Tag: technology

We need to preserve our local, digital, cultural artifacts

As Edmonton continues its climb toward global status, I think it’s important that we consider the digital cultural artifacts that we create along the way. It’s rare that something big happens in Edmonton (or anywhere in the world for that matter) without a website or other online presence of some kind being created. That online presence is important in the weeks and months leading up to an event, but it’s just as important after the fact too. We need to start considering that from the beginning.

Think about big events that Edmonton has hosted in recent years. The 2001 World Championships in Athletics should come to mind. If you do a search for Edmonton 2001, you’ll find:

And linked from the official IAAF website and many other pages that show up in the results, is the the Edmonton 2001 website, at http://www.2001.edmonton.com/. The problem is, that site no longer exists.

What would happen if the IAAF took down the page they are hosting? It doesn’t have to happen on purpose, it could be an unfortunate side effect of a redesign, server relocation, etc. The article at Wikipedia is pretty sparse, containing mainly result information. And the mention on the EEDC site is insignificant. It’s almost as if the event didn’t happen.

Additionally, I’d argue that none of the links that still exist tell the story of Edmonton 2001. The effort that went into it, the many volunteers and organizations that made it happen, the effect it had on the city, etc. I think it’s important that we capture that information, and that we do so online, where it is easily accessible by all.

Another more recent example would be the ICLEI World Congress, held in June 2009. The City of Edmonton has a brief page devoted to the event, but most of the information exists at the ICLEI site. That’s fine, but again we’re relying on someone else for the information, and we’re missing an opportunity to tell our story. The advantage that the ICLEI had over Edmonton 2001 is that many bloggers wrote about the event and many photographers posted photos, and their content will likely continue to exist for quite some time. The new Transforming Edmonton blog will help too, I think.

The idea of digital preservation applies to smaller-scale events too. Try to find an online presence for the 2005 K-Days (now Capital EX), the year the event’s attendance record was set. Or try to find out about the 2008 Fringe festival.

I recognize that there’s costs associated with preserving our online cultural artifacts. Someone has to pay for them, and someone has to maintain them. And if we go that extra step and treat some online presences as legacy projects with updates and other information to tell our story, there’s obviously costs associated with that too. I think the costs would be quite minimal, however, and definitely worth it.

Perhaps this is something for the Edmonton Heritage Council to tackle? Or the Edmonton Historical Board? Or maybe just you and me. Either way, we need to start taking digital preservation more seriously.

Edmonton’s improved online City Council meeting agendas & minutes

A little over a week ago a new online system for Edmonton City Council’s meeting agendas and minutes went live. The long overdue update brings a number of improvements for public access, notably an integrated view of all information on the same screen. As someone who frequently accesses the agendas and minutes, I’m really happy the old system is gone, and at least so far, I think the new one is great!

The previous system for managing agendas and minutes, built in-house about 15 years ago, was called OCCTOPUS (Official Council and Committee Tracking Output Publishing and Updating Services). If you’ve never used it, consider yourself lucky! Based on Microsoft Word documents, OCCTOPUS was clunky and awkward to use. To get at the details for an agenda item, you often had to click through four connected Word documents. It always reminded me of the ETS Trip Planner, which loves to spawn dozens of new windows.

If you want to see the old system, check out the minutes for the November 10th Council meeting. Then compare that to the new system, by looking at the minutes for the November 24th Council meeting. I think you’ll agree that the new one is much better!

Some of the improvements & features of the new system include:

  • No more Word documents! Agendas and minutes now appear in HTML.
  • You can access the agenda, minutes, supporting materials, and archived video for a meeting from within the same screen.
  • Archived video and supporting materials (often PDF reports) appear in column on the right side and open with a single click.
  • If you really want to, you can get a print view of the agenda or minutes with a single click.

