Tag: alberta

Edmonton does not have a debt problem

There has been a lot of talk about Edmonton’s debt recently, with some candidates going so far as to highlight debt as a key election issue. Debt is one of those topics that is easy to complain about but difficult to understand. Throwing out a billion-dollar number and proclaiming it bad is easy, understanding how we got to that number in the first place and how it fits into the broader context of the City’s financial situation takes more effort.

Here’s a look at Edmonton’s debt history for the last fifteen years:

So we can see that at the end of 2012 our city’s debt totaled $2.2 billion, which is 53.4% of our debt limit as outlined by provincial legislation. Is that high or low? Let’s make some comparisons. Here’s what Edmonton’s per capita debt looks like compared with Calgary:

So we’ve got less debt per person than Calgary does, and have had significantly less over the last decade. What about the rest of the province? Municipalities collectively owed about $7.7 billion at the end of 2011, with Calgary and Edmonton together accounting for 69% of that amount.

Here’s a comparison of the amount of available debt used by Calgary, Edmonton, and all other municipalities grouped together:

Notably Edmonton has used less of its available debt than Calgary, with the gap narrowing only in the last few years. It wasn’t until 2003 that we started to take on more debt. Why is that? And what is the impact?

Here’s what current Ward 6 candidate Scott McKeen wrote in the Edmonton Journal back in 2003:

And of all the cities in Canada, Edmonton stands out for being a skinflint among cheapskates. Our per capita debt is about one-fifth of Calgary’s and one-tenth of Vancouver’s.

As you’re maybe already aware, Edmonton’s hell-bent determination these past two decades to eliminate civic debt has created its own set of problems: neglected and decaying roads; inferior civic services; dated, second-class public facilities.

But we so loved the idea of getting out of debt that we ignored our mounting repair bills. We also ignored the fact that some other cities — Calgary and Vancouver, for example — were busy borrowing money to pave the way for growth.

The kind of debt Edmonton has taken on in recent years is “smart debt”, money for which the debt servicing costs are tied to revenue. It’s not debt for operating costs, it’s another financing tool the City can use to build the infrastructure we desperately need.

The 2007 Debt Management Fiscal Policy Review also discussed this history:

At the end of the 1970s, tremendous growth pressure resulted in a relaxation of the City’s debt limit, leading to a threefold increase in the City’s annual borrowing.  This resulted in Edmonton’s tax-supported debt being higher than most other major Canadian cities at that time.

The recession of the early 1980s and high interest rates necessitated a revised Policy.  Under this new debt policy, tax-supported debt issues were limited to $25 million per year.  Moreover, new tax-supported borrowing was prohibited after 1990. Subsequent to 1990, an exclusive pay-as-you-go approach was adopted for capital expenditures. Shorter borrowing terms for utility debt (self-liquidating) were also required.

In 2002, to address growing infrastructure issues and flat sources of financing, tax-supported debt was reintroduced through an amended Policy.  A five-year borrowing guideline called for an annual approval of $50 million in debt-financed projects for 2003-2007, totalling $250 million.  Adoption of the five year guideline has enabled the City to construct a number of much needed projects such as fire halls, a senior’s centre, libraries, parks, an interchange and other road works.

It also included this chart which shows the amount of debt Edmonton had outstanding throughout the 1980s and projected amounts through 2016 as permitted under higher borrowing limits:

The jump might look significant, but Edmonton’s outstanding debt is still well within both the provincial debt limits and the City’s own more strict debt limits. The City’s credit ratings remain very strong.

It’s true that Edmonton’s debt has grown significantly over the last decade. But it’s also true that taking on that debt has enabled us to invest in much-needed infrastructure to support our growing city. Candidates that don’t recognize this risk pursuing a policy that would take us back to the 1990s, reversing any progress we’ve made toward tackling our ever-growing infrastructure deficit. As the City says, “an appropriate and sustainable level of tax-supported debt is recognized as a legitimate part of any long-term capital financing plan.”

Note: Much of the data in this post came from the Government of Alberta. While figures are available for 1994-1996 at that site, I excluded them because the values for Edmonton were highly inconsistent with the rest of the data and were extremely different from the City of Edmonton’s published values for those years. I have submitted an inquiry about the validity of the data.

AccelerateAB 2013: The Next Billion Users with Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs

In less than a month, Alberta’s tech entrepreneurs and investors will descend upon Calgary for AccelerateAB. Now in its third year, AccelerateAB is an initiative of the A100 focused on “connecting, educating and showcasing the incredible tech companies that proudly call Alberta home.” It’s not just locals you can expect to see there, but also mentors and investors from around the country and across the continent.

This event is a true melting pot that brings together Alberta’s seasoned veterans, young punks, quality mentors, whip-smart investors and keen students, all with the goal of building Alberta’s tech ecosystem. With speakers, mentors and investors jetting in from Silicon Valley and all across Canada, this isn’t just a great tech event for Alberta, it’s a great tech event. Period.

Here’s a promo video for the event:

This year’s opening keynote features Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs who will be speaking about The Next Billion Users:

The next billion users: the global opportunity of wireless. As mobile technology spreads throughout the developing world, everything we know about mobile communication, commerce and information is about to change.

