Tag: edmonton

Restless in Edmonton? Stop complaining, start creating

Yesterday’s front page story in the Edmonton Journal suggests that Edmonton in 2010 is at a tipping point (forget for the moment that this almost certainly is not the first “tipping point” our city has faced). That this is the year in which we decide to be “a big, sprawling town or to move ahead as a city with real urban living.” And that if we don’t make the right choice, our “ambitious, educated and interesting 30-something professionals” will leave for greener pastures. Active Connect2Edmonton member Ian O’Donnell is featured in the story, and he says that the 30-somethings are getting restless.

Why does “getting restless” always have to mean leaving for Vancouver, Toronto, or Calgary? If you want to leave, I say: good luck! I’d rather have NextGen-ers in Edmonton who want to be a part of something great. NextGen-ers who don’t complain when they see something they don’t like, they go and do something about it. NextGen-ers who want to help transform Edmonton into a world class city.

Edmonton Skyline

We need people like William Buchkowsky and Nathan McQuay. They felt their options for connecting with other young business professionals in the city were limited, so they created Emerging Business Leaders. At least 50 people now meet regularly each month.

We need people like Raffaella Loro. She wanted a city government that was more open and accessible, so she championed the Transforming Edmonton blog to help make it happen. The blog is a fantastic complement to the City’s other online activities.

We need people like Dave Cournoyer, Justin Archer, and Michael Janz. They, along with many others, wanted to have a conversation about re-imagining government and citizenship in the age of participation. They brought ChangeCamp to Edmonton, an event attended by hundreds of Edmontonians in person and online.

We need people like Ken Bautista, Cary Williams, and Michael Brechtel. They are passionate about the creative economy in Edmonton, and recognized that strong creative and artistic communities are important for prosperous cities. They brought artsScene to Edmonton, an organization that connects young professionals with the arts, culture, and creative organizations of Edmonton.

We need people like Mark Donovan, Cam Linke, and Kevin Swan. All are very involved in the local tech scene with things like DemoCamp, and all have experience with technology startups. They recognized a lack of support for local startups, and have created Startup Edmonton to do something about it. The organization will help to ensure that next gen talent builds successful local companies that make it past the seed stage.

These are just a few of the incredible NextGen-ers making a difference in Edmonton. There are many others too, such as the members of Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40, and the members of Edmonton Next Gen (who have brought Pecha Kucha to Edmonton, among other things).

Downtown is an opportunity!

Much of the article focuses on downtown, in a negative way. I’m not going to try to convince you that we have an amazing downtown, because I agree that there’s a lot of room for improvement. But I see that as an opportunity, not as a problem. There are some incredible things on the horizon for downtown Edmonton, and increasingly it is a focus for organizations like EEDC. NextGen-ers need to educate themselves and then work to ensure our city’s decision makers follow through. Small efforts really can have a big impact – I think the City Centre Airport debate is proof of that.

We have the capacity in Edmonton to be world class. All we have to do is stop complaining and start creating.

You can read more reaction to the story in the comments and at Connect2Edmonton.

Edmonton Notes for 1/2/2010

Welcome to 2010! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Tech in 2009

What another fantastic year for tech in Edmonton! I think 2009 had an excellent mix of events, product launches, company successes, and much more. Below I have tried to recap as much of it as possible. I did my first recap post like this last year – you can read it here.

STIRR in EdmontonCrazedCodersFree beer! London PrideDemoCampEdmonton9Start Me UpENTS Grand OpeningLeveraging Technical Expertise Locally

Events

Again we had a great year for DemoCamp, with five events (five, six, seven, eight, nine). The year started off with STIRR, a networking event for tech founders, funders, and others. In early March, the Alberta Entrepreneurs Bootcamp took place at the University of Alberta. Our second BarCamp event was held in June. In July, Edmonton’s first UXCamp took place. The annual Edmonton Code Camp took place in September. Though it wasn’t exactly a tech event, open data played a large role at ChangeCamp which took place in October. That same weekend, Flash in the Can (FITC) brought Flash developers together. November started with the annual ICE Conference, featuring a new startup focused event called Start Me Up. A couple of weeks later, the Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally open house took place – the pilot will get underway in Q1 2010. Also in November the City hosted an Open Data Workshop, another big step on the path toward open data in Edmonton. The month finished off with the iPhone Dev Camp. The year finished off with the first Startup Drinks, put on by Digital Alberta and Startup Edmonton. Watch for much more from them in 2010.