Aileen Giesbrecht, Director of Governance and Legislative Services in the Office of the City Clerk, told me that the project to replace OCCTOPUS started in the summer of 2007, and in the fall of 2008 SIRE Technologies was awarded the contract. SIRE provides “legislative management technology” for county and local governments, and offers a number of off-the-shelf solutions or modules. According to Sarah Ellington of SIRE Technologies, the City of Edmonton is using three such modules: Agenda Plus, Minutes Plus, and Workflow. Each of the modules have been configured to meet the City’s requirements for formatting, business processes, etc. The City of Edmonton’s implementation is the first major SIRE project in Canada.

The biggest challenge in getting the new system in place, according to Aileen, was simply “finding the time to make it happen.” The work isn’t finished yet, either! The project currently improves access primarily for the public, and Aileen and her team are now working on improving access internally too. She said the related internal systems being implemented will help with ease of use and will support the City’s paperless strategy.

The proposed 2010 budget for Corporate Services (PDF), which mentions $164,000 for operational maintenance and support of SIRE, offers some additional insight into what’s next:

Operational funding of SIRE will allow for: Maintenance of SIRE software, including ‘Agenda and Minutes Plus’ and web integration between SIRE and our current ‘Thunderstone’ web-based search function; licences associated with SIRE software, including access for Councillors (‘Agenda To Go’), as well as access for City Clerks and other Administrators, Bi-annual updates to the SIRE software suite; and one staff position to coordinate and maintain the entire SIRE system.

The new system isn’t perfect – it still uses Windows Media for video, and it would be nice to be able to click directly from an item on the agenda to the corresponding item in the minutes – but it’s much better than what we had previously. I think it’s great that the City is working to improve access to information for citizens, and I hope this is just the beginning (think: open data).

Recap: City of Edmonton Open Data Workshop

On Saturday afternoon about 45 people met at City Hall to discuss open data in a workshop hosted by the City of Edmonton’s IT department (you can read the Edmonton Journal’s coverage here). I think we made great progress, and I’m happy that so many people gave up their Saturday afternoon to come out and help!

Open Data Workshop
Photo Credit: Ryan Jackson, Edmonton Journal

Our emcee for the day was Jas Darrah, and he did a great job of keeping us on track. We started with an introduction to open data, delivered by me. My job was to just make sure everyone was on the same page, and to hopefully start a little excitement by sharing what other cities have done. Here are the slides I presented:

Stephen Gordon spoke next, adding some context and background on the City of Edmonton’s perspective. It was great to have him available throughout the day to answer questions. After that, Gordon Martin took over to facilitate a session on defining our guiding principles for open data. We broke into three groups to brainstorm, and I was surprised that each group came up with different principles. Here’s the tag cloud that Devin created based on the results of our work:

That took us to lunch, which was catered by Three Bananas. After the break, we reconvened to talk about the City of Edmonton’s approach, and about a potential data catalogue. Devin Serink led the discussion, which at times got very intense! People have strong feelings about how a catalogue for data should work. I’m not sure we came to a decision, but I think the general feedback was that both a data catalogue and an app catalogue are necessary, but that the City of Edmonton doesn’t necessarily need to create and host both.

Throughout the day we had flip chart sheets on the wall to capture opportunities, desired data sets, and anything else we didn’t have time to discuss. I think all of those, including the principles that each group came up with, will be typed up and shared sometime soon. Devin documented some of the day’s work on Prezi.

Open Data WorkshopOpen Data Workshop

It was great to have a focused discussion on open data at the City of Edmonton, but there’s still a lot to be done! There were a number of times during the day that we could have broken off into another sub-discussion, so there’s probably still a lot more input the City could gather. The report back to Council still needs to be written and presented. And of course, we need to start releasing some data sets. Still, I’m grateful that we have a supportive Councillor (and potentially more than one) and an engaged and open City Administration to make it happen.

Thanks to the City of Edmonton IT department for hosting the workshop, and especially to James Rugge-Price, Devin, and Jacob Modayil for making it happen! I’m really looking forward to the next steps.

You can see the rest of my photos here. Stay tuned to the Open Data page on the City website and to the #yegdata hashtag on Twitter for updates.