I had the opportunity to talk with Gary back in April about his keynote.

Born in Toronto, Gary completed his BComm and MBA at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business throughout the 90s. Though now located in California, he does make it back to Calgary a couple of times a year. Given that AccelerateAB is taking place during the Stampede, Gary said he was looking forward to returning with his family. Beyond that, he relishes the opportunity to connect with Alberta-based entrepreneurs. “I want to bring my mistakes and lessons back to people who are working hard in Alberta,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to speak one-to-many, not just one-to-one.”

Gary has talked about the next billion users before. He spoke at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona back in February, and I encourage you to check out his blog post about the topic. “It took 22 years for the first billion users to come online, and everything changed,” Gary started. “The next two billion will come online over the next five years.” It’s that dramatic pace that has Gary most excited. “If we thought we were moving fast before, we can’t even understand this change.”

The interesting thing about the next billion users is that they aren’t tied down. “They won’t be constrained by any existing process,” Gary said. “They can start something new.” Sending money using a phone might be a shift in habit for someone from Canada used to visiting a bank, but for the next billion that will be just the way you do things. I mentioned that students in Africa often receive test scores via text message, whereas I had to wait for a piece of paper when I was in high school. Being free of the context of paper is part of what makes the coming shift so exciting to Gary. “To anyone who has never had a test score delivered via a sheet of paper, they don’t even have that in mind.”

Something that Gary has focused a lot of energy on during his time at Mozilla is privacy. “It’s a concern mostly because there’s no transparency,” he told me, which in the context of the recent NSA and PRISM news is quite accurate. The challenge around privacy in bringing the next billion users online is to enable them to have control. “Tools are being developed, and there will be ways for them to have a much better privacy experience from the start,” Gary said.

gary kovacs
Gary Kovacs at Mobile World Congress

Another topic we discussed was the open web. “It must be open and available for all to participate,” he said. “The next two billion people can’t be forced to go online in a way that advantages one commercial organization over another.” Gary mentioned the history we’ve been through with AOL, and noted that in the world of mobile today we’re forced to essentially choose one of two centrally planned economies. “One or two organizations cannot possibly keep up with the millions of requests of human innovation,” he said.

Lastly, I wanted to ask Gary what advice he’d give to startups. “Big organizations innovate at the centre of the bell curve,” he said. “Startups are magically placed to innovate at the edges.” For Gary, the next two billion people coming online is an incredible opportunity for startups. “Look beyond the boundaries of where you live,” he advised. Startups are able to have an impact in areas that simply cannot be contemplated by larger organizations. “Also think in terms of systems,” he added. “We should no longer think of mobile as a device or an app, that wave of innovation has occurred; the next wave is when anything is connected.”

Very exciting times ahead indeed! This is just a small snapshot of the things you’ll hear discussed at AccelerateAB in Calgary next month. The conference takes place on July 11, and tickets are just $30. You’ve got until July 2 to register, so get on it! You can check out the schedule here.

The other thing happening in conjunction with AccelerateAB is Alberta Tech Week. All week long there will be interesting tech events taking place, and you can submit your own if you’d like to get involved. It’s going to be a great week to connect with tech entrepreneurs from across the province!

Media Monday Edmonton: Sharing the news differently

Thursday was a big day for the local media as Alberta’s Budget 2013 was released. To share the plethora of related information the Government of Alberta did more than just put out a press release, once again building a mini-site. That site contains lots of text, but also some charts and other visualizations in the highlights section. While the news was primarily covered in traditional ways by the local media, with plain text newspaper stories and high-level radio and television interviews,they also used the opportunity to further experiment with new ways of covering the news.

Perhaps the most interesting approach was the Edmonton Journal’s collection of visualizations:

Use the visualizations to find out exactly where your tax dollars are going, what the government’s priorities are and how the "bitumen bubble" has affected the government’s spending plans.

The visualizations were built by Lucas Timmons and utilized the fantastic D3.js library. Great stuff!

CBC also went with a visualization, choosing to illustrate the so-called “bitumen bubble” in advance of the budget.

Use the interactive timeline to watch the bitumen bubble grow and follow along the news stories describing the growing fiscal crisis.

While it would have been nice to see more related stories linked, I like the timeline approach.

For coverage during the budget announcements, many outlets turned to live blogs. Both Global Edmonton and CTV Edmonton made use of Scribble to power their live blogs. The Huffington Post Alberta also did a live blog using the HuffPo’s homegrown platform. I’m not sure how successful these approaches are, especially given the widespread use of Twitter during “events” like the budget announcement.

Metro decided to go with a Storify to capture the reaction to the budget news, pulling in relevant tweets. The Huffington Post Alberta did something similar with its slideshow approach to calling out tweets. This seems to be a common approach nowadays, and it can be a great tool for those simply looking to catch up.

Finally, while I’m not a huge fan of the format, the Huffington Post Alberta created a visual slideshow to share what it saw as the highlights of the budget. It’s a bit reminiscent of a Pecha Kucha presentation, but I wish it contained more substance.

That’s a quick look at some of the interesting ways the local media covered the budget news last week. Did I miss any? What was your favorite?