There were many active tech groups in Edmonton this year. The Social Web Meetup continued going strong. The Edmonton Flash User Group held a number of monthly events, in addition to FITC. Agile Edmonton had a great second year, with regularly monthly events. Other active groups included the Edmonton .NET User Group, the Edmonton Microsoft User Group, the Edmonton Web Design Meetup, and TechWing Wednesday.

With 2009 being the breakout year for Twitter, it’s no surprise that the service featured prominently in Edmonton’s tech scene this year. The first Photography Tweetup took place in April, and the group met a few more times later in the year. Also in April was EdmontonTweetup4, and in June we held EdmontonTweetup5. We held two Twestival events this year, in February and September. In November, the community once again got together to wrap gifts for Santas Anonymous. The last major tweetup of the year, the Holiday Tweetup, took place in December. There were many other smaller tweetups throughout the year. I’ll have more on Twitter in Edmonton in 2009 next week.

News

It’s hard to keep track of all of the news that happens in a year, but here are some of 2009’s most interesting Edmonton tech stories:

And here’s the collection of Edmonton Startup Index posts at Techvibes:

2010

I’m really excited for 2010. I think we’ll see accelerating growth and change in the tech community, based upon the strong foundation laid during the last two years. Here are a few things to watch for:

All the best in the new year!

Have another event, story, or link that should be included above? Let me know in the comments or via email. Thanks!

Edmonton Sun violates the EPS Crime Map Terms of Use

Back in July, the Edmonton Police Service launched its Neighbourhood Crime Mapping site. Like most people I was quite enthusiastic about the site, until I read the terms of use and realized how restrictive they were. Basically you can look at the numbers, but you can’t do anything with them (such as publish them on a blog). The Crime Mapping site is not open data. I emailed back and forth with the EPS, and was told that they wouldn’t be changing the terms of use. And, they haven’t.

That didn’t stop the Edmonton Sun, however. They apparently ignored the terms of use altogether, and published an article on December 20th summarizing a number of statistics from the website:

Some of Edmonton’s roughest neighbourhoods faced markedly fewer crimes in 2009, according to police statistics.

The statistics came through a new crime mapping system launched by Edmonton police last summer.

I had asked for permission to do something similar and was turned down. After reading the Sun article, I emailed the EPS to find out if the terms of use had been changed (despite the text on the website staying the same). Here’s what Acting S/Sgt. John Warden wrote back:

The Edmonton Sun did not have the EPS’ permission to use the information from the Crime Mapping website and the EPS is dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun in relation to this.

I emailed back a couple of follow-up questions, but have not yet received a response. The Edmonton Sun article is still active on the website, so I’m not exactly sure what “dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun” means.

I’m annoyed by this, obviously. Was it an honest mistake? Maybe. Is it a case of a large media organization getting off the hook? Maybe. Will it happen again? Probably. No one reads the fine print, we all know that.

I don’t think the current terms of use is appropriate, and I strongly urge the Edmonton Police Service to change it.

Edmonton Notes for 12/26/2009

Merry Christmas Edmonton! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Tough times for Edmonton charities

Times are tough right now if you’re a charitable organization. Here in Edmonton, the outlook is pretty grim for a number of organizations:

Add up the above numbers, and Edmonton charities are short about $3 million. That’s a lot of money. The scary part is that I’m sure there are more than I haven’t been able to find yet.

The two bright spots I’ve seen are Santas Anonymous, which said it would meet the demand this year, and Stuff-A-Bus, which exceeded its goal.

While the news is terrible, it’s not that surprising. Last year donations across Canada dropped 5.3% from 2007 to $8.19 billion, the lowest figure since 2005. I’m sure we’ll see a similar or perhaps larger drop for overall giving in 2009. The fact is, philanthropy is a lagging indicator. This data is from the US but I think it applies to us too:

During the last 40 years, according to data provided by Giving USA, charitable giving fell in real terms (i.e., adjusted for inflation) in years in which the economy was in recession, or in years in which there was a significant stock market dislocation. Giving fell in 1980, 1987, and 1990. The last time the economy contracted was in 2001. That year, according to Giving USA, charitable giving fell 2.3 percent in real terms, after having boomed along with the stock markets and the economy at large in the late 1990s. But while the economy resumed its growth in late 2001, charitable giving slumped in real terms in both 2001 (down 1.4 percent) and 2003 (down 0.2 percent).

