Reporting live in a world with Twitter

As you are undoubtedly aware, a gunman held eight people hostage at the WCB in downtown Edmonton last week. I happened to be on Breakfast Television that morning, so I was on the Citytv set as news was trickling in. I had the opportunity to tweet about the news live on the air:

Unconfirmed via @CitytvEdmonton: armed man holed up in the WCB building downtown. #yeg

It all happened very quickly and if the news wasn’t so terrible, I’d have said it was exciting. Certainly it was a good illustration of one aspect of the social media tools I was scheduled to talk about that morning.

A couple of hours later, I setup a live page on ShareEdmonton to cover the story (the feature is a work-in-progress, so it should be time-boxed but isn’t currently). That enabled anyone to quickly look at the stream of updates coming from Edmontonians related to the hostage situation. I used it throughout the day, and the feedback I received was mostly positive. I think what was most powerful about it was that you simultaneously got updates from the local media (in particular, @lyndasteele) and regular citizens, some discussing the event, others simply trying to find out what was going on. I’m sure many more people were just monitoring the #yeg hashtag in Twitter Search, TweetDeck, or some other app.

I think most found Twitter to be a useful resource that day, but not everyone was happy. Can you guess who complained about the Twitter coverage? Some members of the local media, of course. I heard from a number of journalists throughout the day that they were concerned about posting news on Twitter. Esther Enkin from CBC even wrote about it:

The task is complicated further by the sheer volume of communication. Facebook and Twitter were working overtime. At one point, there was a rumour that someone holed up in the building was updating the situation on Facebook.

The level of speculation and misinformation on Twitter was an object lesson on the need to verify and sift the facts.

Late in the day, someone from CBC tweeted that some hostages had contacted us. We weren’t reporting the fact that we had become involved for a bunch of reasons.

But here is a really important principle. We should not tweet what we wouldn’t put on the air.

I’m not going to deny that verifying the facts is important, but I will disagree that the level of “speculation and misinformation” on Twitter was higher than normal. I think it was the opposite actually – I think Twitter enabled citizens to get the facts faster. Faster than walking around talking to neighbours or coworkers, which is where speculation truly thrives, and certainly faster than waiting for the six o’clock news.

Esther takes care in her article to deny that they were withholding information for competitive reasons:

One reason we didn’t let on is because we didn’t want every other news organization jumping in. Not for competitive reasons, but because the chaos could be dangerous.

Really? Chaos would ensue from other media organizations knowing that CBC had talked to the hostage taker? I’m not so sure.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the media over the last year it’s that they are incredibly competitive. That was the primary concern when Twitter hit the scene in Edmonton back in Februrary – “we can’t tweet that or our competitors will find out.” Maybe Esther is telling the truth, but I don’t believe it.

Her other reason for withholding the information was based on CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices, last amended in 2004 (before Twitter, you’ll note).

Of course, the primary danger of live reporting and detailed descriptions of what is going on outside in a situation like this is that the hostage taker can be listening, watching and logging on.

That makes sense at first, but think about it a little more. That statement implicitly suggests that reporters can collectively control the information the hostage taker is receiving. Really?

Trying to control the information is impossible. You have to assume the hostage taker is going to be looking for information. These days, that probably means he or she is carrying a device with Internet capabilities. You also have to assume that regular people are going to be posting information, people who never went to journalism school and who don’t work for a media organization. Some of those people are going to be merely observers, looking at the situation from the outside. Others will be part of the event.

All the signs point to more information, from more people, faster than ever before. Most of us walk around with phones or other Internet connected devices, and in a couple years you probably won’t be able to buy a device without Internet connectivity. I think that’s the reality, and that’s the world the media need to visualize themselves in.

Stop complaining about the misinformation on social networks, and start preempting it. Stop trying to control the flow of information, and start figuring out how to effectively contribute the facts.

Notes for 10/26/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

Banff Trip October 2009

Banff Trip October 2009

Banff Trip October 2009

Edmonton Notes for 10/24/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Idea: Empower passionate individuals to improve Alberta

As you can imagine, the discussion I had over lunch yesterday with DJ and Andrew was quite interesting and left me with a lot to think about. We’re all passionate and deeply involved in local projects, trying to make the places we live better. At one point we were ranting about the money government wastes on certain projects. A little while later, DJ remarked that he could do so much more if he didn’t have to worry about paying the bills. A light bulb went off for me then.

What would happen if we took ten passionate and involved Albertans and enabled them to focus on their extracurricular activities? Pay the bills for a year, and let them focus on improving their communities. What would they come up with? How big of an impact would they have on the province?

Now, I recognize there are many potential issues with the idea. First and foremost, if you pay those individuals for their “fun” extracurricular activities, there’s a danger that those activities become “work”. I’m sure you can think of many other issues. But imagine the possibilities! Let’s say, as DJ suggests, that you pay each individual $50,000 for the year – that’s only $500,000. We could easily come up with a list of things our municipal and provincial governments have done in the last few months that cost as much but will have a far smaller return.

