest and most valuable asset is the people we have recruited and trained,” Oilers President & COO Patrick LaForge told me. “The worst thing you can do is lay people off.” He knows it is not only difficult for the employees, who would have to go out and find new jobs and deal with everything that goes along with that, but also for the Oilers who will still need talented people once the lockout ends.

The Oilers have done two key things to retain staff during the lockout. The first is that the senior executives all took a sizable pay cut, and the difference is used to ensure that all employees who make less than a certain amount of money per year still earn 100% of their salaries. That leaves the folks in the middle, and that’s where the secondment idea comes in. During the last lockout in 2004, a few Oilers employees found temporary homes at other organizations. One of the employees had a connection with the company that suggested the secondment, and the Oilers decided to give it a shot. “This time, everyone was prepared,” Patrick said.

The Oilers currently have 22 employees seconded to other organizations in Edmonton (that’s about 30% of the folks in the middle). Pennock Acheson Nielsen Devaney took six accountants on board, and other employees have gone to Body by Bennett, the Winspear Centre (including Tony Bao, who the Journal and Sun both wrote about), Williams Engineering, West Edmonton Mall, and a number of other local companies and non-profits. The employees stay on the Oilers payroll, earn their full salaries, and retain all of their benefits, and the Oilers simply invoice the companies for part of the employee’s salary. Most employees have two week notice periods with their temporary employers, so if the lockout were to end the Oilers could be back up and running at full capacity in short order.

Regardless of what happens with the lockout, the employees will likely be back with the Oilers full-time in February as the organization ramps up to sell season tickets for the 2013-2014 campaign. But that may not be the end of the secondments; Patrick indicated that the Oilers may explore the idea for the summer too.

There’s a risk that the Oilers will lose some of these people, but it doesn’t seem likely. “It’s about good commerce in the city,” Patrick told me. It certainly does seem like a win-win-win. The employees get to keep their jobs and paychecks, and they’ll be exposed to new ideas and approaches along the way. The employers get to take advantage of some talented individuals, which is a big deal in Edmonton’s tight labour market (it took just ten days to place the 22 individuals). And the Oilers get to retain their employees and will likely experience a jolt of energy and fresh ideas when they all return.

Actually, they’re probably experiencing that already. Every two weeks the team gets together to swap stories and to share the things they have learned. “Having a culture where everyone is learning is important”, Patrick said. While I’m sure the Oilers would rather be in the middle of a season right now, the opportunity for employees to learn new things from other local organizations probably isn’t such a bad thing.

Could this happen in other cities? Sure, but it’s no surprise that it’s happening here. As Todd wrote, Edmonton is “an unusually open city: open to ideas and open to change.” There’s a spirit of collaboration that makes partnerships like the ones the Oilers have forged possible.

Odds & Ends

No rhyme or reason to this post, I just felt like writing some of this stuff down!

Winter Tires
On the weekend I had my first ever set of winter tires installed. My all-seasons were getting pretty bald, so I needed new tires anyway. I figured I might as well give the winter ones a shot! Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that the two main distinguishing features of winter tires are the rubber composition (greater percentage of soft rubber) and increased siping (slits in the rubber). We live just a block away from Fountain Tire downtown, so I haven’t gone very far with them yet.

Windows 8
I had been running the release candidate for a while (in a VHD) so I more or less knew what to expect when I upgraded to Windows 8 on launch day (October 26). The upgrade from 7 to 8 was really straightforward, and you can’t beat the price ($41.99 with tax). The process took longer than I though it would, but I just left it for an hour or so and came back and it was ready to go. I know people like to hate on the new UI, but I actually really like it. And even as a mouse and keyboard user primarily, I find myself navigating around much more quickly than with Windows 7 (it really helps if you know the shortcuts, this primer is a good start).

Logitech Touchpad T650
I switched from a mouse to a touchpad last year and haven’t looked back (I find the touchpad less stressful on my wrist). Now that Windows 8 is out a bunch of new accessories have launched such as Logitech’s Touchpad T650. I ordered one from Staples and am very happy with it. It’s wireless, rechargeable via USB, and supports up to thirteen touch gestures. Swipe three fingers up and you get the Start screen, swipe three fingers down and you’re back at the desktop. It also supports the edge gestures, so flipping through open apps is a breeze. Definitely worth considering if you’re using Windows 8 on a desktop.

Windows Phone 8
Even though the official launch was more than two weeks ago, there’s still no sign of Windows Phone 8 in Canada. I really need to replace my current phone (which I dropped causing the screen to crack pretty badly) but if I have to wait around for Telus to get something in stock it may be a while. Maybe an unlocked phone from Expansys is the way to go, anyone have any experience with them?

Nate Silver
I’m very happy that Barack Obama won another term, though after paying attention to Nate Silver’s stuff I can’t say I’m surprised. He nailed it. Let’s hope this means we’ll see better journalism for 2016. I haven’t read his book yet, but it is sitting on my Kindle ready for me to finish the other dozen or so books I have yet to read!

Upcoming Events
There’s lots of good stuff to look forward to in the next week or so. I’ll be at the Startup City Luncheon tomorrow, and I’m hoping to spend some time at Launch Party 3 on Thursday. Friday and Saturday are WordCamp, and though I’m not speaking this year I am moderating the panel on Saturday morning.

Upcoming Travel
I’m going to be in London, UK during the week of the 26th and in Miami during the week of December 3rd. Have been to London a few times but have never been to Miami. I’m looking forward to both trips! If you have any must-see suggestions for either, let me know.