2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Thanks to some fantastically warm weather, all City of Edmonton outdoor rinks and toboggan hills are now closed. Stay off thin ice!
It is still winter though, so be sure to answer the City’s Snow & Ice Control Survey.
As you know, the Dawson Bridge is closed for renovations. Here’s a great hyperlocal post on the bridge closure by Adam at the Unknown Studio.
The Crowne Plaza Chateau Lacombe was sold this week for $47.8 million.
Council is looking at ways to enliven Churchill Square, a discussion that led to my favorite quote of the week: “That’s the most expensive door I’ve ever heard of.” – Councillor Kim Krushell on the $500,000 pricetag for a square-facing door for Tix on the Square.
WestJet now has non-stop service between Edmonton and Maui!
The City of Edmonton is looking at licensing LRT mezzanine space in the downtown core to local retailers.
Here’s an update on the Federal Building redevelopment on the legislature grounds.
Students at the University of Alberta voted with an 89% majority this week to renew the U-Pass agreement for three more years.
The City will open its first new transit garage in 25 years when the Centennial Garage opens in April.
MacEwan took the first step this week in a 25-year plan to create a single, sustainable downtown campus.
Apparently the recent LRT expansion has resulted in the largest spike in ridership since the LRT started operating in 1978.
Edmonton has a new climbing habitat, called Climb Edmonton.
Few event recaps: Edmonton’s First Ruby Meetup, Edmonton Foodie Meetup 3, and Launch Party Edmonton 1.
A hiring freeze and rebound in the economy helped the City of Edmonton to an unexpected surplus in 2009 of $33.7 million.
The Edmonton International Airport launched a new campaign this week called Stop The Calgary Habit, intended to encourage Edmontonians to fly directly from Edmonton, rather than making a connection in Calgary.
Coming up on Saturday is TEDxEdmonton (on ShareEdmonton). Here are the speakers on Twitter. If you didn’t get invited, why not attend ALExEdmonton the night before instead?
Also on Friday is Illuminations, Winter Light’s closing event (on ShareEdmonton).

Open City Workshop & Participation Inequality

The City of Edmonton is hosting a workshop tomorrow at the Art Gallery of Alberta called Building Community through Open Information (on ShareEdmonton). It’s a follow-up to the open data workshop that happened last year and the conversations that have taken place since, but is focused on connecting stakeholders, increasing a shared understanding of Government 2.0, and planning the way forward. Devin wrote some great thoughts on the workshop here.

I’m really looking forward to seeing a diverse local crowd, representing a variety of agencies and interests. I’m also looking forward to meeting special guests David Eaves, Mark Kuznicki, and Nicholas Charney in person. All three are key players in Canada’s open government space.

And while I’m hopeful that we’ll see some new data released tomorrow, I’m mindful that data is not the focus. The three objectives listed on the event details page are about establishing Edmonton as a leader, and then lots of talk. I think the way you establish yourself as a leader is by actually doing things, but I’ll keep an open mind tomorrow 🙂

One thing I do want to talk about at the workshop is the divide that a number of people have picked up on. It’s great that Edmonton and other places are making progress on opening up data, but how does that impact the average citizen? There’s definitely a perception that only techies understand and can use open data. I don’t think that gives the average citizen enough credit, but I’m willing to concede that open data is not as accessible today as it needs to be. There’s lots of room for improvement.

Having said that, I think it’s important to keep participation inequality in mind:

All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don’t participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background.

If we think of open data (and open government) as a large community, then we should absolutely expect that a small subset of that community will be responsible for most of the activity. In the context of the 90-9-1 rule, 90% of the community won’t participate (they just observe or read), 9% will occasionally participate, and 1% will participate a lot.

Here’s one way to visualize the open community:

I’m sure there are other ways to break it down, but this makes the most sense to me at the moment.

Goverati: these are government employees, folks from related agencies, non-profits, etc.
Creative Professionals: these are people such as myself, developers, designers, etc.
Business: for-profit organizations.
Citizens: ultimately, the beneficiaries of all this open government stuff!

