Fringeopolis – The Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival’s 30th Anniversary Edition

Fringe Theatre Adventures announced this afternoon the theme for the 30th anniversary edition of the popular summer festival: Fringeopolis.

The theme is a play on the “mini-municipality” that Old Strathcona turns into during the eleven days of the festival. The Fringe is inviting everyone to become a citizen of Fringeopolis for free on its website. You can also upgrade your membership by paying $20 to become a builder of Fringeopolis. Builders get a poster and program in addition to the benefits citizens receive (free transit with ETS, notifications, merchandise discounts, etc). I really love the concept, and I think they’re going to get a lot of traction with this theme. As an urbanite it definitely speaks to me.

From the press release:

“The Fringeopolis theme represents the city within a city that comes alive each August: a metropolis born of the creativity, artistic talent, innovation, and experimentation of our festival was founded on,” says Julian Mayne, Executive Director, Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival. “As producers of The Fringe, we believe the evolution of theatre is fundamental to the evolution of community, and Fringeopolis speaks to our past as a creative community, as well as to our future.”

Sam Jenkins and Thomas Scott helped launch the new theme.

Also announced today was a collaboration with the Art Creation Foundation for Children (ACFFC) of Jacmel, Haiti. Throughout the festival at KidsFringe, 10 young artists from the organization will create and perform folk stories and vignettes. EPL’s Writer-in-Residence Marty Chan is helping to develop the vignettes and Tanzanian author Tololwa Mollel is adapting the folk stories.

The Fringe is looking for more than 1200 volunteers for this year’s festival. Approximately 35,000 hours are dedicated to ensure the festival happens each year. You can learn more and fill out an application here. Be sure to check out Volunteer Edmonton’s 2011 Festival Volunteer Fair on Thursday at City Hall too.

The graphics and visual art for Fringeopolis was done by local artist Gabe Wong. I think it looks amazing!

Gabe Wong in front of his poster.

Last year nearly 160 productions by theatre companies played more than 40 stages across Edmonton. The festival also featured 200 outdoor performances and more than 50 busking acts. The Fringe sold 93,000 tickets last year, and more than 400,000 people visited the festival grounds. More than 1000 tickets sold on the first day of sales last year, and Frequent Fringer and Double Fringer passes were completely sold out in 24 hours. Make sure you get your tickets to this year’s event early!

Here’s a video created by Graphos for Fringeopolis:

Fringeopolis runs August 11 – 21, 2011 at venues throughout Old Strathcona and beyond. Stay tuned to the website or Twitter for more information in the weeks ahead! You can also see what others are saying on Twitter using the hashtag #yegfringe.

Leading the Way: 2011 Youth Summit on Sustainable Transportation

This weekend at the Lister Conference Centre on the University of Alberta campus, about 56 youth from across the prairies and territories are gathered to learn about and discuss public transit and sustainable transportation. Leading the Way is the first regional summit to take place in Canada, other chapters of the Canadian Urban Transit Association will follow suit with their own events later this year.

The conference kicked off last night with opening remarks from Charles Stolte, Manager of Edmonton Transit and Chair of the Canadian Urban Transit Association. He welcomed everyone and shared a few anecdotes from his many years of transit experience. We also heard from Kevin Joll, Manager of Red Deer Transit. He talked about the organizations Vision 2040, an initiative to define the role of public transit in Canada for a 30-year time horizon. He shared this video with us:

Next up was our keynote speaker, Edmonton City Councillor Don Iveson. He spoke about “making a difference” and shared some of his experiences with bringing the U-Pass to life. He had four main pieces of advice for delegates:

Make a strong argument.
Be patient.
Have fun.
Walk the talk.

He noted that it takes time for public transit projects to happen, so even if you make a strong argument you need to be patient. Having fun can help you be patient, and there’s no better way to destroy a strong argument than to not walk the talk!

His slides were fantastic, and contained lots of little nuggets:

“You come out ahead when you invest in public transit.”
If everyone around the world lived the way we do in Edmonton, we’d need about 4 planet Earths to sustain ourselves.
A bus with 12 people is a better investment than a Prius with 4 people. LRT, of course, is even better.

