Edmonton’s 311: six month status report

As you’ve probably heard by now, the City’s 311 service is not performing as well as expected. The Sun first reported the story last week, and the Journal followed up with an article yesterday. They key point mentioned in both is that wait times to connect to an operator are far longer than originally anticipated. As a result, an interactive voice response system is being considered for next year. I can’t imagine that will make callers any happier, even if it does make their calls slightly faster.

I personally think they should put more resources into 311 online. How many citizens even realize that they get online access to a lot of the information and services that 311 provides? The best way to reduce call times is to increase self-service options and quality so that citizens can bypass the phone altogether.

Fortunately, there are new self-service features being developed for release in October. The City will still need to communicate their existence effectively, however.

Background

The CRTC approved the use of the 311 phone number for municipal services back in November 2004, and Calgary became the first city to launch 311 on May 8, 2005. Here in Edmonton, City Council approved the service at its May 9, 2006 meeting. Edmonton became the first city in North America to use SAP’s CRM application to deliver 311.

The 311 service officially launched on December 16, 2008. Implementation was approved at a cost not to exceed $10 million (and it is on track to come in about $1.5 million under budget). Half of that amount came from an internal loan, which is to be repaid from operating savings (the other half came from a special dividend in 2005).

Six Months In

The report that went to the Executive Committee this week isn’t incredibly long at 7 pages, but it does have lots of information. Here are some graphics to help make it easier to understand the first six months of 311 operation in Edmonton.

Call lengths are one of the reasons everyone is complaining:

Wait times to get through to an operator are another concern:

The 311 system was supposed to help the City capture the estimated 160,000 missed calls each year, but so far it is on track to make things much worse:

The report contains information about the top ten services:

Transit inquiries make up a significant portion of all 311 calls, followed by Community Services inquiries. There’s a clear opportunity for transit to do more to reduce the number of calls going through 311. I find it odd that trip planning is such a common request actually, given that there’s a separate number for that (BusLink) not to mention the online trip planner and Google Maps.

Here’s the breakdown by department:

There are a few more graphs (without data values unfortunately) in the report, so take a look at those too. They show that the number of calls answered within 25 seconds is on the rise, and that the time it takes to get through to someone is declining.

Does this report suggest that 311 is “a disaster”? I don’t think so. All it shows is that there is work to do, and it sounds like the 311 team is on the case. Hopefully the departments they serve are as well.

How far beyond the city does Edmonton Stories reach?

The winners of the Edmonton Stories contest were announced by Mayor Stephen Mandel on Tuesday at City Hall during the lunch hour. About 50 people attended the public event, not including the large number of City employees who were present. Nearly all of the City Councillors were on hand as well, a strong show of support for the project. Congratulations to all of the contest winners and runners up!

Edmonton Stories Contest Announcement

Mayor Mandel’s speech started by highlighting some of the traffic statistics for EdmontonStories.ca. Here are some of the key numbers:

  • 242 stories have been posted, 44 of which include videos
  • 453 comments have been posted on 78 stories
  • Users in 2159 cities from 131 countries have visited the site
  • Total Visits: 113,979
  • Total Unique Visits: 87,049
  • Local Visits: 60,497
  • Total Page Views: 348,750

Those are pretty good numbers, though they are unverified. I think the “local visits” stat is interesting – over half of all visitors to the site have come from Edmonton. That makes sense at this stage, as Edmontonians are visiting to submit and vote on stories. Over time though, I would hope for that percentage to drop.

I’d love to see more stats on the non-local visits. For instance, I’d like to know the bounce rate for non-local visits. How many non-local visitors come to the website and then promptly leave? Referral statistics would be interesting to know as well – how did they get to the website?

As Edmonton Stories moves into its second phase, recruitment and visitor attraction, non-local visits will become increasingly important. There are a solid number of stories up on the site now, but if they aren’t shared with the rest of the world, how successful can the campaign be?

The City has repeatedly stressed that Edmonton Stories is unique because it focuses on social media and online marketing as opposed to traditional marketing. Most of the social media marketing I have seen thus far has been directed at Edmontonians though, not the rest of the world. I don’t think they’re doing enough to spread the word beyond Edmonton.