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Should MSI funding be used for Edmonton’s downtown arena?

Even if you’re optimistic and think the Katz Group and the City can resolve their current differences, let’s not forget that the arena project is short at least $100 million. Under the current agreement, that amount is slated to come from “other orders of government” such as the province. Over the last year or so, various ministers have stated that the province will not be providing any new funding for the arena. In May, Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths said:

“The province is not going to write a separate cheque for a particular project. We provide MSI funding for every municipality in the province, which is $896 million this year. We have proposed that’s going to increase. The reason why we do so is municipalities can choose what their priorities are.”

While the downtown arena project would certainly be eligible under the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI), I have long wondered if it would really make sense to use our limited funding for that purpose. How much MSI funding do we have? What have we already spent? Can we really count on an increase? These are some of the question I’ll explore below.

What is the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI)?

MSI is a way for the province to provide cities, towns, and other municipalities in the province with funding for infrastructure projects. From the MSI website:

In 2007, the $11.3 billion MSI program was announced to provide predictable, sustainable funding for our province’s municipal infrastructure projects to keep our municipalities strong.

The objectives of the program are:

  • To work in partnership with municipalities to manage growth pressures;
  • To provide municipalities with sustainable funding; and
  • To support infrastructure needs.

All eligible municipalities in the province receive an amount each year that is calculated based on the following formula:

  • 48% is allocated on a per capita basis;
  • 48% is allocated based on education property tax requisitions;
  • 4% is allocated based on kilometers of local roads.

A wide range of municipal projects are eligible for MSI funding, which means that each municipality can decide where the money is best spent.

How much MSI funding will the City of Edmonton receive?

Edmonton is slated to receive a total of $2.1 billion by the end of 2021. From 2007 through 2011, we received about $567 million. In order to take advantage of favorable economic conditions, Council also decided to fast-track another $250 million or so, which means we have used roughly $850 million in MSI funding already. This chart shows the amount of funding per year (with FT designating the fast-tracked amount):

That means we have roughly $1.3 billion still to come over the next ten years. The projected amounts for 2012-2021 take into consideration repayments on the fast-tracked amount. The City’s fast-tracking strategy requires an annual repayment of $57 million, including interest for five years, reducing the amount of MSI available in 2012-2016 by $285 million.

What have we spent our funding on so far?

The MSI website provides a list of accepted projects by year for each municipality in PDF. I extracted the data for Edmonton, and organized it in a spreadsheet. Based on the description, I categorized each project as either “new” or “existing” to indicate whether it was for a new asset or to rehabilitate/upgrade/repair an existing one. I also assigned each project a category such as “Parks” or “Transit”. Here’s what we have spent per year:

The total spent is roughly $850 million. The big jump in 2009 was the fast-tracked funding, which allowed us to take advantage of lower construction costs.

Here’s the breakdown of new vs. existing:

As you can see, roughly 53% of our MSI funding has been spent on “new” projects.

Here’s the breakdown by category:

The bulk of our MSI funding has been spent on transit and roads. Parks and recreation facilities are the only other two categories that have received more than $100 million in funding.

A total of 82 capital projects were listed, with an average project cost of $9.9 million. No project has cost more than $100 million. The largest project we have constructed so far was the new Centennial Garage in southwest Edmonton, which had a total project cost of $99 million ($89.3 million of which came from MSI). It would be fair to call that project an anomaly however – only one other project, to rehabilitate several roads for $61 million, came with a price tag greater than $40 million.

Can we count on an MSI increase in the future?

MSI funding has always been tied to the economy. The amount allocated to municipalities over the first five years of the program was reduced due to weaker than anticipated revenues. The City of Edmonton had expected to receive $802 million over the 2007-2011 period, about $235 million more than the $567 million it ended up receiving. That does not bode well for an increase in the future.

Both Calgary and Edmonton have been pushing for an improved funding framework with the commitment to develop a big city charter. The outcome of that initiative, slated to be considered by the Legislature in the spring, could impact the way Edmonton receives funding from the province.

Should we use MSI funding for the arena?

According to the City, the average age of Edmonton’s infrastructure assets is 30 years. At the end of 2011, more than 150 neighbourhoods required renewal. An average annual reinvestment of $400 million over the next three years, plus an average annual reinvestment of $450 million over the 2015-2021 period, is the minimum amount of funding required to renew Edmonton’s existing infrastructure to achieve a reasonable state of repair. This is a big challenge, and MSI funding provides only a piece of the pie.

As shown above, our MSI spend has been more or less equally split between new projects and upgrades or rehabilitation of existing assets. A total of $87.5 million was spent on seven new recreation facilities (either brand new, or additions to existing) from 2007 through 2011. Would we have rather spent all of that on the arena? A number of new projects would need to be postponed if funding was allocated instead to the arena. A total of $384.8 million was approved by Council for recreation and cultural projects in the 2012-2014 Capital Budget.

In a poll earlier this year, two-thirds of Edmontonians opposed provincial funding going toward the new arena. An equal number supported fast-tracking the southeast LRT line to Mill Woods. It would seem that the use of MSI funding thus far more or less aligns with the desires of Edmontonians, with the largest share going toward transit projects (though not all of that was LRT-related).

