Notes for 6/15/2009

Busy weekend so I didn’t get around to posting this. Here are my weekly notes:

The rest of my London trip was good. I did make it to Noel’s place on Saturday, and had a great time playing Rock Band. On Sunday, I visited the British Museum, which was quite impressive. Like the museums we visited in Washington recently, the British Museum is free. Unlike those museums in DC, there is no security to go through, you simply walk in! I had dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen that night, and at Hamburger+ the following evening. The rest of my evenings were spent in the pub 🙂

British MuseumBritish MuseumGourmet Burger KitchenLondon ChinatownHamburger+Chicken Kebab

My flight home was direct, thankfully, and was uneventful. I watched two movies: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (absolutely terrible) and Watchmen (not bad).

I enjoyed my time in London, but it’s good to be back. You can see the rest of my photos here.

That’s Edmonton For You!

What a great weekend here in Edmonton! Lots of sun, temperatures above 25 degrees, and plenty of things to do. Perhaps the main event on Saturday was the Edmonton Pride Parade, which was a smashing success according to everyone I talked to. Dave has a good post about it here, and Paula has dozens of photos here. Also on Saturday was the City Centre Market followed by Al Fresco on 104th, which Sharon wrote about here. Summer in Edmonton has finally arrived!

Yesterday’s big event was That’s Edmonton For You!, a free concert from noon until 3pm featuring leading members of Edmonton’s indie rock scene at Louise McKinney Riverfront Park. The event was commissioned by the City of Edmonton for the ICLEI World Congress. Conceived of and produced by Trevor Anderson, the event featured Edmonton’s poet laureate Roland Pemberton (Cadence Weapon) and 13 other musicians. Each created new songs about sustainable community, drawing from personal experiences.

I arrived at around 12:30pm, just as the crowd was starting to grow. I took a few photos and checked out the information booths that lined the edges of park area. Edmonton Next Gen was on hand to promote Pecha Kucha 4, Vegans & Vegetarians of Alberta had a busy table, Epcor had a portable water tap, and The EATery at The ARTery was offering food and beverages. Before long I made my way back to the Shaw Conference Centre however, to escape the sun and heat! The one drawback to the venue is the complete lack of shade.

I did make one more trip out to the concert, but unfortunately missed most of the last hour (I was inside for the ICLEI opening). Councillor Don Iveson stayed until the end and said the final song, which featured audience participation in the form of key jingling and bicycle bells, was truly amazing. The crowd that gathered was quite impressive!

That's Edmonton For You!That's Edmonton For You!

If you couldn’t make it down yesterday you missed a great event, but don’t worry – you can download the full album of songs from the website! Very cool, and not something I expected.

Considering the concert was created specifically for ICLEI, I’m not sure it’ll happen again, but I hope it does! It’s a great showcase for local musicians, and a great opportunity for Edmontonians to experience an afternoon of music.

You can see the rest of my photos here, and don’t miss this collection of excellent shots by Chris.

ICLEI World Congress Edmonton 2009: Opening Day

The ICLEI World Congress 2009 started here in Edmonton today. The conference is taking place at the Shaw Conference Centre through Thursday. Over 600 delegates from around the world will be discussing a range of topics related to sustainability and municipalities.

Shaw Conference CentreICLEI World Congress Edmonton 2009

A series of opening keynotes this afternoon set the tone for the event. Mayor Stephen Mandel, ICLEI President Stephen Cadman, Minister of Municipal Affairs Ray Danyluk, Chairperson of the World Mayors Council on Climate Change Bärbel Dieckmann, and Leader of The Economics of Ecosytems & Biodiversity (TEEB) Pavan Sukhdev all shared remarks this afternoon.

I thought the most passionate speaker was David Cadman, recently elected to his third term on the ICLEI Executive, and his second consecutive term as President. He discussed a range of issues, but focused on the need to transform the way we live. In particular, he stressed that water is going to become a larger and larger problem.

Epcor Water Station

Also during the opening plenary was a video to “pass the torch” from Cape Town, which hosted the congress in 2006, to Edmonton. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except for the fact that the video included B-roll footage of Calgary, not Edmonton! The Calgary Tower was clearly visible in a couple of the shots. I’m sure most in the audience didn’t notice, however.