He closed with his popular video on transportation that uses Lego!

The rest of the evening was devoted to brainstorming on the six major questions posted to delegates. The questions align with Vision 2040, and by the end of the weekend each group is going to have a pitch ready to make in a Lion’s Lair competition. It should be interesting to see what everyone comes up with!

The conference runs all weekend, and includes tours of the D.L. MacDonald LRT Garage and the new LEED-certified Centennial Garage. There’s also going to be a dance party on a chartered LRT car! You can follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #LTWSummit. I’ll be posting photos of the event here.

Get Closer: Meet the new Edmonton Valley Zoo

The Edmonton Valley Zoo, which opened in 1959, is in the midst of a major transformation. City Council approved a Master Plan to revitalize the zoo in 2005, and in 2009 finally committed some funding to the project. Over the last year or so we’ve started to see signs of progress, with the September 2010 opening of a new veterinary hospital and construction of the $16.7 million Arctic Shores habitat well underway. The zoo’s historic Storyland characters are now gone to make way for the new construction projects. There’s a long way to go still, but the vision is coming to life.

Though the Master Plan had been approved for four years, the realization that things were going to change didn’t sink in for Denise Prefontaine and her team until the funding announcement was made. As the Director of the Valley Zoo, Denise saw incredible opportunity with the Master Plan, and still gets quite excited when she talks about all of the plans. “It will help change the perception of the zoo,” she told me. When details of the Master Plan were first revealed, there was a lot of talk that the Valley Zoo was going to try to compete with the Calgary Zoo. Denise set the record straight: “The Valley Zoo will continue to grow as an educational and conservation facility; the footprint will not change.” She knew what the zoo was all about, but clearly it wasn’t be communicated as well as it could have been.

In early 2010, Denise decided to bring a group of people together to look at the zoo’s brand. They held a workshop, talked about the plans for the zoo, and to their surprise quickly coalesced around a shared vision. “We wanted to build on the strengths of the zoo,” she recalled. “It’s a warm place to be, you can interact with the animals.” Here’s the new vision statement for the Edmonton Valley Zoo:

A special place that inspires love and learning of animals and nature.

“When people saw the vision statement, they said ‘yep, that’s it!’” The exercise was useful, but it was also just part of a bigger learning process for the team. They quickly realized how much work and thought goes into building a successful brand. “It affects so much more than just your logo,” Denise told me. In addition to the vision statement, there are four key values embodied in the brand:

Stewardship – True stewards, staff at the Edmonton Valley Zoo provide the highest quality care at home and strongly support conservation efforts worldwide.
Conservation – Passionately practice environmental stewardship.
Education – Encourage and inspire learning through engaging and memorable events and activities.
Engagement – Fun experiences and rich interactions create lasting memories.

The new brand also features five characteristics that the zoo aspires to:

Intimate
Inspiring
Nurturing
Natural
Cool

It’s about connecting with the animals. It’s about intimate experiences that make learning accessible and stimulating. It’s about a high quality of life for the animals living at the zoo. It’s about connecting with nature and learning how to help conserve the planet for future generations. It’s about new state-of-the-art facilities to allow you to observe clearly, and engage authentically. It’s about getting closer.

“The fundamental experience of human/animal bonding and its benefits for animals, people, learning and our society and environment.”

If the brand is all about getting closer, the challenge became conveying that in a logo. The solution? Eyes!

As of today the Valley Zoo will begin using its new logos. Yes, that’s plural. “The zoo has many different faces, so we have a series of logos rather than just one,” Denise told me. Each logo features a different animal face, with the eyes standing in for the letter ‘o’ in the word zoo. “We tried it with lots of different eyes, and some just didn’t work.” They currently have eight logos, but may add more in the future.