For a website marketed almost entirely online, I’d expect it to have a decent number of other web pages linking to it. I tallied the number of inbound links for some Edmonton websites, using Yahoo! Site Explorer:

Obviously the City of Edmonton site has the most inbound links, no surprise there. What jumped out at me about this graph is the number of inbound links for That’s Edmonton For You. Despite launching a month later than EdmontonStories.ca, and without a large budget to promote it, that site managed to accumulate over half the number of inbound links that EdmontonStories.ca has. I would anticipate that a majority of the inbound links for That’s Edmonton For You would be from other local sites, which doesn’t bode well for how far beyond the city EdmontonStories.ca is reaching.

The budget for promoting EdmontonStories.ca isn’t insignificant either, when you consider that it’s being spent on social media and online marketing, not traditional marketing:

The total budget for 2009 is $1.4 million dollars. City Council approved $1 million, and EEDC kicked in another $400,000. According to The Journal, project staff expect to ask for another $1 million in 2010. Should they get it? I’m leaning toward no.

I wonder how much of that $268,500 earmarked for social media marketing has been spent. Based on the number of inbound links above, I’d hope very little, but given that there are only three months left in 2009, I’m not so sure. If there’s a lot to spend still, I expect to see Edmonton Stories everywhere online for the next few months.

I think Edmonton Stories is a great concept, and I’m glad to see that Edmontonians are contributing stories. The project was created to help market the city elsewhere though, and I don’t think it is accomplishing that yet.

Open Data in Edmonton? Follow Vancouver’s lead

Last week Vancouver launched an open data portal, providing one-stop-shopping for open data provided by the city. David Eaves called the launch “a major milestone for Vancouver” and explained:

The Data Portal represents an opportunity for citizens, especially citizen coders, to help create a City that Thinks Like the Web: a city that enables citizens to create and access collective knowledge and information to create new services, suggest new ideas, and identify critical bugs in the infrastructure and services, among other a million other possibilities.

He was also quick to point out that getting access to the data is just the beginning. Citizens have to use it, or risk losing it. The next day he launched VanTrash, an application to make garbage collection sexier. Use it or lose it indeed!

I think it’s interesting that he started with garbage collection, because I too identified that as an area that could use some innovation. A couple months ago, I spent about an hour on the phone with a manger in the Waste Management department at the City of Edmonton, trying to get access to the data behind the garbage collection schedules. Currently you can enter your address here to download your collection schedule in PDF. But if you want to find the schedule for a different part of the city, you’re out of luck. And even if you manually tried enough addresses to find all the zones and collection schedules, they’d be in PDF, which means you can’t easily add them to a calendar.

By the end of the call, I think he finally understood what I was after, and he said he’d have to get back to me. He never did, unfortunately. I can only hope that my request had an impact and that it will eventually help to open the data floodgates in Edmonton.

Open Data doesn’t have to be difficult!

Take a look at the data available at Vancouver’s data portal. Most of the data there is simple and exists elsewhere, in a less “creative friendly” format. A good example is the list of libraries. You can download the data in CSV, XLS, or KML formats, but it really just comes from the Vancouver Public Library website. The CSV contains the library name, it’s latitude, longitude, and address. Simple stuff, but potentially really useful if combined with other data sets.

Here’s an example in Edmonton. Let’s say I want to know how the crime rate of neighbourhoods with libraries compares to those without. What data would I need for that?

  • A list of libraries, with their locations (see below)
  • A list of neighbourhoods, with their boundaries
  • Crime statistics by neighbourhood
  • Census data for neighbourhoods to find comparable ones without libraries

Could you find this today? Yes, but it’s definitely not easy! The EPL website lists the libraries with addresses, so you’d need to figure out the lat/long on your own. The City of Edmonton website lists the neighbourhoods, but you’d need to figure out the boundaries on your own. The EPS website provides reported crimes by neighbourhood. And finally, the City of Edmonton provides census data for neighbourhoods in PDF.