This decision would ultimately need to be made by City Council, and as we approach an election next year, I’m not sure many councillors would be willing to take money away from important neighbourhood renewal projects or new facilities like libraries and parks for the arena.

2012 Alberta Election: Social Media Highlights

I don’t think there’s any doubt that social media played a significant role in this year’s provincial election. From witty tweets to conversation-shifting blog posts and everything in between, there’s no shortage of social media highlights to look back on. In an effort to capture how social media impacted the election, I have been tracking some of the most popular and memorable blog posts, photos, tweets, videos, and links.

Very early on, Danielle Smith’s campaign bus was the talk of Twitter for its unfortunate wheel placement. It attracted so much attention that even Jay Leno joked about it! The Wildrose quickly fixed the bus, sharing a new photo on Facebook that was liked nearly 800 times with more than 220 comments.

danielle-smith-bus-628

Social media proved to be an effective tool for the mainstream media to share their stuff throughout the election. For example, CBC’s Vote Compass was shared more than 5300 times on Facebook and more than 870 times on Twitter. Over 115,000 responses were completed.

On March 30, PC staffer Amanda Wilkie (@wikwikkie) posted a tweet questioning Danielle Smith’s lack of children. There was an immediate backlash which forced Wilkie to apologize and delete the tweet. Smith released a statement explaining that she and her husband had tried to have kids with the aid of fertility treatments, and Alison Redford released a statement announcing that Wilkie had resigned. The two leaders spoke on the phone and vowed to move on.

Smith’s tweet was retweeted more than 100 times.

On April Fools Day, the Wildrose issued a news release saying that if elected, the party would pursue a merger with Saskatchewan to form a new province known as Saskberta. It was shared on Facebook more than 2100 times and on Twitter more than 360 times. The Wildrose tweet itself was retweeted more than 140 times:

Candidates first felt the power of blogs on April 2, when Kathleen Smith (@KikkiPlanet) posted her widely-read piece entitled Pruned Bush: Confessions of a Wilted Rose. An impassioned and well-written post, it racked up more than 1400 likes on Facebook, more than 330 tweets, and 136 comments. More than that, it brought “Conscience Rights” into the spotlight.

Kathleen’s post even attracted an angry response from a Wildrose supporter. Paula Simons has a good recap of the whole story, so check it out.

Just two days later, Dave Cournoyer (@davecournoyer) posted an even more popular blog post. His entry titled thorny candidates could be the wildrose party’s biggest liability attracted more than 4700 likes on Facebook, more than 600 tweets, and 150 comments. Though we didn’t know it at the time, Dave’s post would be cited countless times over the next few weeks as Wildrose candidates made gaffe after gaffe. Even his follow-up post on April 16 attracted more than 600 likes, more than 70 tweets, and 75 comments.

The next day on April 5, Dave Cournoyer noticed that a Twitter account named @PremierDanielle had been created and was being followed by @ElectDanielle, Smith’s official account. While it only came to light during the election, it was actually created back on October 12, 2010.

I didn’t think there’d be many audio clips to note during the election, but on April 7 the Alberta Party launched its official campaign song, composed by JUNO winners Cindy Church and Sylvia Tyson. The page was shared on Facebook more than 100 times and on Twitter more than 40 times. The song itself, hosted on SoundCloud, has been played more than 3500 times.

It didn’t take long after Danielle Smith announced a $300 dividend for all Albertans for Sean Healy to launch Dani Dollars, a website that let users pledge their cash “to Wildrose Relief”. It was shared more than 280 times on Facebook, more than 130 times on Twitter, and attracted more than 170 pledges for a grand total of $51,600.

The leaders debate took place on April 12, and while it ended up being fairly boring (aside from Raj Sherman’s unintentionally comedic outbursts) there were a couple of highlights. One was Alberta Party leader Glenn Taylor’s live blog, which was followed by more than 1700 people. It was shared more than 480 times on Facebook and more than 300 times on Twitter.

The debate also resulted in one of the most memorable tweets of the election, retweeted more than 340 times:

https://twitter.com/omar_aok/status/190617702690340864

Edmonton Journal videographer Ryan Jackson posted a really unique video on April 13. By stitching together four different videos, Jackson made it appear as if you were sitting in a coffee shop with four of the party leaders. The video was shared more than 140 times on Facebook and more than 50 times on Twitter.

On April 14, a new Twitter account known as @Adamwyork posted a tweet about Wildrose candidate Allan Hunsperger. It linked to an old blog post that Hunsperger had written that contained the shocking statement that gays and lesbians would “suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell.” You can see a screen capture of the post here. It wasn’t until April 26 that the person behind the tweet was identified. Turns out it was Blake Robert, better known online as @BRinYEG. Paula Simons’ post about the outing has already been shared more than 275 times on Facebook and more than 144 times on Twitter.

Though the original tweet was only retweeted 13 times, the impact it had on the election cannot be overstated.

On April 16, the domain name INeverThoughtIdVotePC.com was registered. A couple of days later, the website launched featuring a short video that asked Albertans to vote strategically against the Wildrose. The website has been shared on Facebook more than 3700 times and the video itself has been seen more than 88,000 times.