Through the use of the animal’s eyes, the logo brings you closer, which is exactly what the zoo aims to do. Calder Bateman is responsible for the creative work, which is really the only part of the brand that hasn’t been shared until now. “We’ve been using brand personality internally since last year, but not the visual identity,” Denise said. Each logo features its own color palette, and all use the Haptic font (with Arial serving as the secondary/alternate font). The placement of the words is reminiscent of the Valley Zoo Development Society’s logo.

The new logo and brand are appropriate given the physical transformation underway at the zoo, but I just had to ask about leaving the old logo behind. “Our current logo gives the mistaken impression that the zoo is about just one animal,” Denise told me. Do a search online and it doesn’t take long to come across the controversy surrounding Lucy, the zoo’s elephant. But that wasn’t really a factor in creating the new visual identity. “Eventually the zoo will no longer have elephants,” Denise noted.

The new logos put the animals front and centre. “Using multiple faces lends itself to both serious and fun,” Denise told me. They’ve certainly been embracing that notion – last night the website went offline to make way for a new one, so visitors were greeted with the picture to the right and the following message:

We just need a bit of time to look our best for everyone – shedding our skin, preening our feathers, fluffing our fur.

The goal was to have the website plus all signage, advertisements, uniforms, and other materials using the new visual identity starting today.

As a way to celebrate the new brand and direction for the Edmonton Valley Zoo, the City is holding a contest on Facebook and at Connections 2011 (on ShareEdmonton). If you can correctly match one of the zoo’s new logos with the animal it represents, you’ll be entered into a draw for a family pass to the zoo! Also, as part of the zoo’s celebration weekend on May 7 and 8, visitors can take part in a special scavenger hunt to match some of the logo animals with their real life counterparts among the 350 animals living at the Valley Zoo. For more information, check out the new Edmonton Valley Zoo website.

From the moment I saw the new logos, I loved them. After learning a bit more about the reasons behind the new brand and the journey the Valley Zoo has embarked on, I love them even more. What do you think?

Edmonton Twittersphere: One Week, Three Big Events

There certainly has been a lot to talk about over the last seven days! The royal wedding, the death of Osama bin Laden, and the 41st Canadian federal election have all been in the news around the world. They’ve been the hot topics on Twitter as of late too. I decided to take a closer look at Edmonton’s tweeting of the three events.

First, here is the number of tweets about each topic, plotted per hour over the last week. From the chart, we can see that the Bin Laden and election news was spikier than the royal wedding (think: people tweeting as soon as they heard about Bin Laden versus people tweeting over the three or four hours the wedding took).

For the data labeled #RoyalWedding I took any tweet that contained “wedding”, “middleton”, “cambridge”, “william”, or “kate”. For the data labeled Bin Laden, I took any tweet that contained “bin laden”, “binladen”, “osama”, or “obama”. For the data labeled “#elxn41” I took any tweet that contained “elxn41” or “yegfed”. This definition applies to the rest of the data in this post as well.

Here’s a closer look at the royal wedding tweets:

Obviously one of the more interesting aspects of the royal wedding was that it took place in the middle of the night for us here in Edmonton. This chart gives you a sense of that. The orange line is the number of tweets posted per hour on April 29th, and you can see there were quite a few more tweets posted in the middle of the night than either the day before or after (the blue lines).

Here’s a word cloud that shows all of the local tweets posted on April 29th (29,625). You can see the wedding definitely stands out:

The most consistently talked about topic of the three has definitely been the election. We set a new record for the number of tweets posted in a single day on election day (May 2) at 37,664. That’s fitting, considering our record day last year was also an election day. This chart compares the two:

Obviously more tweets were posted overall on May 2, because there are more local users on Twitter now. What’s interesting to me is that the number of election-specific tweets is about the same for both!

Here’s a word cloud for election day:

Though more people tweeted about the election over the week, it was the Bin Laden news that got everyone tweeting at the same time. I think it’s the new local record holder for peak tweets per hour:

This chart is imperfect, of course – it changes depending on the search keywords you use. But I think it still illustrates the point. For Crosby’s goal, I used “canada”, “crosby”, “goal”, and “score”.