If I could get all the above data in CSV format, it would have taken a matter of minutes to find the answer (I should point out that not all of that data exists at Vancouver’s portal either). Instead, I had to do a lot more work. The very rough result (because I compared with a random sample of similarly populated neighbourhoods) is that neighbourhoods with libraries were 1.5 times more likely to have crime than neighbourhoods without libraries in 2008. Though if you don’t count Downtown, then the crime rate is about the same for neighbourhoods with libraries and those without.

Maybe you’re thinking “what a useless example” and that’s fine – it is one of just hundreds or thousands of possible uses for that data! Just imagine what would be created if software developers and other creatives in Edmonton had access to the data.

Libraries Data

All this talk of open data, why not give you some? I’ve created a CSV of the Edmonton Public Library locations in the exact same format as the Vancouver Public Library data (minus eplGO in the Cameron Library). Enjoy!

Download the Edmonton Public Library location data in CSV

Onward in Edmonton

I’ve heard rumblings that the City of Edmonton will be doing some stuff in the open data space in the next couple of months, but I’m not holding my breath. There haven’t been enough conversations taking place. I’m hopeful that the right people are envious of the progress that has been made in Vancouver, however. I sure am!

Randall Stout on the new Art Gallery of Alberta

On Saturday afternoon, Randall Stout gave a talk at the Winspear Centre on the new Art Gallery of Alberta. As the lead architect on the renovation of the AGA, he could talk about the project like no one else. He started with some of his influences and favorite examples of architecture, and then moved on to the philosophy behind the design for the new AGA. He touched on the technology used throughout the design process, and the materials used for the building’s construction. He finished with some never-before-seen renderings and photographs of the new AGA.

As Sharon noted, one couldn’t help but come away from the talk feeling excited about the new Art Gallery. I was already looking forward to the new building for it’s unique and controversial design (both positive things in a city mostly full of plain buildings) and hearing Stout’s thoughts only furthered my appreciation for the design.

Randall Stout Architects, Inc. was named the winner of the Edmonton Art Gallery’s New Vision architectural competition on October 13th, 2005. Here’s what Stout had to say at the time:

“It is an honour to be chosen from among such distinguished colleagues,” said Randall Stout once he had been given the news. “I look forward with great excitement to crafting architecture that serves the Gallery’s New Vision of programming for the people of Edmonton and all of Alberta.”

The distinguished colleagues he mentioned included Alsop & Partners (London, UK) and Quadrangle (Toronto), Arthur Erickson/Nick Milkovich (Vancouver), Dub Architects (Edmonton), and Zaha Hadid (London, UK).

Though Randall Stout has been on the job for about four years, the project actually started nearly twelve years ago. That’s when the wheels were set in motion for the renovation of what was known at the time as the Edmonton Art Gallery. I think once we see the completed building we’ll look back and say it was worth the wait.

The most distinctive feature, the sweeping stainless steel wave, is known as “Borealis”. It is meant to reflect our city’s unique geography – the river valley cutting through box-filled urban spaces. While it will appear as one piece as you walk into the building, it is actually separate to ensure that cold outside temperatures stay outside.

Stout talked a little about designing for such a northern climate. He mentioned that the building was designed with winter in mind, and showed a rendering of the building on a very snowy day. He didn’t give specifics however, and said to wait for some nice weather-related surprises when the building opens. He also shared his admiration for local construction workers who braved the cold weather to keep the project on track.

Though the new AGA will indeed be linked to the pedway system and to Churchill LRT station when finished, it will not include a redesigned LRT entrance. Stout said that he went above and beyond the requirements of the competition by including the feature in his initial designs, but scrapped it due to lack of funding. He’s hopeful that the City might resurrect the feature in the future (and I am too).

Art Gallery of Alberta

Other interesting features of the new building include “the grand staircase”, the third floor terrace, a new restaurant/cafe, and a color-changing exterior. You can learn more about the building features here.

The new $88 million Art Gallery of Alberta will open to the public on January 31, 2010, roughly 1500 days after Randall Stout won the competition. To tide you over until then, the Art Gallery of Alberta is hosting an exhibit called Building a Vision, which features “the progression of the building from initial conceptual sketches and diagrams to pictures, models, and photographs captured throughout construction.” Don’t miss it!