Organizational and Program Implementation reports followed the opening speeches. Here are a few nuggets:

  • About 54% of ICLEI members are from North America, but 39% of the populations represented by ICLEI live in Asia. Europe is more balanced.
  • ICLEI’s USA office is moving from Oakland to Washington, DC. One wonders why it wasn’t there in the first place.
  • There are 27 ICLEI members in Canada. Our country’s office was created in 2003, has 3.5 staff, 5-10 projects per year, and a budget of roughly $300,000 USD.
  • Global budgets for ICLEI are expected to increase 22% this year compared to last. Revenue sources include membership, fees for service, host contributions, and by far the largest segment, grants.
  • Municipalities around the world are targeting a 30% reduction in emissions by 2020, and an 80% reduction by 2050.
  • ICLEI by the numbers in 2009: 223 staff, 1078 members, 102 projects, and a budget of $16.8 million USD.

I learned a lot about ICLEI today, and I absolutely see the need for such an organization. An increasing portion of the world’s population lives in cities, yet cities are often absent from landmark discussions related to climate change and sustainability. ICLEI gives municipalities a voice and a mechanism for pressuring their provincial and national governments to do more. Membership in the United States has increased dramatically in recent years, something ICLEI attributes to the Bush administration which largely ignored municipalities.

ICLEI World Congress Edmonton 2009ICLEI World Congress Edmonton 2009

Following this afternoon’s session was an opening night reception in Hall D. Councillor Don Iveson hosted the event which featured entertainment from Kita No Taiko and others. I had the opportunity to chat with a number of people, including Roy Blumenthal, a visual facilitator who was drawing caricatures of all the speakers on his Tablet PC. Such beautiful work!

A few other notes about the Edmonton event:

  • All attendees can ride Edmonton Transit for free simply by showing their conference badge.
  • Recycling facilities will be available at all locations visited by participants.
  • There are around 100 delegates who don’t speak English. There were headphones on hand today providing translations in English, French, Spanish, and Korean.
  • The City of Edmonton has turned on Wireless Edmonton service throughout the Shaw Conference Centre, providing attendees with free wi-fi.
  • There are guided walks of the river valley for attendees starting each morning at 7am.

I won’t be attending all of the sessions this week, but I’ll tweet and blog what I can. Dave Cournoyer also wrote about today, and will be covering ICLEI all week. Search Twitter for #ICLEI for updates. You can see the rest of my photos here. For a list of events taking place during and after ICLEI, click here.

Recap: BarCampEdmonton2

Yesterday was the first really beautiful day of the summer here in Edmonton, with temperatures near 30 degrees and sun all day long. It was also the day we held BarCampEdmonton2, at the World Trade Centre downtown. The weather probably had an impact on the attendance, because we had less people than anticipated (around 80). Despite that however, I’d say the event was still a big success! It was another demonstration of the fantastic tech community we have in Edmonton.

Reg setting up the scheduleBarCampEdmonton2

We had three tracks each with 20 minute timeslots for sessions followed by 10 minute breaks. In true unconference-style, we started by having everyone who wanted to lead a discussion or deliver a presentation put their topic and name on a sticky note. Reg then arranged them all on the schedule.

I ended up with two timeslots. First thing in the morning, where I talked for a bit about Foundations for an Open Edmonton and led an interesting discussion about open cities, and second at 2pm, where I talked about Edmonton Transit’s recent Data for Developers announcement. Some of the other sessions included: The Perfect User Experience by Peter, New Interfaces in Visual Search Refinement by Reg, How To Not Raise VC $ by Shaun, VOIP+SIP: A Primer by Slepp, Chocolate Monkey Heads by Chris, and Licensing Tech from Universities by Brant. Of course, lunch time and the many breaks throughout the day provided lots of opportunities for ad hoc discussion, and that’s really what BarCamp is all about!

Perhaps the session I was most looking forward to was the one by Rob Davy and his colleagues from ENTS, the Edmonton New Technology Society. They’re working to create a “collaborative and social technology workspace” here in the city, akin to hackerspaces and collaborative workspaces in other cities. I wrote about Workspace in Vancouver last fall, and wondered why Edmonton didn’t have something similar. Now we will! I’m really excited about it. You can visit ENTS tonight from 6-7pm at 10575 114th Street for an open house.

Pizza time!BarCampEdmonton2

Maybe we’ll do the next BarCamp in the winter, when it’s cold outside and everyone will want to come inside! Before that however, is a new event called UX Camp, taking place on July 18th from 9am to 5pm at MacEwan.

Thanks again to sponsors TEC Edmonton, iNovia Capital, and Smibs, and to everyone who came out to BarCamp yesterday! You can see the rest of my photos here.