Finally, here’s a word cloud for May 1, the day the Osama bin Laden news broke:

Even though the news came out very late in the day, you can see that it was the most talked about topic of the day.

I wonder what the next big event on Twitter in Edmonton will be!

@AlbertaTheatre – Social Media and the Artist/Patron Relationship

Late last year, Wil Knoll and I were asked if we’d like to share some thoughts on the evolution of artist-audience interaction for All Stages, a magazine published three times a year by Theatre Alberta. We both agreed, and early this year set about writing it. We ended up having a conversation through email, which Wil turned into the final piece (I think he did a great job of editing it).

We discussed why and how we started using social media in connection with the arts, looked at the current situation in our respective cities, and touched on where things are going.

Here’s an excerpt from Wil:

Wil: The resistance seems to be fading away. In Calgary the major theatre companies and all of the top independent theatre companies have joined up on Twitter. How well they use that opportunity varies. Alberta Theatre Projects won a blogging award last year for their efforts to invite people into the process and behind the scenes. It’s hard to find a theatre company that is not taking a stab at social media in Calgary today.

And here’s my closing statement:

Mack: Gone are the days of the passive theatregoer, who takes in a show, perhaps reads a review in the local paper, and moves on. The tools we have now allow for the theatre patron to be engaged at all stages of a production. Gathering feedback, promoting upcoming events, reaching a demographic not normally tuned into theatre, all of this is possible with the tools. Today arts organizations still have the opportunity to lead the way with using these tools—they are relatively new and continually evolving. In the not too distant future however, patrons will demand it, and organizations will have no choice to but to engage.

That more or less sums up how I feel about the topic! What do you think?

You can read the article on page 4 of the Spring 2011 issue (PDF).

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #7

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

Conservative leader Stephen Harper has won a majority government in today’s election. Check out local media coverage: Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, daveberta, Global TV Edmonton. Some local stories include:
- Peter Goldring’s campaign kicked the Edmonton Journal out of his office
- Election day nears end in Edmonton
Tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day!
It appears Merge Magazine is back from the dead. A note on the website says: “In partnership with Art Angielski, General Manager of Sherwood Park Toyota, Merge has been given new life and a new opportunity to unite Edmontonians.”
Congratulations to Calder Bateman on taking home ‘Best of Show’ at the Advertising Club of Edmonton Awards. The Fellowship Award was presented to Craig Roskin, former general manager of CITY-TV, for services to the Edmonton advertising community and to charity.
In case you missed it: here’s my recap of Edmonton Journal Connect, an event the Journal held on April 20 to introduce its new publisher and editor-in-chief.
One of Edmonton’s most popular blogs, Oilers Nation, has undergone some changes with co-founder Adam Rozenhart (aka bingofuel) deciding to leave the project to focus on his role at Calder Bateman.
Submissions are now open for the Digital Alberta Awards, recognizing Alberta’s leaders in digital media. The awards ceremony will be held on June 6 at Hotel Arts in Calgary.
The May 2011 newsletter from the Edmonton Journal is now online. According to the newsletter, the Journal’s mobile site received more than 1 million pageviews in March 2011.
Finalists have been announced for the 37th annual Alberta Film & Television Awards. The awards gala and dinner will be held in Edmonton on May 28 at the River Cree Resort. Edmonton-based Panacea Entertainment leads the nominations for the most Rosie Awards at 10.
Long-time Global TV anchorwoman Lynda Steele has gone on to her new role at CTV BC. Here’s her goodbye message to Edmonton (archive). She said: “Thank you for your support over the years – it breaks my heart to leave my dear friend Gord behind. I hope you continue to support one of the hardest working, most-talented news teams in the province.” I’m hoping Jennifer Crosby takes over the position (she co-hosted tonight’s election coverage with Gord Steinke).

Goodbye cake for Lynda Steele!