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: Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally Open House

Last night was the open house for the City’s new Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL) initiative (you can read my previous coverage here). The event was meant to provide more details to the community, and to introduce the people behind the scenes. David Faber from the Deputy City Managers Office, Kamren Farr from TEC Edmonton, Keith Chorley from CoE IT, Bruce Beecher from CoE IT/Transit, and Cam Linke were all on hand to introduce the idea and answer questions. Roughly 25 people attended.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally

David began by giving the pitch, essentially providing the same information he shared with me last week. He stressed that this is a pilot program, and that it’s okay to fail. The City of Edmonton is hoping to learn from the experience, and will be reporting back to Executive Committee with the results. David highlighted the intent of LTEL:

  • To communicate the services that the City of Edmonton provides.
  • To build bridges with the local community, to enable small tech companies to use the City of Edmonton as a sandbox.

Next up was Bruce, who provided some information on the challenge – creating a replacement for Edmonton Transit’s Lost & Found system. The current database was built with Access 97, and the IT branch is keen to replace it with something more modern. A few details on the system:

  • Roughly 1700 items are tracked per month
  • Items are stored for 30 days, and if not retrieved are then donated, auctioned, or otherwise disposed of. Passports, for example, are returned to the government, and cell phones are returned to the carrier.
  • Items are stored tagged in bins in a storage room that is roughly 20 feet x 20 feet.
  • Most wallets, cell phones, backpacks, and purses are collected within 2 days.

The basic business processes are:

  1. Enter articles – start tracking lost items
  2. Search articles – when someone calls with a description
  3. Claim articles – individual signs the tag upon retrieving the item
  4. Purge articles – items removed from database after retrieval or 30 days

Some of the opportunities identified include:

  • Improved security and access control
  • Multiple item search (currently you can only search one item at a time)
  • Track people inquiring about items
  • Enhance reporting
  • Potentially something generic enough that other CoE departments could use it

Kamren was up next, to provide the preliminary market assessment. He talked about the “lost and found” industry, and highlighted solutions at TransLink and the New York transit authority as best-of-breed. There are four existing types of lost and found systems:

  1. Public – transit, etc.
  2. Private – hotels, etc.
  3. Return service – you pay for tags or some incentive to return
  4. Online classifieds – lost and found posters, basically

He went on to talk about market segments, and highlighted some of the market drivers, opportunities, and challenges.

The challenge was eventually described as:

Use technology to reduce costs for the customer (City of Edmonton) and increase recovery rates for users (people who have lost things).

All of this information will be made available on the LTEL page. The only other pertinent detail is that the upper limit for the budget is $75,000. Technical requirements and other details will also be posted on the website.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally

My Thoughts

I talked with a number of people after the session to get their perspective. Most folks seemed excited about the idea. Andrew from dub5, in particular, said he was impressed that the City of Edmonton took the time to get this pilot started, and suggested that it was a big step in the right direction. Bruce Winter echoed that sentiment, but like me, was hoping for something a little more visual.

Here are my thoughts on the open house:

  • The City needs to do a much better job of spreading the word. I realize they wanted to manage expectations, but I don’t think enough people knew about last night’s event.
  • I would have loved to have seen the format of the event mimic DemoCamp. Instead of slides full of bullet points, why not demo what they currently have?
  • I get that a lost and found database isn’t particularly exciting, but that doesn’t mean that the presentation can’t be. Instead of telling us there’s a 20×20 room packed with items, why not show a photo?
  • This is going to sound harsh, but Kamren’s presentation wasn’t much more than a Google search. Very basic business concepts (competition, market segments, opportunities, challenges) and nothing more than the names of some other lost and found systems. I’m still wondering what exactly TEC Edmonton and EEDC bring to the table, besides a couple more names?

