Tag: business

artsScene Edmonton Launch Party

Tonight I attended the artsScene Edmonton Launch Party at Planet Ze Design Center in Old Strathcona. I was quite excited when I heard back in April that the initiative was coming to Edmonton, because I think it’s a great idea. From the press release:

artsScene is a new initiative that brings together young business and creative professionals (ages 18-40) to grow the arts, culture and creative industries in our community. artsScene is an initiative of Business for the Arts, a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting business leadership in the arts, facilitating funding relationships and connecting business volunteers to the arts. artsScene has been established in Toronto, Halifax and Montreal, and now Edmonton and Calgary.

Tonight’s event was a party, one of five different types of events that artScene will be hosting. Others include BoardLink (speed networking), Roundtables (breakfast sessions), Behind the Scenes (engage with artists), and a Creative Summit (two-day conference). The next event will be a BoardLink in June, followed by a summer party in August.

artsScene EdmontonartsScene EdmontonartsScene EdmontonSharon & MackMichael & KenCadence Weapon

Featured artists this evening included Denise Lefebvre, Patrick Higgins, and Shelby Wallace. Other special guests were Edmonton’s newest poet laureate Roland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon), and DJ Marc it Fresh (Marcus Coldeway). CBC Radio3 was also in attendance. Organizers said over 100 tickets were sold ahead of time, and there was strong interest at the door. I’d say there was easily 125 people there by the time I left. It was a good mix of people too! SmibsTV was recording some interviews, so keep an eye on their site for video.

I think artsScene events could quickly become “must attend” events for creative professionals in Edmonton. Check out the website, and stay connected – artsScene Edmonton is on Twitter, Facebook, and has a mailing list. You can see my photos from this evening here.

No more bailouts please

As you’re probably aware, CTV has been running an aggressive “Save Local TV” campaign over the last couple weeks. Along with occasional ally Canwest, the two broadcasters are petitioning the CRTC to impose a fee-for-carriage on cable and satellite companies. In a recent guest post on Connect2Edmonton, CTV’s Lloyd Lewis wrote:

Local stations like CTV Edmonton do not receive any compensation from cable and satellite companies.  We believe the time has come that local television must share in this pool, just as all other channels on your cable and satellite systems do.

Shaw has been the most aggressive company on the opposite side of the issue. Here’s what Jim Shaw wrote in his message to Canadians:

Canadians should not have to pay to fix broadcasters’ problems. They’ve spent billions of dollars acquiring foreign programs, TV stations and newspapers and now they say they’re broke?

Essentially, I think the situation can be described as follows:

  • CTV and Canwest are losing money. This is partly because of a decline in advertising revenue, exacerbated by the economic downturn.
  • They have twice before asked the CRTC to impose a fee-for-carriage, and were denied both times. A fee-for-carriage would force cable and satellite companies to pay for the signals they rebroadcast.
  • If such a fee were imposed, Shaw and other cable/sat companies would likely pass the cost on to consumers.
  • Fee-for-carriage exists in other countries, but has never existed in Canada.

My gut reaction when I first started reading about all of this was that CTV and Canwest wanted a bailout, just like the auto manufacturers. Their business model is broken, and they’re looking for the quick fix. I firmly believe that we need to allow sick businesses to die, so that more efficient ones can take their place. I feel that way about all industries.

I decided to do some reading. Here’s what I have learned:

CTV argues that their local news programs are suffering because I can get CTV Toronto and CTV Edmonton on my cable/satellite package. That means I can watch a popular primetime show on the Toronto feed instead of my local one. Some questions on that:

  • Isn’t CTV receiving the same revenue either way?
  • Isn’t most advertising sold nationally anyway? Isn’t that the argument for a large conglomerate?
  • Why does the ad revenue for a primetime show affect my local news program as much as CTV seems to suggest it does?

The financials only tell one side of the story. It’s the other side of the story that really makes me frustrated. CTV has taken a page out of the newspaper playbook, and is claiming that they are vital to the local community.

Cities do not need newspapers to survive and flourish, nor do they need local TV stations.

