Tag: events

Following the current Canadian political drama on Twitter

As I’m sure you’ve heard or read by now, we’ve got an interesting situation unfolding here in Canada. Essentially the Liberal Party, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois have joined forces to propose a new Liberal-NDP coalition government that would replace Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada. You can learn more about the sequence of events at Wikipedia.

Back in September, I wrote about Canadian Politicians on Twitter. My guess is that our political leaders created accounts in reaction to what was happening south of the border, particularly with Barack Obama’s campaign. So I’m not surprised that none of them have updated their accounts with news about the issue at hand, with the exception of the newly launched LiberalHQ account.

Canadians are definitely talking about the news on Twitter, even if our politicians aren’t. At the moment, the hashtag #coalition is the second most popular topic according to Twitter Search. Other hashtags being used include #canadarally, #canada, #democracy, and #libndp.

Click here to see all related tweets.

There are also a bunch of new accounts being created to cover the news. You can follow both @yes_coalition and @no_coalition if you like!

In addition to some really thoughtful, funny, or otherwise interesting comments from fellow Canadians, you can find links and other resources related to the coalition on Twitter. Here are a few of the things I found:

Also found via Twitter – the news made The Huffington Post today! You’ll find dozens of other news articles, but one that caught my eye is the Globe and Mail’s list of Harper’s ten options.

I’m sure even more interesting things will surface over the next few days. The mainstream media will do a fine job of covering the news, but they can’t match the speed of Twitter. If you want to track the situation in real-time, keep Twitter Search open at all times!

Recap: Edmonton Code Camp 2008

edmonton code camp On Saturday we held Edmonton Code Camp 2008 downtown at MacEwan. Code Camp is an all-day event by developers, for developers. The only rule for presentations is that you have to show some code! Otherwise, it’s just a great opportunity to meet other developers in the community, and learn from one another.

We had three tracks of content. For posterity, here’s a list of the presentations we had:

I think my favorite was probably Mark Bennett’s talk on Javascript testing. It was about more than just jQuery, and I learned some really useful things. Like Mark, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the best way to organize, test, and evolve an application that is Javascript-heavy.

A large group of us went to Metro for lunch, which wasn’t the best idea because we were half an hour late getting started again in the afternoon! It turned out okay though.

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday, it was great to meet all of you! In particular, I was surprised at the number of Twitter users in attendance. For a smaller event, there was sure a lot of tweets posted!

Big thanks also to Steven Rockarts, who did most of the heavy lifting to get the event off the ground.

Let’s make next year’s code camp bigger and better!

World AIDS Day 2008

world aids day Today is the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. According to statistics from UNAIDS, there are 33 million people living with HIV worldwide, 2 million of which are children under the age of 15. Last year, 2 million people died from HIV. Today, the National Post wrote about how Canada will help cure the biggest humanitarian health crisis of our time:

Canada is poised, yet again, to play a leading role in advancing knowledge about HIV/AIDS to help find a cure. With the partnership announced in 2007 between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the government of Canada to establish the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, we are now one of the countries pioneering the next stage. This commitment of $139-million is a major boost to Canadian and international HIV/AIDS vaccine research and development efforts. Through this funding, a manufacturing facility will be built in Canada that will produce promising vaccines that can move more quickly to clinical trials. Stephen Lewis has declared this initiative an "important step forward," a sentiment shared by HIV/AIDS organizations around the world.

Stephen Lewis, a Canadian, was the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. You can learn more about the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative here.

Closer to home, HIV Edmonton has compiled a list of community events taking place today. The largest event is a non-denominational evening ceremony followed by a candlelight walk:

WHAT: World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008, 7:00pm
WHERE: Citadel Theatre, 9828 101A Avenue NW. Room TBA.

Please RSVP to Sue Ann Paydli via email or call 780-488-5742 ext. 221.

They point to the World AIDS Campaign website as an additional resource. You can learn more about the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at Wikipedia, and for local information and events, check out HIV Edmonton.

I think what Terry Duguid said in the National Post is true, “it is easy for those of us in Canada who may not be directly affected by HIV/AIDS to become complacent.” I guess I am guilty of that. It’s only recently that I’ve become engaged, with events like the Aids Walk for Life. I’ve had Stephanie Nolan’s book 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa on my shelf for a while now, but haven’t gotten around to reading it. I really must do that.

Stop Aids. Keep the promise.

