Tag: edmonton

Edmonton Notes for 10/24/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Start Me Up at ICE 2009

The ICE Technology Conference takes place at the Shaw Conference Centre from November 2nd to 4th, and this year they’ve added an event for Edmonton startups! ICE Coordinator Erin Edwards recognized that ICE’s audience is skewed toward older, enterprise tech types, and wanted to try to reach a different demographic. She reached out to Cam and I to help. The result, is Start Me Up:

Start Me Up taps into the power of the whole IT community, bringing together ICE participants and local innovators in an open forum of displays, discussion and demonstration. The centrepiece of the night is a speed round- six start-ups with 15 minutes each (and no access to PowerPoint!) to show their stuff and answer questions. For ICE participants, it’s a chance to get to know your start-up neighbours, see what’s new and fresh, maybe find a springboard for your own ideas. For start-ups, this offers the opportunity to shine a light on your work, collect impressions and inspiration, and connect with the wider community.

I’m excited for another opportunity to bridge the old school-new school gap that exists in the Edmonton tech community. Start Me Up will feature six local startups:

Additionally, ENTS and other local organizations will be on hand. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend, and if you want to display your idea or otherwise get more involved, email iceconference@cips.ca.

Also taking place that evening is the ICE Cap Reception and a presentation by Jeremy Gutsche on Exploiting Chaos (free for conference attendees, $35 for everyone else). More details here.

For more information on the ICE Conference, check out their website or follow them on Twitter. You can also check out Start Me Up on ShareEdmonton.

See you there!

Introducing ShareEdmonton

Today I’m excited to launch ShareEdmonton, a local aggregation platform for Edmonton and area. With it, I want to redefine local media and improve Edmonton by embracing the fact that communication is increasingly taking place online.

You can think of ShareEdmonton as an events calendar, at least right now. It certainly has that functionality, and I want it to become the de facto events calendar for Edmonton. I’ve taken the opposite approach of most online calendaring sites, such as Upcoming or Eventful. Instead of starting at the global level and working down, I’ve started at the local level. This is a simple, but important distinction.

I believe that place is more important than ever. That’s why place is at the heart of ShareEdmonton. Unlike other sites, each place exists once and only once in ShareEdmonton. If you want to find out what’s going on at the Shaw Conference Centre, you can be confident there’s only one in the system. In addition to individual places, ShareEdmonton currently supports neighbourhoods, such as Downtown. This is a powerful way to roll up data about a collection of places.

What kind of data? Events, obviously, but also tweets. For any event, place, or neighbourhood you can see recent related tweets written by people in the Edmonton area, in real-time. Or you can see all tweets written by local users. Over time, I’ll be adding other kinds of data alongside tweets, including blog posts, photos, and more.

ShareEdmonton is all about aggregating the immense amounts of data available online and helping you find the bits that are important, relevant or interesting to you, through place, topic, or some other filter. Here’s an example – George W. Bush is in town tonight, at the Shaw Conference Centre. Here’s the event page on ShareEdmonton (and here’s the page for the rally against him). On it, you find information about the event, the location, and recent related tweets – people talking about the event. Two more examples, using topic as a filter: weather and traffic. That’s pretty powerful, I think, and has the potential to become even more powerful over time.

What’s available today is just a small part of what I hope the site will become. Today is step one, and there’s a long way to go until the vision is realized. I have grand ambitions for ShareEdmonton!

Here are a few other quick points:

  • Though I’m not calling this a beta, it is a work-in-progress.
  • The entire site features clean, hackable URLs.
  • The site also features Microformats. If you’re running Firefox, install Operator and you’ll see your browser “light up” with events, locations, tagspaces, and more.
  • All tweets pages have RSS feeds, and most event listing pages have both RSS and iCal feeds.
  • ShareEdmonton is not, and will not be, open source. I am and will be embracing the concepts of open data, however, so stay tuned for more on that.
  • The engine is generic, so you could in theory turn on ShareCalgary or an aggregator for another city.
  • As I was quoted on Saturday – I’m really not concerned with the business model at the moment. I want to build something that is valuable first.

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has provided feedback, done testing, and otherwise helped me out with this, especially Chris, Cam, Reg, Eric, Rob, Dickson, Jas, and Adam. Also, though she probably would rather me not say it, Sharon played a big behind-the-scenes role in this – thanks!

Please check out ShareEdmonton, and let me know what you think. Tweet it, blog it, leave a comment below, email me, or post something on the Uservoice forum I’ve setup. You can also follow ShareEdmonton on Twitter, which is where I’ll announce new features. Thanks!

Edmonton Notes for 10/17/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Open Data at ChangeCamp Edmonton

Tomorrow morning local politicians, bureaucrats, and ordinary citizens will gather at the University of Alberta for ChangeCamp Edmonton. I’m encouraged by the number of people that have registered, and by the conversations that have already started. That’s what tomorrow is all about: getting people together to discuss ideas and solutions.

