Tag: edmonton

Will Speaker Ken Kowalski come to ChangeCamp?

I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the readers of my blog and the readers of Dave Cournoyer’s blog, but I wanted to highlight a post that Dave made on Wednesday. He wrote a letter to Ken Kowalski, current Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Here’s a small excerpt:

I would urge you to revisit your initial reaction to the use of online communications from the floor of the Assembly. I agree that Members should respect the institution and proud traditions of the Legislature, but it is important to understand the limitless potential that these technologies now play in connecting elected Members to citizens outside the Dome.

I think Dave’s letter is very well-written, not to mention incredibly important. Banning the use of Twitter and other online communications tools from the floor of the Assembly is shortsighted, to say the least. I suspect that Speaker Kowalski, like so many others, is just afraid of social media because he doesn’t understand it.

This is the kind of issue I hope we can address with ChangeCamp Edmonton. We need to help politicians like Speaker Kowalski get over their fear of social media. We need to help educate them about its power. And we need to make it clear that we want social media to play an important part in our democracy.

I look forward to the discussion, should Speaker Kowalski be willing to participate.

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton6

Last night was our sixth DemoCamp here in Edmonton, and I think it was probably our best yet. We had around 140 people in attendance, which isn’t much different than DCE4 but it somehow seemed bigger. Maybe it was all the cameras and video cameras? We had Peter Urban and the Smibs TV team record all the demos – watch for the video there soon. I was also really surprised that so many people had never been to DemoCamp before. We’re definitely reaching new people, and I think that’s great!

We had five demos:

  • I showed the first little bit of ShareEdmonton, and EdmontonTechScene. It wasn’t the best demo in the world, but it wasn’t bad for having just two days 🙂
  • Graham Batty showed us bittablog, an interesting microblogging service that he recently cooked up.
  • Ryan Leland showed his unique take on social networking – you-vs-me. It was a definite crowd pleaser thanks to the humorous topics like Cougar-vs-Bear. You can use the democamp invite code to check it out.
  • Mark Matichuk showed us Clinitrust, a secure messaging platform for medical professionals.
  • Our final demo was Peter Urban and Paul Bellows, who showed us their new joint venture (between Smibs and Yellow Pencil). It’s a tool to help move content from one CMS to another.

The general consensus afterward was that Peter & Paul’s was the demo of the night. Though they did a little too much talking in my opinion, the product is definitely intriguing. It’s not hard to see that there’s a big market for what they are doing. It’ll be a time saver, indeed. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of it soon.

DemoCamp Edmonton 6DemoCamp Edmonton 6

See what I mean about the tripods and cameras? After the demos almost everyone wandered over to RATT (Room At The Top) in the Students’ Union Building. A little too much drinking and karaoke ensued, but it was a fun time!

Twitter featured more prominently this time at DemoCamp. We had TwitterFall up on the big screen before we got started, and that encouraged lots of people to start tweeting. Soon after the demos started, we broke into the top ten trending topics at Twitter Search, and eventually rose as high as #7. Very cool!

Don’t miss Walter & Alain’s great list, 10 things I liked about DemoCamp Edmonton 6. Brittney also has a funny post of fun facts about DemoCamp Edmonton 6. Also, Cam and I did an interview with The Gateway, who wrote about DemoCamp and IDEAfest today.

I can’t wait until DCE7! Thanks to everyone who came out last night. If you’d like to be notified about future DemoCamp and BarCamp events in Edmonton, sign up for the mailing list here.

Edmonton Notes for 3/7/2009

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

Planning ChangeCamp Edmonton

Tonight we held our first planning meeting for ChangeCamp Edmonton. Though it went a lot longer than I expected, it was definitely productive. Lots of great ideas and discussion. ChangeCamp is an event in the spirit of BarCamp or DemoCamp, but focused on government and citizenship. The central focus is to “re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation.”

Here’s how the idea is described at changecamp.ca:

ChangeCamp is an event format, an open community and a set of tools and ideas designed to give citizens and governments the ability to work collaboratively in new ways to make change and to better address real-world challenges in our communities.

We didn’t form any really solid plans tonight about what the Edmonton version of ChangeCamp will look like, but did set some goals and came up with a list of things we need to consider. We’ll meet again in a few weeks to progress things further. In the meantime, check out the wiki for our meeting notes and to get involved.