Of course, this picture is somewhat misleading, because all goverati, creative professionals, and business folks are also citizens, but let’s set that aside for now. I think the goverati and some creative professionals fall into the 1% category, the rest of the creative professionals and business fall into the 9% category, and citizens account for the 90% category.

The 90-9-1 pattern can be seen in action all over the web, perhaps most notably on Wikipedia. A tiny percentage of Wikipedia’s user base is responsible for the vast majority of all content produced. I think we can do better with open data/open government, however. Through applications, interactive visualizations, and the other interesting things that the goverati, creative professionals, and businesses build, I think more and more citizens will move from the 90% category to the 9% category.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that considering how the average citizen benefits from open data is important, but we shouldn’t let that hold us back from making progress at this point. We need to empower businesses and creative professionals to build things that the average citizen will ultimately benefit from. As we do that, there’s an opportunity to educate citizens if they want to be educated!

There’s only a few hours left to register for the event. Hope to see you there!

Recap: Launch Party Edmonton 1

Tonight I attended Edmonton’s first Launch Party, and I’m happy to report that it was awesome! Including the presenting companies, investors, and media, there were about 250 people in attendance, a fantastic turnout and great show of support for Edmonton’s startup scene. There was food, drinks, a DJ, great conversation, and of course, some of Edmonton’s best and brightest entrepreneurs and developers.

Ten local companies setup tables around the room, available to demo their products and to talk with potential investors and customers. Each company also got to do an elevator pitch in front of the entire crowd (and all of them did a great job). I wrote about the companies here, but once again, here are the ten that participated tonight:

Each company had a slightly different approach to greeting interested individuals, but Yardstick stood out. They had margarita machines at their table, and gave out free drinks all evening long! Overall, I’d say the event had the same kind of vibe as an artsScene party (for a quick look at what the evening was like, check out this video).

I asked as many of the companies as I could about their thoughts on the evening. All of them told me that the opportunity to meet so many people at once was truly valuable. And the opportunity to meet with such different people too – investors, techies, customers, etc. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves while learning about the companies.

Like many of the people I talked to tonight, I was impressed with the diversity of the crowd. I feel like I know a lot of people in the local tech community, and there were a lot of people there tonight that I had never met before! It was like a bunch of different communities came together, which is really important for growing the local startup scene.

Kudos to Mark, Ken, Cindy, and Cam for putting on an excellent event. Can’t wait for the next one! Stay tuned to the Startup Edmonton site, and follow them on Twitter for updates.

You can see the rest of my photos here. You can watch Ken welcoming everyone here.

Preview: Launch Party Edmonton 1

Edmonton’s first Launch Party is set to rock your socks off on Wednesday evening (on ShareEdmonton). There won’t be any formal presentations or panels, but the event will be a great opportunity to network with some of Edmonton’s best and brightest entrepreneurs and developers. It’s also a chance to celebrate the creative and interesting things happening here!

Ten local “startups” will be featured, as announced here. Here’s what you need to know about these companies and the people behind them:

Beamdog
TWO WORDS: Game Distribution
WHAT: A digital distribution service for games (think Steam).
KEY PEOPLE: Trent Oster, formerly of BioWare.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: This is the startup I know the least about! There are some amazing folks in the game industry here in Edmonton, and Trent is one of them. Video games continue to move further into the mainstream, and onto dozens of mobile devices. There’s lots of opportunity.
Connect13
TWO WORDS: Youth Advertising
WHAT: A social media advertising network targeting Canadian youth.
KEY PEOPLE: Kevin Swan of Nexopia, Boriz Wertz of W Media Ventures (AbeBooks, Nexopia, Techvibes, others), and others.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: The team’s experience with Nexopia (a social network focused on youth) is what gave birth to Connect13. They are web savvy, they know how to reach young people, and they’re using social media to create an innovative new advertising platform. Large, growing market that is currently being underserved.
FOLLOW: Twitter
Edistorm
TWO WORDS: Social Brainstorming
WHAT: Online brainstorming service that lets you share with others in real-time.
KEY PEOPLE: Reg Cheramy, serial entrepreneur (ZigTag, Book That Bet, One Clap, others).
PREVIOUSLY SEEN AT: DemoCampEdmonton4, Start Me Up at ICE 2009
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: We brainstorm all the time, but typically we’re limited to sticky notes and whiteboards. Edistorm brings brainstorming to the web, so that you can brainstorm with people all around the world, in real-time. Lots of opportunity for decentralized teams, events, etc.
FOLLOW: Facebook, Twitter
Empire Avenue
TWO WORDS: Monetizing Influence
WHAT: Measures influence online for monetization via advertising.
KEY PEOPLE: Duleepa Wijayawardhana formerly of BioWare and Sun/MySQL, Tom Ohle, experienced marketer, Brad Grier, social media guru and blogger for Future Shop, and others.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: People love rankings, and Empire Ave offers a fun way to see how you compare to others online. It’s also an interesting approach to online advertising, a welcome innovation in a world dominated by AdWords.
PREVIOUSLY SEEN AT: Empire Avenue Launch Party
FOLLOW: Blog, Facebook, Twitter
FotoJournal
TWO WORDS: Photographer Blogs
WHAT: Blogging platform built specifically for photographers.
KEY PEOPLE: Kyle Fox, designer and web developer, formerly of Lift Interactive, currently at Yardstick Software, Jon Smelquist, designer and web developer.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: The proliferation of digital cameras means there are more photographers than ever, making it harder for the pros to stand out from the crowd. WordPress is great for text, but not so great for photos – that’s the void that FotoJournal fills.
FOLLOW: Facebook, Twitter
Mailout Interactive
TWO WORDS: Email Services
WHAT: Professionally designed email newsletters and management.
KEY PEOPLE: Gregg Oldring, founder, Jon Larson, business development, and others.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: Already eight years old, Mailout Interactive is well-established in Edmonton and elsewhere. Dozens of organizations use Industry Mailout, including the City of Edmonton, Original Fare, Homeward Trust, and others. They have a proven, powerful email platform, and email isn’t going anywhere.
FOLLOW: Facebook, Twitter
PureInbox
TWO WORDS: Information Synchronization
WHAT: Information synchronization service, wirelessly to any device.
KEY PEOPLE: Sam Huang, co-founder of Gennux Microsystems, and others.
PREVIOUSLY SEEN AT: DemoCampEdmonton4
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: Email, contacts, calendars, task lists, files – we have more than ever, and we want to access them from any device, no matter where we are. That’s the heady challenge that PureInbox is tackling, with support for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, the iPhone, and more.
Seek Your Own Proof
TWO WORDS: Smart Entertainment
WHAT: Online community for kids to investigate history and science.
KEY PEOPLE: Ken Bautista, one of Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40, Norman Mendoza of Redengine, and others.
PREVIOUSLY SEEN AT: DemoCampEdmonton9
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: They won TEC VenturePrize, accepted financing from Foundation Equity, and recently signed a deal with Discovery Kids. An all-star team off to an incredible start – keep an eye on this one!
FOLLOW: Facebook
SnowSeekers
TWO WORDS: Winter Content
WHAT: Highlights winter destinations in Alberta & British Columbia.
KEY PEOPLE: Jim Barr, former journalist, and others.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: Fresh off the Winter Olympics, winter tourism in Western Canada is booming. SnowSeekers takes the traditional destination guide to the next level, with in-depth information, mobile apps, and regularly updated content.
FOLLOW: Blog, Facebook
Yardstick Software
TWO WORDS: Web Testing
WHAT: Web-based training and testing software and services.
KEY PEOPLE: Chris LaBossiere, co-founder, Don Riep, co-founder, Greg Kureluk, business development, and others.
PREVIOUSLY SEEN AT: DemoCampEdmonton8
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: Experienced team, active in the community, highly decorated, with a large, loyal customer base, and a culture tuned to change and fast growth. Yardstick surrounds itself with great people, and is well-positioned for additional success. A gem among Edmonton tech companies.
FOLLOW: Twitter

You can follow all of the above organizations and individuals on Twitter here.