I don’t know exactly which topics people will want to discuss tomorrow, but I know for sure that open data will be one of them. There’s significant momentum building for the concept, and we’re starting to see progress on making it happen throughout Canada (and elsewhere).

Open data here in Edmonton received a nice boost this week from Councillor Don Iveson when he submitted a formal inquiry to City administration:

In local, national and sub-national governments around the world there is a trend toward making up-to-date government information freely available on-line in generically accessible data formats as so-called ‘Open Data’.

  1. What level of awareness does the City Administration have regarding Open Data in municipal government?
  2. What current initiatives are underway within City Administration that might qualify under the spirit of Open Data?
  3. What further initiatives are under consideration within the city, and on what basis are they being evaluated?
  4. Is Administration monitoring any successes and or challenges with this trend in other jurisdictions, especially large Canadian cities, and if so what can be shared with Council?
  5. What would City Administration’s recommendation be on next steps regarding Open Data plans or strategies?

I know there was already some things going on behind the scenes at the City of Edmonton, but Don’s inquiry should expedite and give credibility to those things. This is an important step.

I’ve been pushing for open data in Edmonton for a while now, along with many others. I think ChangeCamp will be a great opportunity to further discuss the concept and next steps. I generally think about open data in the context of a municipality, but there’s room for discussion at the provincial and federal levels too. Here are some of the key things I think we can cover:

  • Let’s make sure everyone (citizens, politicians, City administration) is on the same page about what we mean by “open data”. This could be high level (what kinds of data are open) and low level (what formats are considered open).
  • What is the City working on? What are citizens working on? Let’s get a status report from both sides.
  • What kinds of data could be made open? Which data is most in demand by citizens? What data has been made available in other cities, such as Vancouver or Toronto?
  • Licensing is vital for open data to work. We need to ensure data is licensed as permissively as possible, otherwise we’re restricting its utility. Which licenses make sense? What have other municipalities used?
  • Often lost in the discussion about what data to make available is how to be notified of changes to that data. RSS feeds, email subscriptions – how should citizens be notified when data is updated or otherwise changed?
  • Another aspect that we need to consider: the creation of data. There is lots and lots of data that our governments can start making available in open formats, but there’s even more data created on a daily basis. What can we do to ensure that it is open data also? How about APIs or other mechanisms for citizens to provide input/data? Open 311 comes to mind.

Here are some links that might be useful tomorrow:

See you in the morning!

How green are Edmonton’s festivals? (Blog Action Day 2009)

Today is Blog Action Day, which means that bloggers around the world are writing about the same issue – climate change. The purpose of the initiative is to create a discussion. For my post, I’m hoping to stimulate a little discussion about how “green” Edmonton’s festivals are.

I first wrote about this topic back in December, when I noted a number of the changes BrightNights had made to become more environmentally friendly:

The City of Edmonton hopes to have a number of events operating green within three years, and BrightNights is just the first. I hope more festivals and events in Edmonton follow suit.

One of the big local stories this week is that BrightNights will no longer be taking place due to rising costs. I’m not at all sad to see the event go (the food bank and hot lunch program will be impacted in the short-term but will be fine I think). Even if they managed to make the event carbon-neutral (primarily by purchasing carbon credits, it should be noted) it still encouraged people to sit in a running car for an who knows how long. That’s not very green!

What about the rest of Edmonton’s festivals? What are they doing to be more environmentally friendly? If you have any links or other information, please post them in the comments!

As Canada’s Festival City, I think we have an opportunity (maybe even a responsibility) to lead the way in ensuring our events are green and sustainable. Let’s set the bar high and encourage others to follow suit!

Upcoming Climate Change Events

October 24th is the International Day of Climate Action. People all over the world are holding events pledging action on the science of 350:

350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.

We’re currently at 387 parts per million, and rising (check out the Pew Center’s Global Warming Facts & Figures for more). There are six actions listed for Edmonton so far.

Of course, the main event this year is the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15), which takes place from December 7th to 18th in Copenhagen.

Miss dEdmonton 2009

Last night, on October 13th, the first ever Miss dEdmonton was crowned at the TransAlta Arts Barns. About 65 people were on hand to see Joey Tramer beat out four other finalists in a four-stage competition to claim the title. She won some great prizes and will be the face of dEdmonton for the next year!

The first stage of the competition was for all contestants to submit a 90 second video to YouTube. Here’s Joey’s:

Stage two was to demonstrate a “spooky skill” in front of the crowd. In the third stage, each contestant described what Halloween meant to her, and answered one question drawn from a skull. The final stage saw Brandy Jo Ewashko (you can see her video here) and Joey Tramer go head-to-head in a “scream-off”. It was quite the show! In the end, both the crowd and the judges felt Joey had what it took to be Miss dEdmonton.