On April 17, Vicky Frederick posted a Wildrose-edition of the “Downfall / Hitler Reacts” video meme. The video, titled Inside the Wildrose War Room, has been seen nearly 12,000 times.

It was a busy day on April 17. That was also the day that Wildrose candidate Ron Leech made controversial statements about having an advantage as a Caucasian. The Journal captured a copy of the radio interview here. The tweet from CTV Edmonton breaking the news was retweeted more than 250 times:

That same day, the Wildrose posted its “Momentum” ad on YouTube. With more than 112,000 views, it’s the most popular election-related video.

On April 20, Paula Simons wrote a blog post titled The Price of Free Speech. She discussed Danielle Smith’s stubborn refusal to reprimand candidates like Hunsperger and Leech. The post was shared on Facebook more than 1500 times and on Twitter more than 180 times.

In the final weekend of the campaign, photos of this graffiti wall here in Edmonton started circulating on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere online:

I don’t know how many times it was shared, but I saw it all over the place.

After all of the negativity of the election, I was quite happy to see Ryan Jackson’s next election video on April 23. A “whimsical parody video”, it featured the “strange new species” popping up on lawns across Alberta known was the election sign.

He posted a behind-the-scenes on the video just yesterday.

As the polls opened on April 23, many people tweeted that they had voted while others encouraged Albertans to get out and vote. With more than 200 retweets, Kathleen Smith’s call-to-action was probably the most visible of the day:

On election night itself there were many memorable tweets, but Todd Babiak’s post about how the public opinion polls were so wrong was one of the most retweeted with 195 retweets:

As far as I can tell, the most retweeted tweet of the entire election came at 9:27pm on election night, after it became clear that the Wildrose would form the official opposition. Calgary’s Nick Heer posted this tweet:

It has been retweeted more than 650 times!

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to imagine what the election would have looked like without social media! Through tweets, photos, videos, blog posts, and more, Albertans had no shortage of ways to share their thoughts on the candidates and the campaigns. And because of the nature of social media, those thoughts often spread extremely quickly and were frequently picked up by the mainstream media. Whether you’re a Twitter or Facebook user yourself or not, there’s no question that social media helped make the 2012 provincial election one of the most exciting in Alberta’s history.

Did you have a social media highlight that I missed? Let me know in the comments! For more on the role that Twitter played during the election, be sure to check out AlbertaTweets. Looking for election results and statistics? Check out my #abvote Results Dashboard!

Building a Results Dashboard for the 2012 Alberta Election

Like many Albertans, I have spent a significant amount of time over the last month paying attention to the election! Reading about the candidates, following all the drama, and spending lots of time with the #abvote hashtag on Twitter. As the candidates were making one final push over the weekend before the election, I decided to build a results dashboard. I like a good challenge and enjoyed building it, but it was especially rewarding to see that it proved to be quite popular too! In this post I’ll tell you a little about how and why I built the website, and what I learned from it.

abvote results

If you haven’t checked out the dashboard, you can see it here. I’ve added a bunch of stuff since election night, which I’ll explain below.

The Idea

By late Friday afternoon, my thoughts had drifted to election day itself. I started to think about how exciting it would be to see the results come in – I love election nights! I knew there would be television coverage and that the media would have some web coverage as well, but I also felt that I could build something unique and valuable. If only I had the data! So I looked around, and found the Elections Alberta results site. At that time, the results page was full of test data. I immediately saved a copy to my computer, and saved a few of the electoral division pages too. That proved to be a wise decision, because a few hours later the site went offline!

elections alberta

Before I took a crack at scraping the website, I wanted to know if there was a data feed of some kind available. I blindly emailed the general Elections Alberta address, and to my surprise, received a response shortly thereafter! Unfortunately there was no data feed available, so I set about writing a scraper. Within a couple of hours, I was correctly scraping the main results page as well as all of the electoral division pages. Now that I had the data, I felt pretty confident that I could build a dashboard over the weekend. I didn’t get back to the project until Sunday morning, so that meant I had to prioritize what I was going to build. It took about six hours, but my I finished my initial version late that evening.

The Design

This was not my first election results dashboard. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll recall that I built a dashboard for the municipal election here in Edmonton back in 2010. I learned a lot from that experience, and I remember it being a lot more rushed and difficult than this dashboard! Among other lessons, it was clear that design and colors matter, and that mobile devices are important (even then lots of people were asking for mobile support). I also knew that forcing users to refresh the page is less than ideal – it’s not a very delightful experience, and it puts unnecessary strain on the server. I also disliked the limited real estate that I had to work with (the current ShareEdmonton page width is fixed…but I’m working on a new version that is fluid).

So, I wanted a mobile-friendly, fluid-width, Ajax-enabled, attractive looking design. I immediately decided to use Twitter Bootstrap. I have used it a few times now, and I absolutely love it. I can’t thank the folks at Twitter enough for making such an excellent framework available for free! It gave me everything I needed to get going from a UI perspective. In particular it features responsive design, which makes it possible for the pages to scale from the desktop down to mobile devices without much work. For the backend, I used ASP.NET MVC 3. I use it for everything, so I know it well.