It should be a great evening. The festivities get underway at 6:30pm at the Matrix Hotel. If you don’t already have tickets, you can buy them here for just $10 (some will be available at the door for $15). Follow StartupEdmonton for updates. See you there!

Edmonton Notes for 2/27/2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Fantastic post from Sharon – Edmonton’s Downtown Dining Week: Stagnant and Uninspired?
Here is Avenue Edmonton’s 25 Best Things to Eat in Edmonton.
The Edmonton Arena District, Katz’s organization supporting his arena vision, launched a website this week annoyingly named Revitalize Downtown. Also on the topic of Katz, check out this picture.
Planning Academy starts again on March 2nd. It’s a great way to learn more about land use planning, urban design, and transportation.
City Council’s expense reports for 2009 are now available.
The City’s emergency office is embracing social media.
Local startup Empire Avenue launched this week. Brittney has a good write-up of the site here.
The deadline for filing complaints on 2010 property assessments is March 5.
Edmonton International Airport is on the shortlist for international recognition at World Routes 2010 in Vancouver.
The City is launching a temporary “wheeled recreation” site this summer near the Stanley Milner library.
Edmonton Stories launched a redesigned website this week. I wrote about what’s next for the program here.
Good post from Xanthe on Pecha Kucha – The Sound of Chit Chat.
You can now get RSS and iCal notifications on road and traffic updates!
Edmonton’s Municipal Development Plan, The Way We Grow, passed second reading this week.
Launch Party Edmonton takes place on March 3 (on ShareEdmonton).
Also taking place March 3 is Edmonton Foodie Meetup 3 (on ShareEdmonton).

Help bring Tech Days Canada to Edmonton!

Microsoft is planning the 2010 edition of Tech Days Canada, and they’re considering a stop here in Edmonton. In previous years, local developers have had to make the trip down to Calgary. If you’ve never heard of Tech Days, here’s what it’s all about:

With forty 200+ level sessions, Tech Days is the learning conference on both current technologies and new products like Windows 7, Exchange 2010 and much more.

The idea is to bring technical training content from TechEd, Mix, PDC, and other Microsoft conferences to Canadian developers and IT pros. There are sessions on Silverlight, test driven development, virtualization, IIS7, SharePoint, refactoring, Visual Studio, and more. I have led three sessions at Tech Days Calgary in past years, on ADO.NET Data Services, Internet Explorer 8, and REST Services with WCF.

When Microsoft was planning Tech Days 2009, they considered stopping here, but we lost out to Halifax. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to see that happen again.

I think there are definitely enough local developers and IT professionals to host Tech Days here, so let’s make the decision for Microsoft an easy one! If you want to see Tech Days come to Edmonton this year, email damirb@microsoft.com, or tweet your interest!

Edmonton Notes for 2/20/2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

City Councillors are not happy about the Local Authorities Amendment Act, which imposes stricter rules on campaign funding and disclosures. Councillor Iveson blogged his thoughts on the issue here.
Edmonton will be one of three test sites for Shaw’s new gigabit Internet technology. Sign me up!
On Valentine’s Day, Daryl Katz had an editorial published in the Edmonton Journal. He should just start a blog and talk regularly about his plans, thoughts, and opinions. Also: Mayor Mandel proposed a ticket tax this week to pay for a new downtown arena.
Here’s the latest real estate market report from Schmidt Realty, and here’s the latest weekly update from the Edmonton Real Estate blog. And here is Jerry’s latest “baconlist” – million dollar homes in Edmonton.
Mass Effect 2 players could win a trip to BioWare here in Edmonton!
Here’s the latest Edmonton Next Gen weekly newsletter.
Sharon had a great post this week on the Food Bank’s Expressions of Hunger contest.
A few Edmonton things I wrote this week in case you missed them: State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for January 2010, a comparison of Journal and Sun headlines for January 2010, and an investigation into the cost of the residential speed reduction pilot (which you can learn more about here).
From Graham Hicks: EXPO 2017 need not be a drain for Edmonton.
Edmonton’s last wooden grain elevators are gone.
Here’s the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations’ response to the 2010 provincial budget.
An update on Edmonton-area highway construction from the Province of Alberta.
Edmonton-based Driving Force and Upside Software both made the list of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies.
Here is Mayor Mandel’s speech to the Urban Development Institute about the arena and LRT construction.
The City of Edmonton is looking for feedback on public washrooms for Whyte Avenue. Take the survey here.
Did Edmonton get the short end of the stick in Vancouver? Apparently Edmonton’s exposure during Alberta Day was limited. If true, that’s our own fault.
Warped Tour is apparently coming to Edmonton in August, though they have said that before and changed their minds.
The Greater Edmonton Alliance wants you to join them at City Hall on Monday, February 22 at 6pm to show support for the Municipal Development Plan campaign.
Coming up on March 6 – Open City Workshop: Building Community through Open Information (on ShareEdmonton).
We’ve had some pretty nice weather lately – even some sun!