It’s a lagging indicator because charitable donations are seen as a luxury. You pay your bills first, then you make a donation. Not everyone sees it that way, of course, but on the whole, that’s the reality.

Hopefully that means local charities will have a better year in 2010.

There’s still time to help this holiday season! Here’s how:

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – November 2009

Welcome to the eleventh State of the Edmonton Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton. You can see last month’s stats here.

The source of the data this month is the same as last, primarily Twitter Search but also from Twitter directly. If a user has his or her location set to Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Nisku, Stony Plain, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Spruce Grove, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered an Edmontonian.

For November 2009:

# of local users: 5850 (an increase of 219 from October)

To clarify, that means there were 5850 users who posted at least one tweet in November 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Edmontonian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Edmonton users without their location set.

Here are the rest of the stats for November 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 290542
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 17282 (5.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 106992 (36.8%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 63595 (21.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 17756 (6.1%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 10054 (3.5%)

I think the retweet number might be a little off, due to the new retweet functionality on Twitter.com, but it’s close. Here are the numbers above in graphic form:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates:

Here are the number of local users by community (besides Edmonton itself) for November:

Keep in mind that is based entirely on the text inside the location field of the user’s profile, and is definitely a minimum. Still, gives you an idea of the breakdown.

Some other interesting stats for the month:

Final Thoughts

User growth is still increasing, albeit rather slowly. There were only 9 days with less than 9000 tweets this month, and we broke the 12,000 per day mark for the first time.

Since January, I have identified just over 13,500 local users. The number above, 5850, is how many of them were active in November.

Calgary stats are up next, followed by December stats, then 2009 year-in-review stats. Stay tuned!

Edmonton Notes for 12/19/2009

Less than a week until Christmas! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Holiday Lights

Recap: Startup Drinks Edmonton 1

Tonight was Edmonton’s first ever Startup Drinks, sponsored by Startup Edmonton and Digital Alberta. A few dozen entrepreneurs got together at The Hat for drinks, food, and great conversation! The event was targeted at startup founders, employees, and funders, but anyone with an interest in local startups was welcome to attend. With no DemoCamp scheduled this month, Startup Drinks was a nice excuse for everyone to get together.

There was a bunch of food available (the sliders were yummy), and all drinks were just $6! I had a great time chatting with Don, Kyle, Brian, Sean, Sean, Tys, Andre, and many others. And don’t get me and Reg started on big ideas, because we don’t know where to stop! I didn’t get to talk to nearly as many people as I’d have liked, but everyone seemed to be busy with their own conversations.

Startup DrinksStartup Drinks

Startup Edmonton is a new organization focused on growing the local tech startup scene. Through events like Startup Drinks and Startup Weekend, the organization will help Edmonton-based entrepreneurs connect with one another. That’s important, and outside of DemoCamp, it’s something we’ve largely been missing here in Edmonton. Startup Edmonton also hopes to help startups in other ways, by connecting them with the people and resources they need. More than anything, Startup Edmonton will advocate for local startups. Investing in Edmonton-based entrepreneurs benefits us all, and that’s what Startup Edmonton is all about.

Thanks to Cam, Ken, and Mark for making tonight happen! You can keep up-to-date with Startup Edmonton on Twitter and Facebook, and watch for the website to launch early next year.

Tony Caterina on the issues in 2009

It’s not surprising that City Councillors are often in the news, offering comment, explanations, and other thoughts on the latest decisions and issues. Some are generally in the news for positive reasons, others, not so much. Ward 3 councillor Tony Caterina is one of the members of council who seems to be mentioned for negative reasons more than positive ones (thanks to Dave for the photo). I mean, he’s even got his own hashtag on Twitter to track all of the bizarre things he says and does! I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at Caterina’s quotes throughout 2009. Ideally I could just point you to his voting record online, but we’re not there yet, so quotes will have to do!