For performance reasons, it definitely made sense to cache the data. I decided on a fairly straightforward approach: I’d scrape the data from Elections Alberta and would store it using Memcached for two minutes. That meant that every two minutes, a request would take slightly longer because it had to download the data again, but this seemed reasonable (and as it turned out, the Elections Alberta site was incredibly quick). I also designed the pages to poll for new data every 30 seconds, which prevented users from having to reload the page manually.

The Cloud

When I built the ShareEdmonton dashboard a couple years ago, it was hosted on one of my servers. That worked fine, but it did slow down under load and I didn’t have much ability to scale up or out without a lot of additional cost, time, and effort. I really wanted to avoid that situation this time, so I decided to host the dashboard using Windows Azure. I’m in the process of migrating ShareEdmonton to Azure, so I already had an account and was pretty familiar with how it worked. Deploying to Azure is so easy – I simply had to add a deployment project in Visual Studio, and then I could deploy new versions in just a couple of clicks.

Windows Azure supports a range of instance types – basically you get to choose how big and powerful you want your server to be. I started with “Extra Small”, the least powerful and therefore least expensive type. As the polls were about to close at 8pm, I scaled up to “Small”, which meant redeploying the app (which took about 8 minutes, but happened completely behind-the-scenes). About half an hour later, I had to add capacity because the site was starting to get quite sluggish. This time I scaled out, by adding a second instance. All I had to do was change a configuration setting in the Azure management console, and the service took care of everything. Within a few minutes, I had two load-balanced “Small” instances. The performance boost was immediately noticeable. About an hour later, I added a third instance, and kept the system running that way until about 1am. I scaled it back down in stages, and now have it running as a single “Extra Small” instance again.

Two Key Decisions

I think the two most important decisions I made were:

  1. Using Twitter Bootstrap
  2. Using Windows Azure

The decision first meant that the website looked good and worked across browsers, screen resolutions, and devices. I got all of that engineering effort and testing for free, which meant I could focus on building an election results dashboard rather than building a website. I didn’t have to figure out how to lay things out on the screen, or how to style tables. The second decision was perhaps even more important. By using Windows Azure, I could deploy new versions of the dashboard in minutes, plus I could scale up and out simply by changing a few settings. That meant I could quickly respond when the site came under load. The other big advantage of using Azure was the cost – running the site on election night cost me just $1.54. Incredible!

Some Statistics

The dashboard served around 60,000 page views on election night alone, which is pretty good for a website launched just hours before the main event. Keep in mind that because the data on the site automatically updated, users didn’t have to refresh the page which kept that statistic lower than it would otherwise have been. The visit duration metric is another way to see that – 20% of all visitors spent at least 10 minutes on the site. I actually would have guessed a higher percentage than that, but perhaps the high mobile usage was the reason.

The top screen resolution for visitors was 320×480, not a desktop resolution! Roughly 36% of all visits that night were made on mobile devices (which includes tablets). The iPhone was the most popular device, followed by the iPad. Clearly using a framework like Twitter Bootstrap with responsive design was a good decision.

The other statistic worth sharing is that the vast majority of visitors (about 73%) found the site by way of social networks, and two in particular. Facebook accounted for 78% of all those visits, while Twitter accounted for 20%.

Recent Improvements

Since Monday I have made numerous improvements to the dashboard. Here’s a brief overview of the new features:

  • All the data is now stored locally, which means I’m no longer reliant on Elections Alberta. They have made numerous updates over the last two days, and I have updated the site’s local data store accordingly.
  • I updated the voter turnout chart and added regional voter turnout to the front page. I also added a table of the five closest races.
  • District pages now show voter turnout and the list of polls is now sortable.
  • There’s a new Districts Grid, which lets you see lots of information about all the districts in a single, sortable view. For example, you can quickly see which district had the best voter turnout, which were the closest races, and which had the most candidates.
  • There’s also a Candidates page, which lets you see information about all of the candidates in a single, sortable view.
  • Last night I also added a Maps page, which has interactive maps for the province, as well as zoomed-in maps for Calgary and Edmonton. Click on any region for details and a link to the district page.

What’s Next?

I plan to keep the dashboard up as it is now, though at some point I’ll probably transition it from being a dynamic website to a static one (far cheaper to host over the long-run). If you have any suggestions on things to add or improve, let me know! I hope the site will serve as a valuable reference tool going forward.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who sent positive comments about the dashboard my way. It’s great to hear that so many people found it useful on election night!

More power and money to cities in Alberta? I don’t believe you!

If you haven’t already done so you should check out Cities Matter, a website created by Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi. It features questions in ten categories related to municipalities that all five of the major provincial parties have answered. The Municipal Financing category asks what each party would do to provide long-range, sustainable, and predictable capital funding for large cities in Alberta. Here are some highlights from the responses:

Alberta Liberals:

Our view is that provincial funding for municipalities should be provided with little to no strings attached, and that local governments are best positioned to determine what their own priorities are and how money should be spent.