Funding this idea needn’t fall to the government, either. Wealthy Albertans or large companies could fund it. Anyone with the money and the desire to make Alberta a better place. Think of it like the unconference version of the X Prize or the Netflix Prize (in that there’s less structure and no pre-defined goals).

The idea is to simply set ten individuals free for a year, knowing that they’ll rise to the ultimate challenge: twelve uninterrupted months to make your city and province a better place.

Thoughts? Know of anything like this happening elsewhere? Let me know!

Check out DJ’s blog for another take on the idea.

Notes from Calgary

Sharon had a conference in Calgary yesterday and today, so I decided to tag along. I never seem to have enough time to meet up with people when I’m in town, so I’m glad to report that I had a fairly productive couple of days:

  • Yesterday I met up with Roger Kondrat for lunch. He’s got an event coming up in Calgary on November 12th called the Social Media Innovation Summit. Unlike most social media workshops, Roger is skipping the “how to Twitter” sessions and is going for higher level strategy. It’s an interesting concept, and he hopes to bring it to other Canadian cities in the future.
  • Today I joined DJ Kelly and Andrew McIntyre for lunch. Such great guys – we had a very interesting and thought-provoking discussion! Of course, we had to talk open data too. Check out DJ’s blog and Andrew’s blog.
  • DJ told me about CivicCamp Calgary 2.0, taking place all day tomorrow. I’m going to stop by in the morning for a bit. Should be good.
  • I also had a chance to stop by coworkYYC today. It’s a new co-working space for Calgary, set to launch on November 2nd. It’s about 2500 square feet in a revamped building just south of Inglewood. Some of the coolest features? A garage door at the front (currently opens into the board room), a fireplace, and an incredibly nice shower. You can see my photos here. Check out their website to learn more.
  • Before dinner tonight at Farm, Sharon and I decided to check out CrossIron Mills (aka the Balzac Mall). The highlight was Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World – you really have to see it to believe it. Otherwise, it was just a mall. Sharon will be writing more about both (Farm and the mall).
  • We’re staying at Hotel Arts tonight, a very nice hotel in between downtown and 17th Avenue. Incredibly, it doesn’t have free Internet.

Tomorrow we’re off to Banff!

Start Me Up at ICE 2009

The ICE Technology Conference takes place at the Shaw Conference Centre from November 2nd to 4th, and this year they’ve added an event for Edmonton startups! ICE Coordinator Erin Edwards recognized that ICE’s audience is skewed toward older, enterprise tech types, and wanted to try to reach a different demographic. She reached out to Cam and I to help. The result, is Start Me Up:

Start Me Up taps into the power of the whole IT community, bringing together ICE participants and local innovators in an open forum of displays, discussion and demonstration. The centrepiece of the night is a speed round- six start-ups with 15 minutes each (and no access to PowerPoint!) to show their stuff and answer questions. For ICE participants, it’s a chance to get to know your start-up neighbours, see what’s new and fresh, maybe find a springboard for your own ideas. For start-ups, this offers the opportunity to shine a light on your work, collect impressions and inspiration, and connect with the wider community.

I’m excited for another opportunity to bridge the old school-new school gap that exists in the Edmonton tech community. Start Me Up will feature six local startups:

Additionally, ENTS and other local organizations will be on hand. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend, and if you want to display your idea or otherwise get more involved, email iceconference@cips.ca.

Also taking place that evening is the ICE Cap Reception and a presentation by Jeremy Gutsche on Exploiting Chaos (free for conference attendees, $35 for everyone else). More details here.

For more information on the ICE Conference, check out their website or follow them on Twitter. You can also check out Start Me Up on ShareEdmonton.

See you there!

Introducing ShareEdmonton

Today I’m excited to launch ShareEdmonton, a local aggregation platform for Edmonton and area. With it, I want to redefine local media and improve Edmonton by embracing the fact that communication is increasingly taking place online.

You can think of ShareEdmonton as an events calendar, at least right now. It certainly has that functionality, and I want it to become the de facto events calendar for Edmonton. I’ve taken the opposite approach of most online calendaring sites, such as Upcoming or Eventful. Instead of starting at the global level and working down, I’ve started at the local level. This is a simple, but important distinction.

I believe that place is more important than ever. That’s why place is at the heart of ShareEdmonton. Unlike other sites, each place exists once and only once in ShareEdmonton. If you want to find out what’s going on at the Shaw Conference Centre, you can be confident there’s only one in the system. In addition to individual places, ShareEdmonton currently supports neighbourhoods, such as Downtown. This is a powerful way to roll up data about a collection of places.