ChangeCampEdmontonChangeCampEdmonton

Here’s who attended (yes we’re all on Twitter!): @fusedlogic, @Imparo, @ChrisLaBossiere, @JillLaBossiere, @jdarrah, @davecournoyer, @mastermaq, @paulney, @eadnams, @dibegin.

A bunch of us will be at IDEAfest tomorrow at the University of Alberta, so if you drop by ask about ChangeCamp and let us know what you think!

Social Media: What Edmonton Transit (ETS) could learn from TransLink

I think the South Coast BC Transportation Authority, or TransLink, is one of the most web-savvy transit organizations in Canada. Through blog posts, videos, meetups, and more, TransLink is doing a great job of fostering a community of people interested in transit. I think Edmonton Transit (ETS) could learn a lot from them!

The Buzzer blog

The Buzzer is a free publication found on all TransLink vehicles (our equivalent is In Transit) and The Buzzer blog is its companion. The blog is described as a “frank, fun, and ongoing conversation about TransLink and its work.” Every time I read it, I find myself wishing that ETS had something similar! Here’s what I love about the blog:

  • It is updated regularly – almost a post per day!
  • They have comments enabled – and they participate in them!
  • They post about a variety of topics, not just announcements and service updates
  • There are clearly defined Participation Guidelines

Most importantly, the blog is written with a human voice. It’s interesting and easy to read.

What ETS could learn: The easiest, most effective way to get involved is to start a friendly, regularly updated blog. It forms the foundation of TransLink’s social media efforts, and could perform the same role for ETS. This should be priority #1!

TransLinkInfo on YouTube

Video is time-consuming both to produce and to consume, so while it shouldn’t be the primary form of communication there are times when video is handy. TransLink gets this. They primarily post short updates and announcements on their YouTube channel. Videos range from about 30 seconds to 5 minutes. I think it could be a good vehicle for “behind-the-scenes” kinds of stories as well.

What ETS could learn: Pick the right tool for the job. There’s more to the web than just text, so venture into other forms of media too!

TransLink on Twitter

There are a few TransLink accounts on Twitter: @thebuzzer, @KenHardie, @2010Transit, and @TransLink. I think the 2010 account will get more interesting as the Olympics near, and The Buzzer account could probably be used for more than just broadcasting, but they are on Twitter and are evaluating how to use it better (they recently polled the community to see if they wanted Twitter service alerts). It’s pretty cool that Ken Hardie, Director of Communications at TransLink, is an active user.

What ETS could learn: Twitter is growing incredibly quickly and is becoming an increasingly important platform for news and connections. TransLink is guessing (I think correctly) that Twitter will be a key communications tool for the 2010 Olympics, and they’re getting prepared now. ETS would be wise to make use of Twitter on a regular basis, and especially during Edmonton’s major events.

I Love Transit Week & The Buzzer Meetup

TransLink celebrated I Love Transit Week on its blog from February 23rd to 27th. I like their introduction to the event:

Why? Because while there are things we don’t like about transit, I know there are many things that we do like about the system. And there just hasn’t been an official opportunity to celebrate what we like – until now!

That could definitely apply to something similar here in Edmonton. We always hear people complain, but there are lots of things to like as well. TransLink did a good job of keeping the blog updated with I Love Transit Week content.

The other cool thing they did that week, was the meetup. They hosted the gathering at a local cafe, and brought transit-related swag to give away. Face-to-face conversations are always best, so the meetup was a great (and obvious) idea.

What ETS could learn: The annual Community Conference is a formal, one-way conversation – ETS speaking to a select few. Meetups are more informal, and are two-way. They allow the community to put human faces to the organization. Plus they can be a ton of fun!

Final Thoughts

I don’t mean to suggest that TransLink is perfect, because they’re not. And to be fair, ETS acknowledges that it has a lot of work to do in the area of community engagement. Like many other organizations they are new to social media, and are going to have to learn quickly.

Conversations about the state of transit in Edmonton are happening, but ETS isn’t yet participating. The sooner they get involved, the better off they’ll be. Fortunately for ETS, they don’t have to start from scratch. Others like TransLink are already leading the way!

Edmonton Media Organizations on Twitter

Given the recent interest in Twitter from the local media, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at which of the organizations are on Twitter and how they use it. Back in November I wrote about local news organizations and their use of social media. At that time, only the Edmonton Journal and iNews880 were on Twitter.