In the article posted at C2E, CTV argues that local TV is important for the following reasons:

  1. Local content is more relevant than ever, despite more the web making global sources and more choice available.
  2. The accurate reporting of news is critical.
  3. Local stations provide a high level of community service.

None of those things require a TV station.

You might wonder where all the local content is on CTV or Global. Aside from the news programs (which themselves are not even close to 100% local content), what is there? Lots of American shows, that’s what (this post is a long but good read on the topic of local vs. foreign content on the networks). The six o’clock news is too late for most breaking news, but too soon for context and analysis, which is what the 384 years of experience CTV Edmonton is touting would be good for.

TV stations are not perfect, they make mistakes from time to time. The problem is that they can’t correct those mistakes until the late news or else the next day. How accurate is that? More importantly, TV is not required for the dissemination of accurate news. It just happens to be one of the vehicles for it today.

It’s true that local TV stations do a lot for the community. So do other organizations. I’m sure charity events could find other individuals to MC. Aside from donating free advertising, I’m not sure what specifically CTV brings to the table with regard to community service that other organizations do not.

Comments via Twitter

I decided to ask Twitter for some comments on this last night. There was an almost even split among the replies I received, with roughly half supporting CTV and half supporting Shaw. Here are some of the tweets:

  • wikkiwild1: I have to go with Cable, if CTV charges carriage fees they will be passed onto the cable subscribers. Why pay for local TV.
  • andrewmcintyre: CTV and Canwest are clearly not in the right. The CRTC’s role in this debate is very interesting.
  • chrislabossiere: if I had to pick one of two sides, I would say status quo and Shaw. They are at least fighting for a new way.
  • ZoomJer: I’m for fairness. If you buy a DVD you can’t show it and charge admission. Shaw is in the wrong. I want to see @ctvedmonton stay.
  • paulstrandlund: Shaw. CTV only has 1 local program – the news.
  • tachyondecay: Neither. They’re both in it for money. My local TV (which has nothing to do with CTV) offers little interesting except news.
  • thzatheist: Shaw. How has CTV fared so well this long? Advertising – let’s see them continue. (I only support media bailout if CBC is saved)

Final Thoughts

There’s really nothing “local” about CTV’s campaign. It’s disappointing propaganda, replicated across the network of CTV stations. It might have more of an impact if it actually came from a local perspective.

I don’t think Shaw and the other cable and satellite companies are completely in the clear here either. They are rebroadcasting CTV and Canwest signals without paying for them, and they seem awfully quick to suggest fees would be passed on directly to consumers.

Just because Canada hasn’t had a fee-for-carriage in the past doesn’t mean it shouldn’t in the future. I’m not completely opposed to a fee-for-carriage, but I am opposed to a mandatory fee-for-carriage. An optional one, on the other hand, could be good. I should be able to tell Shaw that I don’t want CTV Edmonton, saving us both the expense.

Of course, CTV and Canwest don’t want that, because then they’d see just how vital Canadians think they are. I think it’s unfortunate that CTV and Canwest are threatening more job cuts and station closures if they don’t get the fee-for-carriage revenue. What they should be doing is innovating, to reduce costs and to ensure they have multiple, steady revenue streams.

If they can’t do that, we should allow them to die. Healthy, innovative businesses will take their place.

Sadly, this whole argument may become irrelevant (or at least delayed) if the rumored $150 million bailout package for the broadcasters turns out to be real.

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this issue. What do you think?

UPDATE: It’s worth pointing out that the CBC doesn’t seem particularly interested in joining CTV and Canwest on this issue, despite the fact that they may benefit.

DemoCampEdmonton7

Are you ready for another DemoCamp? Our next event here in Edmonton is coming up fast, on May 13th! Join us at the University of Alberta to see what local tech entrepreneurs are up to. As usual, we’ll head over to RATT after the demos for Edmonton’s best networking opportunity for tech professionals. If you’re new to DemoCamp, check out my recap of our last event. Here are the details for #7:

Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Time: 6:30pm (and drinks/networking afterward)
Location: E1 017, ETLC, University of Alberta (map)
Cost: Free

The rules for DemoCamp are simple: ten minutes to demo real, working software, followed by a few minutes for questions. No slides allowed.