Edmonton Notes for 2/13/2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Maybe the biggest story of the week here in Edmonton was the new arena plan unveiled by the Katz group, and the fallout that went along with it. Don’t miss Paula’s column on the issue, or Don’s two posts.
The other big story was the Alberta Budget announcement. Jeff has a great roundup at the edmontonian. Despite the spin from the government, funding for Edmonton was cut by about $100 million.
That night, Edmonton public school trustees voted to start the closure process for three schools in the city centre.
The City of Edmonton is asking for public input on three potential routes for the new NAIT to Northwest LRT extension. You can see the three routes here.
An update on the building development plans for the former Alberta Cycle Building on Alberta Avenue.
CTV Edmonton launched a new behind-the-scenes blog yesterday called Inner Tube.
Here’s the Edmonton Startup Index for February.
Edmonton based Fission Media has created ABto2010, an iPhone app to keep track of Alberta athletes at the Winter Olympics.
Want to get your name on the venue currently known as TELUS Field? The Rexall Sports Corporation is now accepting naming proposals.
An interesting new initiative called Downtown Proud enlists formerly homeless or unemployed people to help clean up 30 downtown blocks.
February update from Homeward Trust. They’ve for a new Aboriginal Advisory Council, and are planning for Homeless Connect 4, set to take place on May 9.
Submissions for Digital Alberta’s mediaFRESH 2010 Awards are due February 22.
I like the use of data here: according to sales data from Amazon.ca, Edmonton is the 8th most romantic city in Canada.
Building Design magazine ranked Edmonton’s own Stantec among the top 10 design firms in the world in five categories, and in the top 10 overall in North America.
Edmonton is joining the North American Soccer League and will start playing next year.
Another good roundup of events happening this weekend from the edmontonian.
The third Edmonton Foodie Meetup is currently being planned for March 3.
Family Day is Monday! Here are the relevant ETS service changes, and here are the dozens of events taking place that day. Enjoy!
The 20th annual Silver Skate Festival (on ShareEdmonton) kicks off on Friday!

Valentine’s Day in Edmonton: Deal or No Deal?

Sharon and I decided to collaborate on this post. Enjoy!

Sharon:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a holiday where consuming chocolate is the national norm, and for an occasion that is marked with an indulgent feast. And though I realize that Valentine’s Day has been escalating in its commercial nature over the past two decades (and one that that Mack and I embraced wholeheartedly last year), a gander at one too many pre-fixe restaurant menus sent me over the edge this time around.

Of course, restaurants shouldn’t be blamed for feeding a consumer-driven hunger for extravagance, excess, and unbridled expense on February 14. No doubt, some meals, and the ultimate experience of spending time with your sweetheart could be worth every penny. Also, some restaurants do offer embellishments – providing a rose to the lady, employing a musician to set the ambiance, offering a treat at meal’s end – but could it really be worth the heightened price tag? How much more are patrons charged on Valentine’s Day, compared with any other day? With Mack’s penchant for statistics and graphs, we set to find out.

