Tag: events

Edmonton Notes for 11/21/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton9

I feel like a broken record, but I really think tonight was our largest crowd ever for DemoCamp! It’s just amazing to see so many people who care about the technology industry and local entrepreneurs come out to show their support, learn something, and connect with one another. Kudos to everyone who continues to help make DemoCamp the fantastic event it has become by showing up and spreading the word! Special shout out tonight to NAIT’s Digital and Interactive Media Design (DIMD) group – I understand there were a couple dozen students in attendance!

As usual, we had six demos:

  • Victor Rubba from CrazedCoders got things started by demoing a side project – an iPhone game called Pik’s Revenge. It’ll appear in the App Store soon for $1.99, and is the first in a series of roughly four chapters. It includes 4 movies, 8 comics, and 2-5 hours of gameplay. I loved Victor’s demo because there was no talking for the first half, just gameplay being demoed.
  • Next up was Reg Cheramy and Scott Montgomerie who demoed their new Facebook app called Book That Bet. Built simply to “scratch an itch”, the app lets you track wagers with your friends, making use of the social graph on Facebook. It’s written in Ruby on Rails and is intentionally simple to start. Reg and Scott had a good demo, but actually received more love for their other app, OneClap.
  • Third tonight was Logan Foster who demoed a Kongregate game called Team Battle. It’s a Flash-based, real-time fighting game with some interesting graphics creation (3D models to 2D sprites). The intent is not to create a World of Warcraft competitor, but rather a game to play in your spare time.
  • Next up was Andrew Czarnietzki from 3D Interactive Inc. or 3DI. He demoed a really interesting simulation built for Caterpillar. Powered by the Unreal engine, Andrew described the simulator as a “serious game” – basically they bring game technology to the business world. The level of detail in the simulator was just incredible. Andrew did a good job of balancing the demo part with the talking part.
  • Fifth tonight was Colin Bramm who demoed SelfChecker, an online quiz authoring tool. The idea is to make it easy for teachers to create questions that can be shared with students via a simple link. Students take the test and see feedback immediately.
  • Last but not least was Ken Bautista who demoed his 2009 Venture Prize award winning solution called CIE: See Your Own Proof. An online community for kids, CIE hosts missions and other activities, and includes a whole social networking element as well. Interestingly, CIE combines the online and offline world with “field missions” in which kids visit real museums to learn and explore. The beta starts next week!

Most of the demos tonight were for projects that have been in the works for quite some time. I think it’s safe to say that the game demos did not go as well as expected. It turns out that demoing a game is harder than it sounds, particularly because you only get ten minutes! I think it was Graham who said something like “if you can’t play the game, then it had better be entertaining to watch with explosions or something!” I think I agree – the game demos just weren’t as exciting as everyone hoped. The fact that we had multiple game demos probably didn’t help.

DemoCampEdmonton9DemoCampEdmonton9
Photos taken as folks were still coming in. It filled up even more!

I think Ken’s demo was definitely a favorite, as people seemed really excited about CIE. The demo of the night has to go to Andrew though, for offering us a peek at some really awesome technology and for keeping the demo entertaining, informative, and on time.

There were a few announcements made this evening:

Thanks to everyone who came out tonight. Thanks also to Eric and the Free-Wifi project for getting everyone connected.

See you at DemoCampEdmonton10!

Recap: Community Evening with Jim Diers

Last night Sharon and I attended the West Community Evening with Jim Diers, the second of three events taking place in Edmonton this week (the last one is tonight in the south service area). Jim is a community organizer best known as the former director of the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighbourhoods, a position he held for 14 years. Some of Seattle’s most successful and well-known community initiatives, such as Little City Halls and the Neighbourhood Matching Fund, started and prospered under his watch.

Now Jim spends his time teaching at the University of Washington, and travelling all around the world speaking about what he calls “neighbour power”. In fact, he wrote a book on it! That’s what brought him to Edmonton this week, at the request of the City of Edmonton’s Great Neighbourhoods initiative. Last night was the second time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Jim speak – he was in Edmonton back in 2006 for the Walkable Edmonton initiative.

Jim is probably best described as a motivational speaker. That’s what he did last night, sharing stories about the amazing things happening in communities all around the world. Here are some of the key takeaways for me:

  • You can have a neighbourhood without community! A neighbourhood is a place with which we identify, whereas a community is the extent to which we identify with and support one another.
  • There are four key ingredients for community: common identity, manageable scale, gathering places, and a vehicle for collection action.
  • Jim says that community is the key to so much of what we care about, and highlighted four main types of community power:
    • Power to care for the Earth
    • Power to prevent crime
    • Power to care for one another
    • Power to demand justice
  • So what does it take to build community?
    • Have fun!
    • Start where people are (their block, their language & culture, their networks, their passion, their call)
    • But don’t leave them there – strive for results!
    • Focus on assets rather than needs
  • Discover the buried treasure in your community!

His presentation was incredibly high energy, and he had the audience frequently do a cheer – one half yelled “neighbour!” and the other yelled “power!” Jim himself would let out a Howard Dean-esque “Yeah!” after each cheer.

My favorite stories were actually two that I heard back in 2006 – one about the Fremont Troll, and the other about the terraced community garden known as Billy Goat’s Bluff. All of the stories were really interesting, and I’m sure they motivated the more than 200 people in attendance to want to do similar things in their communities.