Alberta Party:

We are committed to ensuring municipalities have access to stable, adequate and predictable funding. The Alberta Party will shift from 3‐year budget cycles to 5‐year cycles to ensure more long‐term planning can happen. We will also explore alternative ways for cities to raise their own revenues, so that they are less dependent on provincial funding and are more able to accurately budget for their needs.

Alberta’s NDP:

An NDP government would support municipalities’ efforts to occupy the entire property tax and would be prepared to consider additional sources of revenue for municipalities which are appropriate to their responsibilities.

PC Alberta:

The PC Party also plans to help meet the fiscal needs of our cities with city charters and more local decision making through transfer of power. Municipalities are entitled to a greater say and accountability in their own governance and fiscal management.

Wildrose:

Our Balanced Budget and Savings Pledge will lay the groundwork for growing surpluses in the short term; combined with rising income taxes this will ensure that municipal funding increases along with Alberta’s economy.  It also means that municipal leaders won’t need to curry favour with government ministers and align their ideas with the latest trendy notions among bureaucrats.  Wildrose trusts local communities to know what their short and long term priorities are, and with this formula will give them the autonomy to carry through in meeting them.

Sounds good right? More power and money to cities!

Thing is, I really don’t believe any of that.

Consider the proposed downtown arena. Our local leadership has determined (whether you agree or not) that a new arena is something the city needs, that it is something that would benefit Edmontonians. Yet none of the provincial parties seem to have acknowledged that decision. In fact, in many cases they have explicitly disagreed.

Here’s NDP Leader Brian Mason’s take:

“There are far bigger priorities for tax dollars in Edmonton than giving handouts to billionaire hockey owners. Instead, the New Democrats want to accelerate the construction of more light rail transit in Edmonton with more funding. We could use that $100 million to provide interest-free loans to 20,000 homeowners for energy efficient home renovations, or build 250 long-term care beds. New Democrats use public money for the public good.”

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was even more blunt:

“We would not provide funding to a new arena in Edmonton.”

PC Leader Alison Redford hasn’t been quite so direct, but her government has thus far avoided the issue and has been more than happy to move ahead with the new Royal Alberta Museum (which nobody was talking about until the announcement dropped out of the sky). And she too does not appear to agree with the need:

“I think that we have enough funding in our system right now to allow for projects that matter to communities to be built.”

I have not seen either the Alberta Party or the Alberta Liberals directly address the arena (if you can point me to something that would be appreciated).

You might argue that these leaders are just responding to what Edmontonians are saying – they don’t want public money going to the arena. Walk down the street and ask people what they think however, and you get a much different response. I think a lot of people feel that other levels of government need to come to the table to support this project.

Either way, we seem to have conflicting statements here. On the one hand, these provincial leaders are happy to suggest that they would grant more control to municipalities to determine what they should build and how they should spend their money. On the other hand, they’re opposed to providing funding to a new arena in Edmonton. So which is it? Or perhaps a better question, exactly what strings will be attached to the greater autonomy granted to municipalities? The arena is just one example. The City Centre Airport is another (and we know that at least the Wildrose would reopen that can of worms) and of course there’s LRT.

I find it really hard to believe that any of these parties would truly give more control over finances and decision making to municipalities. And that’s a shame, because cities really do matter.

The Alberta Party’s Big Idea Night (and new brand)

Earlier today the Alberta Party unveiled its new logo and brand package. I’ll admit that I wasn’t an immediate fan of the new logo. Putting speech bubbles inside the provincial shield feels more obvious than clever, at least at first blush. I’ve been thinking about it though, and I actually kind of like how direct it is. The logo conveys its message in a clear and very to-the-point fashion. And I do have to admit that the speech bubble element itself is rather smart, as Chris pointed out:

My favourite part of this brand strategy, is the “Speech Bubble”.  The pull-apart element of the logo will become part of how our supporters will be able to make this brand their own. The number of ways that this can become personalized to each member, constituency association, community or neighborhood, are endless.

As I descended the steps at the Shaw Conference Centre tonight on my way to the Big Idea event (I attended as media), I passed a number of volunteers wearing black tee shirts featuring the new visual identity. Set against a dark background, the new logo is definitely attractive. The fonts used are Avant Garde Gothic Bold and Book.

Here’s how the Big Idea Night was described on the Alberta Party website:

Join us for an evening of fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking and inspiring presentations from our members, supporters and friends. Do you have a great idea for our province? An innovative way of doing something? A vision for Alberta in 20 years?

Think “mini-Pecha Kucha”. Each speaker got five minutes to share their “big idea” with no time for questions (but plenty of time for networking afterward). The speakers tonight were, in order of appearance:

  1. Dennis Lenarduzzi – Logo
  2. Everett Smith – Vision 2031: Rewarding civic duty & community service
  3. Danielle Klooster – Community culture by design: Penhold on purpose
  4. Connie Jensen – A few tips for a proactive campaign
  5. Lisa Maria Fox – Brining public to policy
  6. Glenn Taylor – This is my voice
  7. Jesse Row – My big idea
  8. Wade Ferguson – Welcome to Vermillion: accelerating innovation in sustainability

It just so happened that one of the first people I ran into at the event was Dennis Lenarduzzi, Associate Creative Director at Red The Agency. He’s the man behind the new logo, and he shared with me that he was particularly excited to see people using the logo in new ways already. He was also the first presenter tonight, and I thought he did a great job discussing the “common ground. common sense.” slogan and other new brand elements. He emphasized that the logo is for all Albertans, not just the Alberta Party.