This time we’ve got a fantastic new sign up page for both attendees and anyone interested in demoing at this event or in the future. No more wiki craziness – just enter your name and click Register!

Help us spread the word – check out the BarCamp Edmonton blog and our Facebook group. Be sure to tag your tweets, posts, photos, and other content with democampyeg.

Hope to see you there!

New Business Cards

For most of 2008, I didn’t carry any business cards with me. It was sort of an unofficial experiment to see if I could simply say “Google me” when asked for one. Of course, it wasn’t a very good experiment because I have no way to measure how successful it was. I did get the impression that people like something physical however, so I decided I’d once again carry cards in 2009. I now have three:

New Business Cards

I received both the Techvibes and Questionmark cards in December/January. There are times when I am specifically representing one or the other, so they’re good to have.

I just picked up my third card, pictured front and back on the right side, this week. It’s a little hard to see in the photo, but the front is white and the back is a light grey. What I tried to do with the design was make it as “webby” as possible:

  • MasterMaq is in big letters and matches the header of my site. Hopefully people just type it into Google, click to my website, and see right away that they’ve arrived at the correct place.
  • There is no phone number because I prefer email. If someone really wants to call me, they can find my number on my website.
  • There’s a nice big tag cloud on the back with the words I hope people associate with me. My thinking is that if someone is looking at the card, wondering where they met me, the tag cloud will jog their memory.
  • The tag cloud also serves as a quick way for people to discover other things I’m up to. Plus I think it looks cool.

So far I’m pretty happy with the card. I’m bringing a stack to Northern Voice with me this weekend, so I’ll update this post if I get any comments one way or the other. For the designers reading this, I used the Philly Sans typeface for “MasterMaq” and everything else is Helvetica.

What do you think?

DemoCampEdmonton6

It’s DemoCamp time again here in Edmonton! In just three short weeks we’ll once again converge at the University of Alberta to see what local tech entrepreneurs are up to. Following the demos we’ll head over to a local pub for Edmonton’s best networking opportunity for tech professionals (we’ll probably be at Hudson’s on Campus this time, instead of The Windsor). You can read about our last DemoCamp here. Here are the details for #6:

Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Time: 6:30pm (and drinks/networking afterward)
Location: E1 013, ETLC, University of Alberta (map)
Cost: Free

The rules for DemoCamp are simple: ten minutes to demo real, working software, followed by a few minutes for questions. No slides allowed. If you’d like to demo, make sure you’ve attended at least one DemoCamp in the past, and add yourself to the signup list.

Please help us spread the word – we’d like to make this the biggest DemoCamp Edmonton yet! Let’s fill the room. Check out the BarCamp Edmonton blog, our Facebook group, the Facebook event, and the wiki page. Be sure to tag your tweets, posts, photos, and other content with democampyeg.

See you in early March!

STIRR in Edmonton

stirr canada Tonight we held the first ever STIRR Canada event here in Edmonton. About sixty of the city’s entrepreneurs, investors, and other tech professionals came together at The Hat downtown to chat with one another, and to meet and learn from Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare.

I think “STIRR” was new to most people, so near the beginning of the event Patrick Lor from the STIRR Canada team explained how he got introduced to the organization and brought it to Canada.

STIRR Canada is a networking community for high-tech startup founders, founding teams, former founders, angel and VC funders, and technology journalists. Our events are designed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

The idea is to bring new and experienced entrepreneurs together. We do a bit of that at DemoCamp of course, but the audience tonight was a bit different. There were definitely more guys wearing suits! I think it all comes down to access – busy guys like Greg simply can’t make it out to every DemoCamp, so to be able to have him present tonight was pretty cool.