Edmonton Notes for 11/29/2008

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

Halloween in Edmonton: Deadmonton

I was fortunate enough to be invited to an organizational meeting tonight for a new Halloween-themed festival here in Edmonton. More than just a festival however, the three principals behind the idea (Darryl Plunkie, Derek Clayton, Christian Nelson) have a vision to establish Edmonton as the Halloween Capital of Canada. I’ll admit that I don’t feel as strongly about Halloween as many of the individuals in attendance tonight do, but I am passionate about my city and I think they’re on to something.

Like many Edmontonians, I hate the word “Deadmonton” as it is often used. It’s entirely negative and disheartening. It’s no surprise that I fell in love with Christian Nelson’s presentation back at Pecha Kucha 2, where he suggested we reclaim the word and use it for good. Tonight’s meeting grew out of Christian exploring that idea with Darryl, Derek, and others. The general idea is to create a Halloween Festival to tie together all of the various events that already take place in the city. It was suggested that the festival be a week long, until Darryl said “it should be 13 days!” He also suggested that the organizing board be called the “Council of E-ville.” The meeting was both productive and fun!

i *heart* deadmonton

The first step was for everyone to introduce themselves (we had 17 people attend). The group was quite varied, which meant we had all kinds of experience and insight available. Kenn Bur from EEDC hosted the event and kept us on track. We had Ellen Finn from the Civic Events Office at the City of Edmonton, Shirley Lowe from the Old Strathcona Business Association, and John Mahon from the Edmonton Arts Council join us and they all shared their experience on how other festivals have been started and managed. The remainder of the group was made up of individuals in the Halloween industry, and Edmontonians-at-large like me and Debra Ward.

The three principals shared their ideas, and then we went around the group for additional comments. There were lots of great ideas thrown around, and a number of interesting questions were raised. What’s clear is that there’s passion for this event. Some of the ideas I found particularly intriguing included:

  • Taste of Deadmonton
  • Miss Deadmonton
  • Worst Yard Contest
  • Horror Theme Music by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
  • Some sort of Halloween Blood Drive

There are already many Halloween events that take place in the city of course, such as the Scarecrow Festival, Edmonton Ghost Tours, The Bear’s Halloween Howler, and many more. I think joining forces to share the marketing muscle of the Deadmonton brand is a great idea.

Some of the questions that came up included:

  • What kind of festival would it be? John Mahon said there are basically two models. The first is the Fringe/Heritage Festival model, in which the participants are mostly independent and just share the site and/or marketing of the festival. The second is the Folk Fest model, where things are much more controlled. The Halloween Festival would probably be the former.
  • Would the event need a dedicated venue?
  • Do we need a board? Where does the funding come from? Etc.

Finally, here are a couple comments I found particularly interesting:

“Edmonton has more goth stores than any other place in Canada.” – Rona Anderson

“Winnipeg can try to top The Fringe, but you can’t really top Deadmonton. It’s truly unique.” – Christian Nelson

The next step is to try to digest some of the ideas and excitement that came out tonight, and figure out a way forward. The goal for the first year is really to get the festival established, with a website and some common branding. We can then build atop that foundation.

If you have ideas or would like to get involved, please email HalloweenEdmonton@gmail.com. You can also leave a comment here if you like!

UPDATE: I should have linked to Kerry Diotte’s article on this meeting in the Edmonton Sun. Published on Tuesday, it has a bit more background information.

Edmonton Notes for 11/22/2008

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

  • The big news this week was the meteor (video is embedded below too). Everyone was talking about it, and Edmonton was mentioned on newscasts throughout North America. Very cool. You can read more about it here.
  • Local tech firm Nirix announced a new marketing competition for students in Alberta called sparkIT. The deadline to register is January 26th, 2009.
  • The Olympic torch will be making its way through Edmonton in 2010. The route will include 1020 communities across Canada.
  • All of Edmonton’s high schools have been equipped with portable, lunch box-sized defibrillators. A grant from the Canadian Legion of Frontiersmen made it possible.
  • Edmonton has been named a finalist in the 2009 Intelligent Community Forum’s Smartest Community in the World competition. The top 7 will be announced on January 21st, 2009 with the winner named on May 15th, 2009. Last year’s winner was Waterloo, Ontario.
  • Homeward Trust finally released the report for this year’s Homeless Count to the media. The final number is 3079. Hopefully it’ll be posted to their website next week.
  • Local radio station Sonic 102.9 FM has joined Twitter! You can follow them here. The popular Edmonton Fire Radio also joined, you can follow them here.