As I mentioned, Jim was here for the Great Neighbourhoods initiative. Everyone received a Neighbourhood Engagement Application last night. A total of 15 will be selected to attend an action planning workshop with Jim in February 2010. After the workshop, the City of Edmonton may provide matching funds of up to $2500 for projects. All projects need to be put into action by September, when Jim will return to check in.

I really enjoyed Jim’s talk, and I’m excited to see the projects that will happen in Edmonton as a result (but don’t forget there are already many amazing things happening).

For more on Great Neighbourhoods, check out the official website and also this article on Connect2Edmonton.

For more on last night’s event, check out posts from Tamara Stecyk and George Watts.

Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR) Attendance Numbers

The 2009 Canadian Finals Rodeo wrapped up on Sunday, and although attendance was down from previous years, it was still pretty good. I’m always disappointed, however, when the press release or media article comes out and compares attendance only with the previous year, or sometimes with the record year. I’m often more interested in trends, and in comparing with other events. Slowly but surely, I’ll gather all of the data to make that easier! So far I have:

And now, I have some data for CFR. Here are the attendance numbers for this year compared with last year:

Day 4 is the Saturday, and is always higher because there are both matinee and evening events. Here are the attendance numbers from 2005 to 2009:

As you can see attendance peaked in 2006, the record year for CFR.

Download the 2008/2009 attendance data in CSV

Download the 2005-2009 attendance data in CSV

Christmas Bureau of Edmonton 2009 Campaign Launch

Today the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton launched its 69th campaign, challenging everyone to help provide for 65,000 less fortunate Edmontonians this year. The goal is to raise $1.6 million in the six weeks prior to December 25th. Councillor Henderson was on hand this afternoon to proclaim December 2009 as Christmas Bureau Month in the City of Edmonton. He echoed the thoughts of many in the room when he said that the Christmas Bureau is embedded into what makes Edmonton great. It’s amazing that they’ve been helping less fortunate families since 1940! Honorary Campaign Chairpersons Kevin Lowe and the Oilers Ladies also gave some remarks. I had no idea that Kevin Lowe has been involved with the Christmas Bureau for 27 years!

To help launch the campaign, the media were invited to participate in a gingerbread house making competition! I was fortunate enough to participate, representing new media along with The Unknown Studio. Here’s the “Twitter” house I came up with:

Christmas Bureau Gingerbread Competition

I had lots of fun, and was amazed at some of the houses the others created. Check out most of them in my photoset here. Thanks to the Christmas Bureau for asking me to take part.

To learn more about the Christmas Bureau, check out their website. You can donate, volunteer, or sponsor a family. You can also follow them on Twitter!

Edmonton Notes for 11/14/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Notes for 11/7/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Recap: Start Me Up at ICE 2009

Tonight at the ICE Technology Conference, six local software startups demoed their wares to about 50 other technology professionals at Start Me Up. The event was designed to help bridge the gap between the CIPS (old school) and startup (new school) communities, and I think it achieved that to a certain extent. The demos tonight included:

Start Me UpStart Me Up

The format of the evening would have been familiar to anyone who has attended DemoCamp in the past, but for many in the room it was brand new. Much to my delight, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and there was definitely no lack of questions, comments, and feedback for the demoers. For someone like myself, who has seen all of these demos in the past, it was still very interesting because each one had something new to show. I also found the audience remarks quite intriguing (they asked different things than the typical DemoCamp crowd, as you can imagine).

I think the attendance tonight could have been a bit better, but it was still quite good for a first-time event. One of the people in the audience suggested that the event be moved to lunchtime next year, so that more of the conference-goers could attend. It’s a good idea, and shows that there’s both the potential and the desire for Start Me Up to grow.

Thank you to our demoers for the evening, and to Erin and her organizing team for recognizing the value of connecting with Edmonton’s startup community and making this event happen!

Edmonton Notes for 10/31/2009

Happy Halloween! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2009

Avenue Edmonton’s first annual Top 40 Under 40 will appear in the November issue of the magazine, available at various locations around the city. Here’s what it’s all about:

When trying to imagine the future of Edmonton, one has to picture the future faces that will shape it. These faces are of urban planners mapping the new city, community workers enhancing our quality of life, entrepreneurs enriching the local economy and artists sending our brand out to the world. In Avenue’s inaugural Top 40 Under 40, we seek to honour the brightest and most talented individuals under the age of 40 who are excelling in their careers, giving back to the community and raising the city’s profile. They are the generation of today making a better future for the people of tomorrow.

I’m truly honored to be part of such a fantastic group of Edmontonians. Last night’s event (at Sabor Divino) was lots of fun, and I met some great people. It was a little cramped though, and a little loud. That means next year’s will be even better! Here are some photos:

This is the image that appears for my page online. The one in the magazine is different, but I really like both. I think 3TEN Photography did an amazing job with all the photos!

Avenue Top 40 Under 40 Edmonton

Major congrats to Cary Williams, who is featured on the cover of the issue. Such a great choice, and it’s a great photo too! You can read his article here.

Avenue Top 40 Under 40 EdmontonAvenue Top 40 Under 40 Edmonton

Thanks to Sharon for taking photos last night!

Avenue Top 40 Under 40 EdmontonAvenue Top 40 Under 40 Edmonton

The Top 40 Under 40 list is important, not because the people on the list are looking for recognition, but because it helps to remind us that there are lots of incredibly passionate people working to make Edmonton a better place to live.

The issue comes out November 1st (it’ll likely start appearing around the city this weekend). You can follow Avenue Edmonton on Twitter.

I also want to pass along my congratulations to the Top 40 Under 40 for Calgary!