Miss dEdmontonMiss dEdmonton

The judges were Shaw TV’s Angelika Gawronski, the Edmonton Journal’s Scott McKeen, and The Gateway’s Mike Kendrick. I thought they did a great job of providing short, witty comments throughout the evening, and seemed to enjoy raising their score cards for all to see (scores ranged from 1 to 6, making a perfect score 6-6-6).

Miss dEdmonton JudgesdEdmonton Co-Chairs

Kudos to dEdmonton Co-Chairs Darryl Plunkie and Christian Nelson and their team for a great event! Some friendly advice for next year: add some music or shorten the program, because at times the evening seemed a bit slow. Other than that I thought it was great, complete with three hearses parked outside, some sort of jelly brain dip and many other decorations inside!

Congrats to all of the Miss dEdmonton finalists, and especially to Joey!

Here are the rest of my photos from the evening. You can follow dEdmonton on Twitter for updates and be sure to check out the Events Calendar for all the Halloween events taking place over the next few weeks. Both DEDfest and the Scarecrow Festival are taking place this weekend. Get out and enjoy the first ever dEdmonton – Canada’s Halloween Festival!

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – September 2009

Welcome to the ninth 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 September 2009:

# of local users: 5447 (an increase of 82 from August)

To clarify, that means there were 5447 users who posted at least one tweet in September 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 September 2009:

# of tweets by local users: 241433
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 14320 (5.9%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 85819 (35.5%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 49412 (20.5%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 12343 (5.1%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 7847 (3.3%)

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 September:

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

Very little user growth again this month. I was expecting it to pick up again in September, but that obviously didn’t happen. The number of tweets being posted by local users is definitely on the rise, however. There were seven days this month with over 9000 tweets posted.

Since January, I have identified just over 11,600 local users. The number above, 5447, is how many of them were active in September.

Should have the Calgary stats up soon!

Thoughts on Edmonton 2030

A video entitled “Edmonton 2030 – It’s Our Time” is being broadcast on Global and Citytv today. It was first shown to students at Edmonton Public and Catholic schools on May 20th, and was broadcast on Access on May 23rd. Here’s what it is about:

The video links the ideas of the leaders of our major organizations and institutions with the hopes, dreams, and imagination of Edmonton’s youth. Edmonton 2030 is a provocative teaser that challenges us to consider the many positive attributes of our city and how we might imagine them in the future. It reminds us that the decisions and plans of today are creating the Edmonton our young people will inherit tomorrow.

You can watch the video online at Access.

It’s related in some way to Edmonton Stories, though how isn’t quite clear. The video was developed independently by Doug Goss and was produced by Don Metz of Aquila Productions. Funding and other contributions came from the City of Edmonton, the University of Alberta, NAIT, MacEwan, the Province of Alberta, and Alberta Health Services. Craig Simpson narrates and hosts the 24 minute video.

Doug Goss is more than just an Edmonton-based lawyer (with Bryan and Company). He’s a passionate and extremely involved Edmontonian. Doug is Chairman of the NAIT Board of Governors, Chairman of the Edmonton Eskimos Board of Directors, Chairman of the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation Board of Directors, Co-Chair of the 2010 Grey Cup, and was Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Heritage Hockey Classic, among other things. He clearly loves this city.

I give Doug lots of credit for getting everyone on board and for creating the video. Anything that causes Edmontonians to think about the future of the city is a good thing as far as I am concerned. I think the core message of the video – the time for us to start building the Edmonton of 2030 is now – is powerful, if somewhat obvious.

The video is far from perfect, however. Here are some of my thoughts on it:

  • There are dozens of Edmontonians who speak in the video, but none of them are members of the so-called next generation (aged 18-40). It’s the people in that demographic who will be building the Edmonton of 2030, so it’s a glaring omission.
  • On the whole, the video seems scattered. There are a few “sections” including education and health, but I think they could be more clearly defined.
  • The use of young children throughout certainly makes the video more approachable, but it also makes the video less about Edmonton specifically. Hovercraft? Holographs? Cure for cancer?
  • At the other end of the spectrum are the more senior vanguard of Edmonton’s post-secondary institutions. All of them receive some great marketing throughout the video but contribute little in the way of vision.
  • The truly provocative and futuristic ideas of the video, including a downtown entertainment complex and a boardwalk in the river valley, receive just a few seconds of screen time and should have played a more prominent role.
  • I find it extremely annoying that the video looks at 2030, while all of the Transforming Edmonton plans look at 2040 (though I recognize that ten years probably doesn’t matter much that far into the future).

I do think the video could be useful for marketing, as Doug points out, and it will get people talking and thinking. As a visionary piece however, I think it misses the mark. Watch the video for yourself – what do you think?

Edmonton Notes for 10/10/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Eskimos vs. BC LionsCity Centre Market