A note on the data: I decided to make it simple and to only look at quotes from the Edmonton Journal. I searched the Canadian Newsstand database (anyone with an Edmonton Public Library card can access it for free) for “tony caterina” in the Edmonton Journal for any date in 2009. A total of 71 articles were found, up to December 3rd. For each one, I looked for direct quotes. I also added some quotes from articles written after December 3rd.

First off, here’s a Wordle of all the quotes:

And here, by subject, is a selection of Tony Caterina quotes on the issues in 2009. You can download all of the quotes I found here in PDF.

On the City Centre Airport:

"We’re talking about closing aviation down, and businesses, and putting people on the unemployment line. Really, that doesn’t make sense."

"In regards to economic development, it’s critical … here we are contemplating getting rid of something that’s already here. That just doesn’t make sense to me."

"If we’re not going to talk about the possibility of improved aviation service, what are the possibilities? From our perspective on council, we will want to push for that to be part of the debate."

On the Edmonton Indy:

"It’s not a cost, it’s an investment into promoting Edmonton as a world-class city. We made a decision as council to support this event because it is world-renowned … Given the exposure we have had, it’s money well spent."

"The publicity, you can’t even put a price tag on it. The Indy is being seen by countries around the world."

On EXPO 2017:

"The prudent thing would be to get a…firm commitment from the province and the federal governments (that) if this bid is successful, they are prepared to support the $2.3 billion."

On Budget 2010:

"We have gone all year asking administration to work on this budget, three per cent (plus) two per cent for (neighbourhood) renewal. They have certainly done that. It’s a very fair budget to everyone. If we don’t accept this recommendation on this after a full year’s work, then going forward from this, any time we ask them to do something, where’s the credibility?"

On Jasper Avenue:

"The pedway system is there. Certainly, we’re not going to get rid of that, but there probably needs to be better planning for the buildings that are going up. The main floor has to be commercial, more so. They should be concentrating on getting merchants back on the street so people have a reason to be outside, and not just in the pedway system. To bring people back on the street, you need something for people to attract them -clothiers and shoe shops."

On the York Hotel:

"They make everybody else look bad. The majority in the…industry are good operators, but you have the few who, they can’t comply or won’t comply."

On cats:

"I don’t know what it is about me, I’ve always denied that I like cats but I’m always the first one they come to."

"When it’s a cat involved, there are more people saying ‘just keep Fluffy, I’m not paying 250 bucks for it. It seems dogs have more value."

On infrastructure:

"We’ve been so far behind in infrastructure repairs. The more we can get done, the better. There are a little sharper pencils putting the prices out. This will help go a long way to making sure we come in with a very very reasonable tax rate for next year."

On the U-Pass:

"There’s enough residual benefits, from (lower) carbon dioxide emissions and fewer vehicles…We subsidize (student) tuition, we subsidize transit, we subsidize all kinds of things, but they’re an important group."

On the new ward system:

"Even with the system that we have now, you’re running against each other. There’s always a chance that one incumbent, as happened in the last election, or both, could be defeated. I don’t think that’s an issue for consideration."

On bike trails:

"There’s a limited amount of money and we have to look after higher priorities. Edmonton already has a lot of paths for a winter city — about 1,000 kilometres of bike trails and roads — so I think we’ve done a good job."

On the Citizen Panel:

"How many members, how many panels, do we need? We might as well just ask the public where to put the money. That’s a big part of the councillor’s responsibility. It sounds good to have public involvement, but at the end of the day that’s what council is here for."

On the idling bylaw:

"All it’s going to do is pit neighbour against neighbour. I would have to agree with my constituents that have phoned in to say this sounds like the silliest thing we have done here in a number of years. I think this is a little excessive. People in general are good. They understand the environment and will do what they can in order to mitigate their contribution to … pollution."

On bloggers (thanks Dave for saving it):

"A number of bloggers — who knows where they come from — are treated as gospel."

As you can see, not all of the quotes are negative. As an aside, I think Scott McKeen wrote more about Caterina than anyone else this year. He must love him 😉 In quite a few articles, Caterina is mentioned as the only councillor to vote for or against something. He likes to be different, I guess! I couldn’t find a quote, but earlier this year Caterina said he worked longer hours and spent fewer nights at home when he worked in the private sector. That’s no surprise though, as Caterina apparently likes to get out of his duties as a city councillor.

Some other related reading you might be interested in:

Anyone else looking forward to more fun with #toncat next year? Election day is October 18, 2010.