Alberta Party Big Idea Night
Dennis Lenarduzzi

Everett Smith talked about his vision for Alberta, and focused on volunteers. He suggested adjusting taxes to reward Albertans that volunteer. Danielle Klooster talked about community culture, and had an intriguing slide labeled “Bad Stuff in the ‘Burbs”. Connie Jensen suggested Alberta Party members should organize their own “Concerned Citizens for Democracy” groups. She also said she wants to see 40+ seats go to the Alberta Party or she’ll be disappointed! Lisa Maria Fox talked about policy and the public, and spent a bit of time discussing deliberative democracy, crowdsourcing, and other ideas. Glenn Taylor started off by talking about Shane Koyczan and how his poetry slams had inspired him, then he left the stage while he showed a video of Koyczan’s “This is my Voice”. Jesse was a good speaker and had some interesting ideas, such as an American Idol or Star Search-like competition for selecting candidates. Finally, Wade (who’s last name I didn’t catch) talked about Vermillion Canada.

Alberta Party Big Idea Night Alberta Party Big Idea Night

Remember I said to think mini-Pecha Kucha? Tonight reminded me of PKN in both style and content. There was definitely a range of presentations – from solid, on-point ones like Dennis’ to totally-ignoring-the-concept ones like Glenn’s to pitches like Wade’s. I didn’t feel overwhelmed with big ideas. In that respect, I found the evening a little disappointing. Of course it takes guts to get up in front of a crowd and talk for five minutes, so kudos to the presenters for that.

That said, what other political party is embracing this kind of approach? It may not have been perfect, but the Alberta Party’s Big Idea Night is exactly the kind of thing I’d like to see more of. I hope they do it again (after learning from tonight’s experience, of course).

Alberta Party Big Idea Night

Tonight’s event was the kickoff for the Alberta Party Leadership Convention which takes place all day tomorrow at the Shaw Conference Centre. You can learn more about the candidates here and you can follow along on Twitter using the #abpleader hashtag. You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here.

@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).

No texting during the show!

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).

Roundup: The Royal Alberta Museum is moving downtown

It’s amazing how big news can just seemingly drop from the sky sometimes! Yesterday’s big announcement here in Edmonton was that the Royal Alberta Museum will be rebuilt downtown:

A new comprehensive Royal Alberta Museum will be built in downtown Edmonton starting this year, featuring twice as much gallery space, direct connections to public transit, proximity to the Arts District, and the ability to host major international exhibits and rare artifacts. The new museum will be equipped to showcase both Alberta’s history and its natural wonders, and will be free of the limitations of the current museum site.

The new museum is expected to cost $340 million and is set to open by 2015. Budget 2011 includes $180 million over the first three years of the project, which includes $30 million from the Federal government. Here’s a rough rendering of the building:

For a better look, check out this video from the Province introducing the new concept:

[googlemaps https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkbxfUSWgh0″ frameborder=”0″ width=”524″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”>

Here’s where the site is located (click here for Street View):

Lots has been written/recorded about the project already. Here are some of the things I have come across that are worth checking out.

From the Edmonton Journal:

The current museum will stay open for the next four years. Discussions are just starting on what to do with the old museum and the rest of the property in Glenora, although a portion will eventually house a new residence for the lieutenant-governor.

“Right now, I can tell you it’s not going to be condos,” Alberta Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett said. He said it’s “very unlikely” the land will be sold to private developers.

From the CBC:

Stelmach said the museum land could be the future home of the Edmonton terminal for a high-speed rail line to Calgary. Land for a Calgary station was purchased in 2007.

Paula Simons picked up on that as well at The Edmonton Commons and added:

There’s no denying the real attractions of this site. It would be accessible by LRT – especially if the city were to “activate” the dormant LRT stop, known as Future Station, that’s already roughed in under the Brownlee Building. It would be linked to the existing pedway system. It would be a block east of that proposed arena and entertainment district, assuming such a thing actually comes to be built. It would be a way to push attractive development into the Chinatown/Boyle/McCauley area. It would make the Churchill Square/City Hall precinct a true arts centre. And it would be a fabulous companion to the AGA – a tourist draw in the heart of the city core. It might also help to give impetus to develop on the Station Lands site directly to the north – and even integrate with possible plans to turn Mary Burlie Park, just to the north of the proposed RAM site, into a Chinese garden and cultural centre.

From Global Edmonton:

The decision to move to a new location was made because of size constraints at the old location, and because the construction process would have forced the museum to close for a significant amount of time while the construction was in progress. As a result, the province says the cost to build on a new location will be less than the cost of trying to redevelop the old site.

From CTV Edmonton:

This spring, a competitive bidding process will seek out a private sector consortium to design and build the new facility.

Finally, while I like the spirit of David Staples’ latest column, it’s unfortunate that most of the words are dedicated to the arena, not the RAM. Still, it is great news for downtown!

What else have you come across that is worth sharing?