Mack:

Coming up with the data was harder than we thought! Finding the set price of the Valentine’s Day menu was easy, but finding something to compare it to was not. We decided to generate a comparable figure using the closest dishes we could find on the regular menu. Definitely not scientific, but fairly representative.

We started by finding as many restaurants with Valentine’s Day menus as we could, and then narrowed it down to those which also had regular menus online. We ended up with 12 restaurants:

The average Valentine’s Day menu price was $71.08 per person, with prices ranging from $35 per person at The Dish to $160 per person at Red Ox Inn. The average regular menu price was surprisingly similar at $69.65 per person. On average, Valentine’s Day menus featured 4 courses.

So what’s the best deal? By far, Madison’s Grill. Their 6 course Valentine’s Day menu is just $85 per person – the regular menu would cost roughly $116 per person. Of course, we’re not sure about portion sizes, but based on our recent Farmers’ Market Dinner experience, we expect they will not be small. The worst deal? Hardware Grill – you pay $31 more for the Valentine’s Day menu than you would on a regular day.

I wouldn’t cite any of this data in an academic paper, and the numbers don’t take into account ambiance, food quality, freedom of choice and service, but it was fun to generate just the same. I was surprised to discover that the Valentine’s Day menus aren’t that much more expensive after all!

Sharon:

So numbers aside, after scrutinizing more than a dozen pre-fixe menus, I can tell you that considering the menu options only, both Mack and I agree that Hardware Grill wins, hands down. We were salivating as we read through each course (butternut squash-mascarpone tortelloni with truffle butter cream sauce and fresh chanterelles? Porcini crusted sea bass, lobster-truffled potato crêpes, white corn-arugula & gulf prawns? Where do we sign up?).

While I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend any one restaurant (personal choice being that last intangible), based on our experience, Madison’s Grill and The Dish would top our list. If you’re looking for innovative, creative food that celebrates local producers, there would be no better choice than Blair Lebsack’s dining room in the Union Bank Inn. However, if you desire something more casual and comforting, The Dish is a great choice with its consistent kitchen and friendly service.

Mack:

You could, of course, avoid restaurants altogether and cook that special someone a tasty meal at home! Because as Sharon pointed out, Valentine’s Day is about spending time with your sweetheart, not spending lots of money. If you do go the restaurant route, keep in mind that there are more to choose from than the dozen we mentioned here.

We hope you enjoyed this light-hearted look at “Black Sunday” (a la Eater) in Edmonton, and we wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day!

What would make you attend the Open Data event on March 6?

As you might have seen on Twitter, the City of Edmonton is planning another open data event for Saturday, March 6, 2010 at City Hall. If you haven’t already, block that day off in your calendar! It’ll be a great opportunity to connect with others who are interested in open data and open government, as well as a chance to provide feedback to the City on its data catalogue and plans for the future.

And who knows, if we’re lucky, there might even be some new data to play with! For more information on the data catalogue, which launched last month, click here.

The details for the event will go up on the website soon I’m sure, but first we need to have a better idea of what everyone wants to get out of the event. Here are some ideas:

An unconference, followed by a hack night. Maybe a keynote to kick things off, then time for unconference-style discussions about open data and open government. The hack night could take a variety of forms, and the discussions could be wide-ranging.
Discussing how to frame open data in terms of citizen benefit might a potential topic. Why would my parents or grandparents be interested in open data?
One idea for the hack night is to get some developers together to try to improve the tooling around OGDI. This might be writing custom formatters (CSV, plist, etc) or perhaps something else. All of this would be contributed to the community.
Another idea is to hold a competition – what can you build in just one evening?!
Or a twist on that, a competition where teams produce mockups & ideas, not necessarily a working app.
Or the hack night could be as simple as a walk-through of how to use the open data catalogue, etc. Or maybe it’s a longer “hack day”.

What do you think? What would make you attend the open data event on March 6? Either leave a comment below, or email opendata@edmonton.ca with your suggestions.

It would be great to have representatives from a variety of organizations too, not just the City and developers. If you’re at all interested in open data or open government, please join us. Hope to see you there!

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