Thoughts on Everyone for Edmonton

For the second year in a row, Everyone for Edmonton (E4E) was held at the Shaw Conference Centre. An initiative of the SCC and Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC), the event aims to connect Edmonton’s non-profit organizations with the public. Sharon and I stopped by after the AIDS Walk For Life yesterday, and came away less than impressed.

First off, here’s the official description from the website:

For the second year in a row, hundreds of non-profit organizations will be on hand to showcase the multitude of services they offer and the exciting volunteer opportunities available to members of the public. With over 4,000 non-profit organizations in Edmonton and over 8,000 in the Edmonton region this event has a lot to offer.

There weren’t hundreds of organizations on hand – I’d say there were just over a hundred. And while they were from a variety of sectors, I think the lack of cohesion was actually detrimental to the event. Some were there simply to have a presence while others were looking for volunteers. In contrast, the Festival Volunteer Fair that happened earlier this year was a much better event. Organizations on hand were all festivals, and the purpose was to connect with volunteers.

Everyone for EdmontonEveryone for Edmonton

Another difference between E4E and the Festival Volunteer Fair? The number of attendees. When we arrived at SCC yesterday, the place was deserted. We encountered only a handful of attendees visiting the booths inside. Chatting with a few of the people behind the tables confirmed the entire day had been like that.

I think the concept behind Everyone for Edmonton is a good one. Connecting our region’s non-profits with the public is a positive thing, and creating an event devoted to that end seems like a good idea. The execution of that could be better, however. All of the organizations present yesterday paid $50 to be there – did they all get $50 of value out of the event? The lack of attendees would suggest no.

Here are a few thoughts on how to improve E4E:

  • Identify a handful of specific audiences, and come up with ways to reach out to them. I think this year’s E4E suffered from a lack of promotion, and that’s probably due in part to trying to reach “everyone”.
  • Give the public a reason to attend beyond information – they can get information online. Activities, prizes, free food, something!
  • The website is very attractive, but it could be more useful. Instead of just listing all the organizations and linking to their respective websites, why not provide more information about each one right on the E4E website? Or at least provide separate volunteer information for each.
  • Think about changing the format. Walking through row upon row of tables isn’t all that exciting (though it does have a place). What about speed-dating for organizations and volunteers? That would be fun and effective!
  • One of the options for “why did you attend” on the feedback form was “to support local non-profits”. Why not give everyone who attends an E4E pin or something so that they can continue to show support after the event has ended!

Have any other ideas on how to make Everyone for Edmonton a better event?

Notes for 9/20/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Intuit bought Mint.com this week for $170 million. I’ve read a lot of backlash to the deal though, such as this post.
  • Another day, another front-page headline for The Katz Group regarding the proposed arena. It’s amazing how The Journal continues to pump out stories despite having zero new information.
  • I walked to school when I was a kid (granted I lived in Inuvik where you could walk from one end of the town to the other in about 15 minutes). Darren points to a New York Times article on how those days are long gone.
  • An interview with Vinod Khosla.
  • Fascinating concept: One pig, 185 different products.
  • I like looking at logos, I don’t know why. Boing Boing linked to an animated short in which the city of Los Angeles and all the characters are composed of corporate logos.
  • Sharon and I had a busy weekend! Yesterday was the Citadel open house and the Randall Stout talk on the new Art Gallery of Alberta. Today was the AIDS Walk For Life (I raised $210, thanks everyone!) and we stopped by Everyone for Edmonton too.

AIDS Walk For Life 2009

AIDS Walk For Life 2009AIDS Walk For Life 2009

Edmonton Notes for 9/19/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Citadel Open HouseRandall Stout presents the new Art Gallery of Alberta

Lucy The Elephant on Twitter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks and enjoy!

ENTS Grand Opening

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

ENTS Grand OpeningENTS Grand Opening

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

ENTS Grand Opening

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

ENTS Grand OpeningENTS Grand Opening

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

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

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

What I’m up to this weekend!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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