Local blog the edmontonian has started airing its TV show, the edmontonian presents, on Shaw TV and online. You can check out the first episode here:

The Edmonton Journal has launched its new blogs page. The new release is significant for two reasons: Journal blogs are now running WordPress, and the page now links out to non-Journal blogs (such as this one). It’s a step in the right direction. For some fun, take a look at the source for the new WordPress blogs. It contains comments like “really not happy about this” and “Copyright Postmedia 1994”. Also: I’m not sure if this worked before, but the domain blogs.edmontonjournal.com now takes you to the new page.

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!

UPDATE: Karen Unland, editor of edmontonjournal.com, has announced she is leaving the organization.

Edmonton Notes for 5/1/2011

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Make sure you get out and vote tomorrow! You can follow the local election discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #yegfed.
City Council this week approved the proposed $132 million arch bridge that will replace the aging Walterdale Bridge.
Sharon has a good recap of the City Market’s decision to not proceed with the Mercer Warehouse as a year-round venue.
Both the Edmonton Public and Edmonton Catholic school administrations are facing tight financial situations that will affect staff and students in September.
Local singer Alyssa Reid has a hit song on the charts, but is known for her Bieber parody on YouTube.
More recognition for DONOVAN Creative’s rebranding project for the Edmonton Public Library! They’ve won the IFLA International Marketing Award for 2011.
Spring is here and that means the City is starting to clean our 4700 kilometers of roads. The operation which will remove about 180,000 tonnes of dirt and gravel is expected to take nine weeks. You can see the schedule here. Also – take the 15 to Clean Challenge!
The arena news this week had to do with seat mortgages, an idea being pushed by Stadium Capital. Here’s the Katz Group’s statement on the proposal.
Strathcona County Mayor Linda Osinchuk says that at any given time 40% of the beds at the Youth Emergency Shelter Society here in Edmonton are used by kids from Strathcona County, and she wants to explore building a shelter closer to home.
Thursday, April 28 was the 100th anniversary of the first public demonstration of flight here in Edmonton.
St. Albert ranks 18th on a list of the 25 worst commutes in Canada.
The City released details this week about Water’s Extreme Journey, a new feature coming to the Valley Zoo this summer.
Here’s a good article on Stantec’s recent success.
EEDC released its annual report this week, which you can read here in PDF.
Did you get up early this week to watch the Royal Wedding? There were lots of parties around the city, and an awful lot of tweeting for the middle of the night!
For more headlines from the past week, check out theedmontonian.com.
City and Dale is looking for contributors! You have until May 9 to make your submission.
Nominations are now being accepted for Edmonton’s fourth Poet Laureate.
The City of Edmonton is hosting a number of open houses highlighting the benefits of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). The first takes place on Tuesday evening at Avonmore Elementary School. Once again, this is an example of how NOT to do public involvement. These “open houses” are to provide information, but also for citizens to provide feedback. Will there be another opportunity? Who knows!
The first ever Tweet the Arts Meetup takes place on Thursday evening at The ARTery. Register here!
Also Thursday evening is Connections 2011, an opportunity to connect with City staff on programs and services. The venue change this year to City Hall is a welcome one.
A public meeting will be held on Thursday to discuss a new proposed business area in Central McDougall.
For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

The signage went up on the EPCOR Tower this week. Understated!

Signs of spring! Photo by Morpheus_uk.

Edmonton’s Blue Hour Man: Darren Kirby

Edmonton’s Flickr community isn’t as large or active as other online communities in the city, but with over 1000 members and 40,000 photos in the Edmonton group alone, it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. I have been trying to highlight some of the most interesting photos at Edmonton Etcetera, and after a while I realized that there are a few photographers I consistently enjoy. The one that stood out most to me was Darren Kirby – he’s definitely got an eye for the shot, as they say! I am consistently drawn to his style, his subject matter (mostly buildings and infrastructure around the city), and the fact that he licenses his photos under Creative Commons. I had to meet him!

Thankfully, he agreed to meet me for coffee recently. To start, I had to ask Darren about his extremely popular AGA-Cattle photo. If you have spent any amount of time online in the last six months, chances are you have seen it:

Darren told me that he had reviewed the route in advance, but didn’t exactly plan for the shot. “It just sort of worked out,” he told me. That photo was one of his most popular ones, and I think it’s easy to see why. It currently has nearly 800 views, 22 comments, and 11 favorites on Flickr.