CanUX 2008 Attendees on Twitter

canux Even though we spent more time doing than tweeting at CanUX, Twitter was still there in the background. Those of you who couldn’t make it to the event could at least follow along remotely, and some of us at the event used it for informal discussions. You can find nearly all the related tweets at Twitter Search. There’s some value there, but I think following the people who attended is even more valuable, because you can learn from them over time. With that in mind, here’s a partial list of CanUX 2008 attendees on Twitter.

nForm

Presenters

Attendees (in no particular order)

If I’ve missed you, let me know and I’ll update the post!

UPDATE: Here’s my list of links and resources for CanUX 2008.

Sketches from CanUX 2008

I had a blast at CanUX 2008 this week! It was my first real introduction to Canada’s User Experience community, and a great opportunity to meet some interesting people. I learned a lot, and have tons to read and think about! You can read about the sessions at Techvibes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. You can find all of my photos here.

We ended up doing quite a bit of sketching and drawing at the conference, which was something I didn’t expect. It was fun though, and something I think I will practice. Here are a few sketches from the sessions (I originally wrote these in my Moleskine and re-did them using my tablet):

This one comes from the creativity session on day 2, led by The Banff Centre. It’s a representation of David Snowden’s Domains of Knowing.

This one comes from Jerome Ryckborst’s session on Designing with Developers. It illustrates the different types of people that your team likely has. Ideas are created on the left, and refined or implemented on the right.

This one was shown in Brandon Schauer’s session on Sketchboards. It shows the two basic types of sketching. Exploratory sketching results in lots of rough and varied ideas. Refinement sketching results in fewer, better ideas.

The visual alphabet was something Dave Gray shared with us. Early on in his career, he started searching for the ABC’s or 123’s of drawing, and this is what he found. Can any drawing be made just from these simple characters? Probably!

Thanks to Gene, Yvonne, Jess, and the rest of the nForm team for putting on a fantastic event!

Thoughts from CanUX 2008 Day 2 in Banff

I skipped breakfast this morning but still found the day extremely packed! Fortunately it seemed to go by quickly, which means I wasn’t bored or overwhelmed. You can read more about today’s sessions in my post at Techvibes. Once again I am enjoying the size of CanUX 2008, as I’ve had a chance to chat with many of the people in attendance.

CanUX 2008Sally Borden Building

In the first session today, Luke Wroblewski used a metaphor I really like:

“No one raindrop believes they are to blame for the flood.”

It’s simple, effective, and applies to so many things! In terms of software development, I immediately thought about requirements. It might seem like asking for a feature enhancement is just a raindrop, but eventually you’re going to have a flood.

Another concept that stuck out for me came during the creativity session. We broke into three groups, and mine focused on improv. Our first activity was called the sun and the moon. We started as a big group in a giant circle. Everyone then had to pick out two people from the circle and keep their choices to themselves; the moon would be your protector, and the sun would be “too hot to handle”. Then we were to pretend we were at a party, walking around meeting people, but always keeping your moon in between you and your sun. What we found was that being so focused on moving around and staying away from your sun meant that you couldn’t actually get beyond a simple hello with anyone.

You have to decide whether or not it’s worth getting a little burned if it means you can have that meaningful conversation.

The entire session was full of activities that generated similar thoughts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, and I’m looking forward to it. The last session is on Microsoft Surface, so that should be interesting. As is often the case, I’m both enjoying my break from a regular schedule and feeling a little behind on my normal day-to-day tasks. I’m glad to be learning some new things though, and I definitely have a lot to think about when I get back. You can see my photos here.

Edmonton Notes for 11/15/2008 – Holiday Light Up! Edition

Earlier this evening, Sharon and I went to check out the Christmas on the Square Holiday Light Up! event. Mayor Mandel and Santa were on hand to help light up the largest Christmas tree we’ve ever had in Edmonton – 83 feet tall, with over 8000 energy efficient lights on it! BrightNights was also launched, and there were choirs, free wagon rides, and a tented version of the 104th Street City Market. Great weather today meant that Churchill Square was absolutely packed!

Holiday Light Up!Holiday Light Up!

You can see more photos and video here. The neat thing about the fireworks is that they were timed to the music!

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