Things have definitely changed!

Here are the local news organizations (and their representatives) I know about on Twitter (numbers retrieved on 3/3/2009 at 12:30 AM):

Which media organizations are missing? Lots:

  • Edmonton Sun
  • CityTV Edmonton – though there are @axfergie, @meagankelly, and @KMPhotographer
  • Edmonton Examiner
  • Vue Weekly – I setup a placeholder account: @vueweekly
  • SEE Magazine
  • Avenue Edmonton
  • 24 Hours
  • 630 CHED – there is a placeholder account, @630CHED, but their efforts are focused on the iNews880 account
  • CKUA – though there is @kevinckua
  • Most other radio stations: Team 1260, 91.7 The Bounce, 96.3 Capital FM (added above), EZ Rock 104.9, CISN Country 103.9, 100.3 The Bear, Magic 99, etc.
  • Edmontonians Magazine
  • Venture Publishing magazines (maybe) – though there is @VentureMags, @RachelatVenture and @RuthatVenture

From this we can identify a few trends:

  • Most accounts were only recently created, and there are still lots of organizations not yet on Twitter.
  • Most of the active accounts are updated automatically using twitterfeed.
  • Most organizations have an “official” account that is treated like a bot, and employees have the more personal, interactive accounts.
  • Most accounts don’t follow back. The one notable exception is @iNews880.

I’m not sure how long I’ll wait before revisiting this list, but I’m pretty sure the number of local media organizations using Twitter will continue to increase. There’s definitely some concern in the community that by simply broadcasting, the local media aren’t using Twitter as effectively as they could be. I still think there’s value in having them on Twitter though.

UPDATE (3/5/2009): Very quickly others are joining! Here’s 91.7 The Bounce: @917thebounce, @onair1980, @carlykincaid

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – February 2009

Welcome to the second 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 this data remains the same. Using Twitter Search I collected anything posted by Edmontonians, or about Edmonton. If a user has his or her location set to Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Nisku, Stony Plain, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered an Edmontonian. If a tweet is “about Edmonton” it contains either the word Edmonton, the #yeg hashtag, or both.

There was confusion about which numbers were local or general in last month’s post, so I’ve focused in on local numbers this time. For February 2009:

# of local users: 1314 (an increase of 54% over January)

To clarify, that means there were 1314 users who posted at least one tweet in February 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Edmontonian as described above.

# of tweets by local users: 72748
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 2489 2231
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 29282 28212
# of tweets by local users containing links: 16922 13318
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 1577 1468

This graph shows the (incorrect) above numbers compared to the same numbers from last month:

Of the 463 additional local users I identified in February, only 320 were new accounts created during the month. The other 143 users had existing accounts and either didn’t post in January, or only changed their location to something matching a local user in February. This graph shows the new user creation by day:

On the 18th, Twitter added a new property to the results returned by Twitter Search – the source. That means I was able to identify the clients that local users use most when posting updates. The top five are: web, TweetDeck, twitterfeed, TwitterBerry, and twitterrific. Note that web source actually includes all unidentified API calls too.

Some other interesting statistics for the month:

  • The ten most active local users (most tweets first): fcedmonton, angelzilla, britl, mastermaq, justNICKI, adampatterson, Pat_Lorna, foomanizer, AndyGroenink, and JodieGiese.
  • Just over 55% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
  • Local users posted roughly 1.8 tweets per minute in February.
  • The day with the most local tweets posted was February 26th at 3742. On average, 2598 local tweets were posted each day. 
  • Of the 29282 replies posted by local users this month, 13141 or 45% were to other local users.
  • Just 343 local users posted 50 times or more this month. In comparison, 164 local users posted just once this month.

And finally, the top ten users in Edmonton (as of March 1st) by # of followers: Pat_Lorna, mastermaq, LesM, redneckmommy, cleversimon, melanienathan, babyrumps, saralees, jerryreeder, revtrev

I knew the number of local users would increase this month, but I had no idea by how much. With a sudden interest in Twitter in the local media, I expect the growth for March to be even larger.

I hope you enjoyed this unscientific look at the Edmonton Twittersphere! I have done my best to provide accurate numbers, but I can’t give any guarantees. If you have any suggestions or other feedback, please let me know.