Born in BC, Darren moved to Edmonton when he was quite young, and he’s gone back and forth ever since. “I love the outdoor ruggedness in BC,” he said, though he mostly grew up in Edmonton. At an early age Darren was interested in construction, in skyscrapers and other buildings, and it’s that interest that got him into photography. Darren was an active member of SkyscraperPage, a website that proclaims itself “the world’s finest resource for skyscraper and urbanism enthusiasts.” Indeed there’s a fairly active Edmonton community on the site. A couple of years ago someone posted an old construction photo of a building downtown, and it caught Darren’s eye. “I started thinking how neat it would be thirty years down the road to whip out some photos of the construction that is happening now.” That was the catalyst he needed to start taking photos around the city.

I was amazed to learn that Darren has only been wearing the photographer hat for a couple of years. “I jumped in head first, and found a passion.” His first proper camera was a Nikon D40, and today he mainly uses a Nikon D90. “I had always had a point-and-shoot but SkyscraperPage was the catalyst for me to purchase a DSLR and to start learning how to use it.” There were three main ways he learned: trial and error, self-learning using books and online resources, and shooting with other photographers. Darren told me he tries to get out for a good five hour walk at least once a week, and is a regular participant in local FlickrMeets (meetups for local photographers). He estimates he spends 10-20 hours a week at least, shooting and editing. “People probably think I do more processing than I actually do,” he told me. He adjusts levels and increases the contrast, but that’s it for most photos. As a fan of open source and an avid Linux user, Darren uses digiKam, Raw Therapee, and occasionally GIMP.

Though he has posted just over 4000 photos on Flickr (on his main account) Darren estimates he has close to 50,000 photos stored at home. “I only delete the really blurry ones,” he said. I mentioned my “shotgun” approach and Darren said he was like that too, but now is “a better judge of my own work.” His approach today is twofold: artistic and documentarian. Darren created the bulliver too account for constructions photos, and is the main way he documents the many construction projects happening around Edmonton.

One of the most interesting construction projects Darren has been photographing recently is the EPCOR Tower. Thanks to SkyscraperPage, Darren got connected with Qualico’s Ken Cantor, who invited him and few other photographers on a tour back in January. I asked Ken why he reached out to Darren. “Taking a Saturday morning to do the tour was a small investment that I was happy to make,” he told me, “besides, it gave me an opportunity to show off something I’ve been working on for a long time to someone who showed an interest in it.” Darren had already been photographing the building of course, just without the same level of access that the tour provided him. “Darren chose to share his work with others asking nothing back and I offered the tour on the same basis,” Ken told me. Darren was worried the tour was going to be cancelled because it was the same weekend as our record snowfall, but they went ahead anyway, and spent more than three hours taking photos. The only condition imposed on the photographers was that Qualico be allowed to use their photos internally as appropriate and externally with credit to the photographer. “At the end of the day, it is simply part of wanting to leave a city that has treated me well in a better condition than when I arrived here and it’s the personal, small things that are as important as the concrete big ones in making that happen,” Ken said.

Some of Darren’s favorite local projects include the Edmonton Clinic, the Alberta Hotel, and the Walterdale Bridge. As for photographers, Darren is a fan of many, including Hugh, Chris, and Nelson. He credits learning from other photographers as one of the most important ways he has tried to become a better photographer, though he admitted it hasn’t always been easy. Darren is naturally somewhat shy. “Join a community, whether it is Flickr online or something else, to learn from likeminded individuals.”

Though Darren enjoys shooting buildings and urban settings, he has started dabbling in model shots as well. “It’s a whole other world, tough but very rewarding.” Without a doubt however, his favorite kind of shot is the blue hour. “A nice looking building, well lit, during blue hour – there’s nothing better than that,” he told me. I think his love for the shot shows:

The blue hour is of course that wonderful time after the sun has gone down but before the sky has turned black.