Greg from BioWareSTIRR in EdmontonRandy & Cam

Founded in 1995, BioWare is a major Edmonton success story. Greg and his colleagues Ray Muzyka and Augustine Yip realized early on that, in Greg’s words, “no one likes a creative doctor.” They decided to put their creativity into video games, and BioWare was the result. After a string of hits, BioWare became an acquisition target and was eventually scooped up by Electronic Arts in late 2007. Today the company continues to produce popular games, and has grown to about 500 employees.

Here are some of the highlights from Greg’s talk:

  • Early on, BioWare didn’t see the need for a board of directors or advisors. Looking back, they wouldn’t recommend that strategy to anyone!
  • Greg figures that the cost of making their first game was less than the cost of a single month of development at the company today. It’s become a much more expensive industry.
  • Greg says to be prepared for the long haul. He pointed to Google as an example: most people think about their success in recent years, but the reality is that they’ve been running in some form or another for more than a decade (since 1996).
  • Another piece of advice from Greg: don’t be afraid to get a second opinion. And if something doesn’t make sense, be suspicious!

Greg’s presentation was really interesting, and seemed to be well-received by everyone in attendance. Of course, the major focus of an event like this is the networking that followed. There were lots of interesting discussions taking place all evening long!

Thanks to The Hat for running a wonderful service this evening, and to Cam, Pat and the other organizers for bringing this event to Edmonton. I’m glad I was able to help. Most importantly, thanks to everyone for coming out!

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening at Flickr.

Edmonton Tech in 2008

Now that 2008 has come to a close, I think it’s safe to say that the Edmonton tech scene has had a fantastic year. It feels like the community grew tenfold, but I know that’s probably not true. Instead, I think the community just became more integrated and public. We had far more events than ever before, which resulted in lots of opportunities for everyone to meet one another.

DemoCampEdmonton2DemoCampEdmonton3Cam LinkeEdmontonTweetup2Lined up outside the Apple StoreNAIT Digital Media ExpoNew Future Shop in Edmonton

Geoff Hayward, DataGardensnovaNAIT Challenge 2008Local Twitterers!Lift Interactive OfficeReg assembles the agendaFree Wifi @ DemoCampEdmonton3EdmontonTweetup

There were many tech groups active in Edmonton this year. We held four DemoCamp events (one, two, three, four), and one BarCamp. It was great to see attendance increase with each one. In November, we held the 3rd annual Code Camp event for developers. We also held three Tweetup events (one, two, three) this year. The Edmonton .NET User Group, Edmonton Microsoft User Group, and Edmonton Flash User Group all held fairly regular meetings throughout the year. The Agile Edmonton User Group was established this year and held a few meetings. A few other meetup groups got started toward the end of the year, and should be quite active in 2009 – Edmonton Web Design Meetup, Edmonton Social Web Meetup. There were a number of other tech events that took place throughout the year as well, such as the ICE Technology Conference, Moonlight in the Meadows, and the NAIT Digital Media Expo.

Here are some of the year’s most interesting Edmonton tech stories from my blog, Techvibes, and elsewhere:

And here’s the collection of Edmonton Startup Index posts at Techvibes (prior to September all of Alberta was grouped together – yet another sign Edmonton is getting stronger):

I’m really impressed with the way Edmonton’s tech scene grew both larger and stronger this year, and I think 2009 can be even better. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen.

Edmonton Organizations on Twitter

edmontontweetup I’m not the only one who has noticed it – the number of Edmontonians using Twitter is steadily increasing. The EdmontonTweetup account is following just over 450 people, but I know there are probably many more. The vast majority of these accounts are individuals, but there are some businesses and other organizations also.

Here’s a list of organizations with official Twitter accounts (in no particular order):

A few of these are placeholders and aren’t very active. You might think that the Edmonton Oilers should be on that list too, but the Oilers don’t run the Twitter account – I do. A couple of others I’m sitting on include edmonton and ualberta.

Of course, there are also a number of organizations that don’t have an official account which are represented by their owners and/or employees. Some of these have the same name as the organization, but are used more like personal accounts so I am including them here instead of above (again, in no particular order):

Not surprisingly, most of these organizations are in tech, photography, or design. All very creative endeavors.