Edmonton Notes for 6/13/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Foundations for an Open Edmonton

Today at BarCamp, I led a discussion around building an open Edmonton. Inspired by the great things happening in Vancouver, I wanted to stimulate the discussion here. I started with two fundamentals:

  1. The City of Edmonton must have the desire to be an open city.
  2. The primary audience is the Creative Class of Edmonton, the secondary audience is all citizens.

Next, I shared what I feel are the five basic foundations of an open city:

  1. Free – both financially and philosophically
  2. Permissive Licensing – things like Creative Commons, should be public domain
  3. Open Standards – formats that anyone can read and write
  4. Plentiful Data – make as much data available as possible
  5. Timely Access – eliminate delays and give everyone equal access

After my five slides (a photo for each of the above) we got into a great discussion about the idea. Here are some of the questions that came up:

  • Are citizens ready for so much data?
  • Why would City Council not want to be an open city?
  • What is the current state of progress on the idea in Edmonton?
  • How does privacy & security factor in?
  • What are some great examples of other cities doing this?

All things that we need to explore further. I’m not sure what the next step is, but eventually, I think it would be great to make a presentation on becoming an open city to Council.

In the meantime, Edmonton has already made some data available – a Google Transit data feed – and some other examples include London’s mySociety. Also, be sure to read Vancouver’s Open City Motion.

Your Guide to ICLEI World Congress Edmonton 2009

Edmonton is hosting the ICLEI World Congress 2009 from Sunday, June 14th through Thursday, June 18th. More than 500 mayors, councillors, and other delegates from more than 800 cities around the world will visit our city to discuss environmental sustainability. The conference takes place every three years, and provides opportunities for peer exchanges, knowledge sharing, on-site visits, and more.

For the City of Edmonton, this event is a chance to show off just how “green” we are to the rest of the world. There have been a number of related announcements over the last few weeks from the City:

I’d expect more announcements from the event. Each day of the conference has a theme:

More than 20 speakers have been announced, including Mayor Stephen Mandel, Alberta’s Minister of Municipal Affairs Ray Danyluk, Deputy Mayor of Vancouver and ICLEI President David Cadman, and the founder of ICLEI, Jeb Brugmann.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting some of the more Edmonton-focused sessions next week, and will be attending a number of the events that have been planned to coincide with the conference. Here are some of the things you can check out:

Lights Down Stars Up – photography exhibit
On display at City Hall until Thursday, June 18th, FREE

Gone Green – art exhibit
On display at City Hall until Wednesday, July 1st, FREE

That’s Edmonton For You – live music and entertainment
Sunday, June 14th from noon to 3:00pm at Louise McKinney Riverfront Park, FREE

Pecha Kucha Night – Edmonton Volume #4 – ideas inspiring sustainability
Tuesday, June 16th from 6:30pm to 10:30pm at the Shaw Conference Centre, $9

2009 Emerald Awards Ceremony – recognizing Albertan environmental initiatives
Tuesday, June 16th at the Citadel Theatre, $?

Resilient Cities: Responding to the Crash, Climate Change, and Peak Oil
Thursday, June 18th from 7:00pm at the Shaw Conference Centre, FREE

Bikeology Festival Day – velo-love in Edmonton
Saturday, June 20th from noon until 5:00pm at Beaver Hills House Park, FREE

Reuse Fair – bring your unwanted household items (pdf)
Saturday, June 20th from 10:00am to 3:00pm at King Edward Park Community League, FREE

The Works Art & Design Festival 2009 – sustainability is a theme this year
Friday, June 26th to Wednesday, July 8th at Sir Winston Churchill Square, FREE

Also, June is Bike Month in Edmonton.

To learn more about ICLEI and the World Congress happening in Edmonton, check out the following links:

Signs of home in London

It’s not exactly culture-shock visiting London for an Edmontonian such as myself, but you do notice differences. The elevators all talk, warnings to “mind the…” are everywhere (gap, elevator doors, etc), locals call the pound a quid, and the Coke bottles are oddly thin, among other things. I’ve also come across a few things that remind me of home.

One of the first things I picked up upon arriving in London was the pocket tube map. To my surprise, there was an Ikea advertisement on the back which included a list of locations:

London Tube Pocket Map

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

Maple Leaf Pub

The Maple Leaf is located at 41 Maiden Lane, and serves local and Canadian beer such as Sleeman’s. As I stood in the road taking the photo, a small group of people passed behind me and I heard a lady remark, “Why go to a Canadian pub when you can go to a British one?” I chuckled.

Finally, here’s another pub – this one is for Albertans!

The Northumberland Arms

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

🙂

Recap: TransitCamp Edmonton

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes for 6/7/2009

Here are my weekly notes:

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

Leicester Square Underground Station