It struck me that Darren is doing Edmonton a huge service through his photography, capturing the way the city is transforming physically. “I think it’ll be a very useful, important thing down the road,” he agreed. I think it’s especially important that Darren licenses his photos using Creative Commons, something that was a very conscious decision. “I didn’t even think twice,” he said of his choice to use Creative Commons. I mentioned perhaps connecting with the City of Edmonton Archives to store the photos, and noting that it might be too soon, Darren said “my photos are there for the taking!” I think it’s great.

For Darren, photography is a hobby but “a very enjoyable one that has been really rewarding.” He counts himself lucky to be a photographer in the digital age. “It’s great to get instant feedback from so many sources.” I asked Darren to offer some advice to other up-and-coming photographers, and he said “just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!” Practice really does make perfect. He also said that it takes time, so don’t expect brilliant results right away.

Photo by Hugh Lee

I’m in awe of Darren’s work, and I’m so thankful that he is making it available for free online. Darren is certainly humble about it though. “I’m just a meat and potatoes kind of guy who loves taking pictures.”

You can check out Darren’s photos here and here, and you can follow him on Twitter.

Recap: TEC VenturePrize 2011

The annual TEC VenturePrize awards luncheon was held at the Westin Edmonton today, and I was fortunate enough to attend as a guest of TEC Edmonton. The Alberta-wide business plan competition is one of the ways that TEC Edmonton helps entrepreneurs access mentorship, networking, and exposure opportunities in our province. Some of the recent success stories from VenturePrize include Yardstick Software and Seek Your Own Proof.

The competition is broken into two categories: fast growth, and student. Finalists in the fast growth category compete for over $150,000 in cash and in-kind services, while finalists in the student competition compete for $10,000 cash.

Ryan Jespersen once again hosted the festivities, and I thought he did a really great job of incorporating tweets into the program. Lots of people in the audience were tweeting about the event and their favorite companies using the #ventureprize hashtag. Part of that online interest might have been due to the fact that the awards luncheon was streamed online for the first time this year.

Ryan kicked things off with a sit-down interview on stage with the three finalists in the student category:

GizmoBooks.com (Gezim Hoxha, University of Lethbridge)
Website offering students an easy way to buy and sell textbooks and save money.
Nougat Software Entertainment (Tyrel Schick, University of Lethbridge) (archive)
Video game development company designing/creating innovative, full scale games for a wide range of platforms.
AltaCap Energy Solutions (Trina Salvisberg & team, University of Alberta) (archive)
Focused on the development, production, and marketing of ultracapacitors that feature cutting edge electrode technology.

I don’t think the interview approach has ever been done before, and I thought it worked well. It was great to feature the students more prominently in the program.

Next we had introductory remarks from TEC Edmonton CEO Chris Lumb and Mayor Stephen Mandel, and then it was time to meet the finalists in the fast growth category. Each finalist had the opportunity to deliver a one minute elevator pitch, followed by a three minute video describing their product and/or business.

CAD Crowd (Calgary)

CAD Crowd helps firms hire CAD staff globally enabling the effective sourcing of CAD work through their relationships with quality-certified partners and an enterprise project management software tailored specifically to manage and facilitate CAD projects.

lightPower (Edmonton)

lightPower builds flexible plastic solar panels with long-term stability which can be integrated in consumer electronic products or used as stand-alone battery chargers. Flexible plastic solar panels are fabricated through roll-to-roll printing techniques, enabling high throughout, low-cost manufacturing.

VibeDX (Edmonton)

VibeDX is a patent-pending medical device for diagnosis of injuries, pathologies and fitness of the back and spine. With a 99+% accuracy in diagnosing disc damage that holds promise to improve long term outcomes and quality of life for millions of back pain sufferers.

Rant: You’ll note that CAD Crowd and GizmoBooks are the only two with links to actual company websites. If the others have websites, I can’t find them. You would think that in 2011 this wouldn’t be an issue, but it is. If I can’t type your name into Google and find you, you’re doing something wrong, I don’t care what industry you’re in. And yes, I recognize that these entrepreneurs are focusing on product development, but seriously, not even a simple landing page?! Come on.