What kind of data? Events, obviously, but also tweets. For any event, place, or neighbourhood you can see recent related tweets written by people in the Edmonton area, in real-time. Or you can see all tweets written by local users. Over time, I’ll be adding other kinds of data alongside tweets, including blog posts, photos, and more.

ShareEdmonton is all about aggregating the immense amounts of data available online and helping you find the bits that are important, relevant or interesting to you, through place, topic, or some other filter. Here’s an example – George W. Bush is in town tonight, at the Shaw Conference Centre. Here’s the event page on ShareEdmonton (and here’s the page for the rally against him). On it, you find information about the event, the location, and recent related tweets – people talking about the event. Two more examples, using topic as a filter: weather and traffic. That’s pretty powerful, I think, and has the potential to become even more powerful over time.

What’s available today is just a small part of what I hope the site will become. Today is step one, and there’s a long way to go until the vision is realized. I have grand ambitions for ShareEdmonton!

Here are a few other quick points:

  • Though I’m not calling this a beta, it is a work-in-progress.
  • The entire site features clean, hackable URLs.
  • The site also features Microformats. If you’re running Firefox, install Operator and you’ll see your browser “light up” with events, locations, tagspaces, and more.
  • All tweets pages have RSS feeds, and most event listing pages have both RSS and iCal feeds.
  • ShareEdmonton is not, and will not be, open source. I am and will be embracing the concepts of open data, however, so stay tuned for more on that.
  • The engine is generic, so you could in theory turn on ShareCalgary or an aggregator for another city.
  • As I was quoted on Saturday – I’m really not concerned with the business model at the moment. I want to build something that is valuable first.

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has provided feedback, done testing, and otherwise helped me out with this, especially Chris, Cam, Reg, Eric, Rob, Dickson, Jas, and Adam. Also, though she probably would rather me not say it, Sharon played a big behind-the-scenes role in this – thanks!

Please check out ShareEdmonton, and let me know what you think. Tweet it, blog it, leave a comment below, email me, or post something on the Uservoice forum I’ve setup. You can also follow ShareEdmonton on Twitter, which is where I’ll announce new features. Thanks!

Notes for 10/18/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

Edmonton Notes for 10/17/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Open Data at ChangeCamp Edmonton

Tomorrow morning local politicians, bureaucrats, and ordinary citizens will gather at the University of Alberta for ChangeCamp Edmonton. I’m encouraged by the number of people that have registered, and by the conversations that have already started. That’s what tomorrow is all about: getting people together to discuss ideas and solutions.

I don’t know exactly which topics people will want to discuss tomorrow, but I know for sure that open data will be one of them. There’s significant momentum building for the concept, and we’re starting to see progress on making it happen throughout Canada (and elsewhere).

Open data here in Edmonton received a nice boost this week from Councillor Don Iveson when he submitted a formal inquiry to City administration:

In local, national and sub-national governments around the world there is a trend toward making up-to-date government information freely available on-line in generically accessible data formats as so-called ‘Open Data’.

  1. What level of awareness does the City Administration have regarding Open Data in municipal government?
  2. What current initiatives are underway within City Administration that might qualify under the spirit of Open Data?
  3. What further initiatives are under consideration within the city, and on what basis are they being evaluated?
  4. Is Administration monitoring any successes and or challenges with this trend in other jurisdictions, especially large Canadian cities, and if so what can be shared with Council?
  5. What would City Administration’s recommendation be on next steps regarding Open Data plans or strategies?

I know there was already some things going on behind the scenes at the City of Edmonton, but Don’s inquiry should expedite and give credibility to those things. This is an important step.

I’ve been pushing for open data in Edmonton for a while now, along with many others. I think ChangeCamp will be a great opportunity to further discuss the concept and next steps. I generally think about open data in the context of a municipality, but there’s room for discussion at the provincial and federal levels too. Here are some of the key things I think we can cover:

  • Let’s make sure everyone (citizens, politicians, City administration) is on the same page about what we mean by “open data”. This could be high level (what kinds of data are open) and low level (what formats are considered open).
  • What is the City working on? What are citizens working on? Let’s get a status report from both sides.
  • What kinds of data could be made open? Which data is most in demand by citizens? What data has been made available in other cities, such as Vancouver or Toronto?
  • Licensing is vital for open data to work. We need to ensure data is licensed as permissively as possible, otherwise we’re restricting its utility. Which licenses make sense? What have other municipalities used?
  • Often lost in the discussion about what data to make available is how to be notified of changes to that data. RSS feeds, email subscriptions – how should citizens be notified when data is updated or otherwise changed?
  • Another aspect that we need to consider: the creation of data. There is lots and lots of data that our governments can start making available in open formats, but there’s even more data created on a daily basis. What can we do to ensure that it is open data also? How about APIs or other mechanisms for citizens to provide input/data? Open 311 comes to mind.

Here are some links that might be useful tomorrow:

See you in the morning!