The problem with a list like this is that it’s easy to miss people (apologies if I missed you), and it’ll soon be out of date. That’s why I’ve created a page on the EdmontonTweetup wiki for it. I’m not sure how much value there is in having such a list, but it’s there anyway. Feel free to add your organization to it, or to ignore it completely! I’ll try to update it when I can.

Don’t forget – the third EdmontonTweetup is taking place this Thursday (October 30th) at 6pm at Devlin’s on Whyte Avenue. You can find all the details here. Hope to see you there!

UPDATE: Added MatrikonOPC, 350 Designs, and Urban Jungle.

Podcast Spot: What would I have done differently?

podcast spot Last night I presented in the VenturePrize Seminar Series with James Matsuba of IdleTime. The seminars are meant as a primer for this year’s competitors on business plans, building a company, and pitching ideas to investors (and judges). When I attended the seminars back in 2006, I found the most useful part was getting to hear the experiences of other entrepreneurs.

For that reason, I have been more than happy to go back and share my own experiences from the competition and beyond. Last night I talked about the VenturePrize process and making it to the finals, and James talked about his experience last year in the student competition and gave his presentation from the finals too.

As a presenter, I think the most enjoyable part is the question and answer period. Both James and I answered a ton of questions last night, but one stuck with me. After I had explained that we were shutting Podcast Spot down, someone asked what I would have done differently.

I didn’t have to think about it for very long, probably because Dickson and I have talked through this a number of times. There’s a ton of things I might have done differently, but two things in particular:

  1. I would have avoided using the word “podcast” in the name of our service.
  2. I would have focused on sharing audio and video for a specific niche.

I personally have nothing against the word podcast. I don’t think we hitched our wagon to the wrong horse or anything, because the underlying technology is sound and in use by millions of people around the world. The word itself has always been confusing and misleading, however. I’ve written many times that podcasting is just a word, but unfortunately most people don’t see it that way.

I also think it would have been a good idea to target our service to a specific group of people. As a service for anyone and everyone to share audio and video, we were a little too much like a YouTube clone (even though our feature set was quite a bit different). I think we could have executed more effectively with a smaller target customer base.

The follow-up question is, of course, why didn’t we do those two things? That question is much more difficult to answer!

Edmonton is home to the future of Future Shop

future shop Edmonton is getting another Future Shop location, just in time for Christmas. The new store will be quite different than our existing five, however, and not just because it is LEED certified. Located in South Edmonton Common just minutes away from Best Buy (which owns Future Shop), the new store will fill its gigantic 53,000 square foot space with musical instruments, exercise equipment, and other goods not normally found at Future Shop. From the Edmonton Journal:

“This is the future of Future Shop,” said Chris Sallans, general manager of a store so revolutionary, he calls it a “laboratory.” If the concepts work, it will serve as a template for the Burnaby, B.C.-based chain’s stores around the country.

Essentially they want to sell things that are “logical extensions” of products that they already carry. Makes sense to me. Future Shop already sells microwaves, refrigerators, and other home appliances, so why not treadmills and other exercise equipment? Doesn’t seem like much of a stretch. I guess the innovation is in having the much larger capacity.

The music angle is quite interesting though:

Electronic music instruments and equipment may also seem to be an unlikely choice, but Sallans said it’s a wide-open market.

“Musical instruments are an $800-million industry and no other major retailer touches it.”

The store will have a wall of more than 100 guitars. There will be three soundproof rooms for music lessons and drum demos ,and a stage for open-mike nights.

That could be pretty cool, I think. Who knows, maybe Future Shop will even become a bit of a third place (or maybe not, considering you’ll basically need to drive to get there…good old South Edmonton Common).

According to the article, Sallan describes Future Shop as the place for early adopters whereas Best Buy is the place for self-service shoppers. I’m not sure where he got that idea, but I seem to recall the lines at Best Buy being much longer than at Future Shop for high profile product launches (like the Xbox 360).

The new store is looking for 230 employees, and will be holding a job fair this weekend at the Delta Hotel Edmonton South. It should open in early December.