UPDATE: Great suggestion from @britl – the total number of twooshes (tweets that are exactly 140 chars) posted by local users in February 2009: 2233

Edmonton Notes for 2/28/2009

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

Where’s the Edmonton version of Illuminate Yaletown?

While in Vancouver last weekend, Megan and I went to check out an event called Illuminate Yaletown. Sponsored by the Yaletown Business Improvement Association, the event featured light-as-art installations spread throughout the heritage district. From the website:

Featuring light installations designed and developed by artists and architects, pyrotechnics, fire dancing, cutting edge music, interactive activities and a display of illuminated ice sculptures, Illuminate Yaletown shows off Vancouver’s hippest community in a whole new light!

We were impressed by what we saw! We started with the fire dancing and illuminated ice sculptures, and then made our way to the BMW Mini dealership that had been filled with lights. We saw another display where a video camera on the ground was projected up onto the side of a building. Down a little further were some illuminated windows with silhouettes moving about inside. There were lots of people walking around, taking in the sights!

Illuminate Yaletown

Illuminate Yaletown was developed to “brighten up a gloomy winter evening” and is the only outdoor event taking place in Vancouver at this time of year. Sound familiar? I immediately thought of Winter Light. This event sounds exactly like the kind of thing you’d expect to be a part of Edmonton’s new winter festival. But it’s not.

The closest thing is Illuminations, taking place on March 21st in Churchill Square. It too will have fire and projected light. The big difference is that it takes place only in Churchill Square. What I really liked about Illuminate Yaletown is that it got people walking around, so they could check out the buildings, shops, and restaurants in the area. It was a great combination of interesting art and community exploration and discovery.

I’m hopeful that next year’s Winter Light festival will include something similar.

You can see the rest of my photos from Illuminate Yaletown here.

Introducing dEdmonton – Canada’s Halloween Festival

Tonight was the kick-off meeting for dEdmonton, a new festival to celebrate all things Halloween! dEdmonton grew out of Christian Nelson’s presentation on reclaiming the word “deadmonton” as well as a general desire to celebrate Halloween and everything that goes along with it. The goal is to become Canada’s Halloween Festival, and for Edmonton to be known as the Halloween Capital of North America!

That won’t happen right away, of course. This year the focus is on establishing the brand and setting the stage for bigger and better things in the years to come. Tonight we introduced the name and nearly-finalized logo:

About thirty people attended the meeting to learn more about the idea and to offer their support. Another thirty or so couldn’t make it tonight but are also enthusiastic about the festival. I was fortunate to get involved back in November, and have been helping with the web side of things. The website will be especially important this year as our primary platform for tying the various Halloween events together. We’ve got some cool stuff in the works for it.

Our Co-Coordinators, Darryl Plunkie and Christian Nelson, have done a fantastic job of getting the right people together to get dEdmonton off the ground (the group is affectionately known as the Council of E-ville – Derek Clayton and Kenn Bur are also leading the charge, and Kevin Nienhuis and myself have been helping where we can). They’re really inclusive, and are eager to talk to anyone interested in the idea. It’s worth noting also that everyone involved so far has been volunteering their time! It’s quite impressive to see how far we’ve come in such a short period of time.

dEdmonton 2009

The main event will be 13 Days of Mayhem, running from October 19th until October 31st, 2009. The idea is to connect with the many Halloween-related events that already take place in Edmonton and area, to pool resources and do some cross-promotion. Let’s make people aware of all the cool things that already happen, and set the stage for an even bigger and better dEdmonton in the future!

What happened to the ‘a’?

You might be wondering why it’s called ‘dEdmonton’ and not ‘deadmonton’. A lot of thought went into that decision:

  • If we’re reclaiming the word, let’s get rid of the negative connotation that “dead” carries
  • dEdmonton is a new word, something that’s unique (and not already used elsewhere on the web)
  • dEdmonton is just Edmonton with a ‘d’ in front of it – we want this to be a showcase for the city

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about ‘dEdmonton’ but now I really like it. I think it was the right decision, for sure.

How can you help?

This event is still in the early stages of planning, so if you have any ideas, feedback, or even just random thoughts, send them to info@dedmonton.com.

Beyond that, we need you to help us spread the word. We’ve just got a placeholder (and very cool teaser poster) up at http://www.dedmonton.com but we’re already working on a proper site, so check back soon. You can also join the Facebook group, and follow us on Twitter. Tell your friends!