After all the pitches were complete, Ryan quickly described how the judging process works, and the judges made a show of leaving the room for their final deliberations. I was surprised to see them return just a few minutes later – usually it takes longer, so I figured they must really have had a favorite! Judges in the fast growth category included Warren Bergen from Webbco International Inc., Rod Charko from Alberta Enterprise Fund, Roy Homyshin from TSX Venture Exchange, Mike Scarth from Alberta WaterSMART, and Shawn Abbott from iNovia Capital. Judges in the student category included Colin Christensen from Signa Venture Development, Troy Deck from Meyers Norris Penny, Don Riep from Yardstick Software Inc., and Jim Spiers from Right Field Marketing. In addition to the judges there were twelve screeners, whose job it was to select the finalists from the many resume submissions. This year, the Screeners’ Award of Merit went to Inspectacar, for their business focused on delivering “nothing but accurate vehicle inspections”.

Our keynote speaker was up next – Evan Chrapko, an entrepreneur currently focused on Highmark Renewables. Evan shared a few stories from his experiences as an entrepreneur, and hammered home the theme of “persistence pays”. I wrote about Evan’s transition into Highmark back in 2007, and he’s still at it, so he obviously practices what he preaches. Evan left the audience with five pieces of advice:

Know thyself, and know your timespan (how much time you can actually devote).
Know thy business partner (consider legal advice up front, even if it seems costly).
Trust your instincts.
Network with others (he encouraged everyone to leave with ten other business cards).
Persistence pays.

Finally, it was time for the announcement of the winners. Annette Trimbee from Alberta Advanced Education & Technology presented the awards for the student category, with Trina’s team at AltaCap taking the top prize!

Chris Lumb presented the awards for the fast growth competition, with the win going to VibeDX!

It definitely seemed like VibeDX was the favorite. I have to admit that I really love the concept behind their technology – taking an approach used in other industries (such as stress-testing an airplane wing) and applying it to the human body. Their video was also quite impressive, as it had at least five doctors offering either testimonials or rosy predictions for the technology. Here’s a video describing how VibeDX works:

Congrats to all of the participants and finalists this year, and of course to the winners! You can see more photos from today’s event here.

If you’re interested in participating in next year’s VenturePrize, check the website this fall for registration details. You can also follow @TECVenturePrize on Twitter.

Looking for a Junior Technical Writer to join Questionmark in Edmonton

As a software developer, I generally don’t have much love for writing documentation. I’d rather be writing code! But as someone who tries to write every day (here and elsewhere), I know that clearly explaining something is not easy, so I have great respect for those who do it. My experience in software development has taught me a few things. One is that documentation, if done correctly, can actually be seen as a feature. Another is that technical writers are one of the best sources of knowledge about a piece of software – they have, after all, documented it every step of the way. And a third lesson is that no matter how easy and straightforward you try to make a piece of software, someone, somewhere, will always want to have documentation.

Today, technical writers do more than just write documentation of course. Yes they write help files, knowledge base articles, and that sort of thing, but they also produce screencasts and videos, track and analyze usage metrics, and help to define how technical information is best relayed to the user. If that sounds like the perfect role for you, send me a resume – Questionmark is looking for a junior technical writer here in Edmonton.

The successful candidate will be self-motivated and self-sufficient with a flexible and questioning approach. You will have the interpersonal skills to succeed in a team environment. You should have strong written communication skills and a thirst for knowledge with a desire to learn and improve your experience of technical writing in a product environment.

We’re looking for someone with some experience and a desire to learn on the job by creating great resources for our customers. Our product development teams use SCRUM and work in two-week iterations, so there’s always a new challenge to tackle.

Our Edmonton office is located downtown in the Empire Building on Jasper Avenue at 101 Street, right above Central LRT Station.

You can view the job posting on Monster, or email me directly if you have questions or are interested in applying.

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