My biggest concern however, is related to the very first question I asked. I wanted to know if there were any technical requirements, and specifically, if the application had to be on-premise (meaning the City of Edmonton hosts and manages it). Keith answered yes, tech requirements would be provided, and that yes, the solution needs to run in the City of Edmonton’s existing infrastructure. One of the stated goals of LTEL is to expose the City of Edmonton to some of the innovative ideas of the local tech community, so this seems like a big step in the wrong direction. Maybe there’s a good reason for this particular solution, but if so it was not made clear. I think putting up big restrictions like that right from the start limits the potential solutions the City could learn about. (Also, I was under the impression the City wanted to get out of the tech business, by not doing custom development and reducing the burden of hosting and managing systems.)

This criticism is meant to be constructive. Overall I think LTEL is a good thing, and I want to see it succeed. I look forward to the rest of the process!

Stay tuned to the website for updates and an application form. Companies interested in developing a solution have until December 15 to express interest.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally – Open House on November 17

As you may have heard by now, the City of Edmonton is hosting an open house on Tuesday, November 17 (on ShareEdmonton) at City Hall to present a pilot project to interested members of the local tech community. The initiative is known as Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL), and the open house follows on the report that was presented to Executive Committee back in August. I’ll get to some of the event details in a second, but first I want to offer some background.

I heard about the open house late on Monday afternoon, and immediately posted a tweet. You might think that the City’s IT department would be behind it, but many of them only learned about it because of my tweet! And that’s where things get interesting.

I had the opportunity this week to sit down with David Faber, one of the folks making this initiative happen. David is the Executive Director of Enterprise Strategic Management in the Deputy City Managers Office. His involvement means that this initiative is happening at a level slightly above IT, as David is (along with his team) charged with strategy, direction, accountability, and stewardship for the entire City of Edmonton, not just IT. David’s job is to bring the City’s Vision and Strategic Plan to life, and LTEL is just one of the ways in which he’s doing that.

As you might expect, David oozes passion for Edmonton. He’s been with the City of Edmonton for 12 years now, and even spent some time working in IT, so he has some experience in the field. For David, the LTEL initiative is about innovation and economic development, as well as the opportunity to simply connect with startups and other small tech firms in Edmonton. He outlined a few key goals of the initiative:

  • To bring the community together with the City, and to open the door at CoE for smaller companies.
  • To build shared learning by using the City as a sandbox and by not being afraid to fail.
  • To be supportive of the City Vision, which is to say that the LTEL pilot must be repeatable and sustainable.

I agree with Chris LaBossiere – this sounds like we’re on the right track.

I did explain to David that I was highly critical of the original report, and that I along with others in the tech community are concerned about EEDC and TEC Edmonton’s involvement. Unfortunately, David didn’t say much to alleviate my concerns when I asked how specifically those organizations would be involved, suggesting only that they would provide resources. I’m willing to wait and see how things turn out, because it certainly sounds like TEC Edmonton is less central to the pilot than was suggested in the original report.

We’ll learn more about the project at Tuesday’s event, but here’s what we know already:

  • The problem is to come up with a replacement for Edmonton Transit’s current electronic Lost and Found system.
  • Prospective participants must be incorporated companies by February 3, 2010, must have annual revenue of $2 million or less, and must be located within the City of Edmonton’s boundaries.
  • Prospective participants have until December 15, 2009 to express interest.
  • Potential solutions will be presented on January 28, 2010.
  • A selection announcement will occur on February 3, 2010 with the pilot project starting March 1, 2010.

The Lost and Found system was selected for two important reasons: it’s tangible, and already has funding attached. Representatives from IT, DCMO, ETS, and TEC Edmonton will be on hand to provide more information.

I’ll be there on Tuesday to learn more about it, and I hope you’ll consider attending as well.

The City of Edmonton’s Social Media Advisory Committee

In the grand scheme of things, the City of Edmonton could be considered an early adopter of social media tools. They’ve been on Twitter since February 5, 2009 and have established a presence on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. While most organizations are still unsure about how to get started with social media, the City of Edmonton is slowly but surely gaining expertise.

Recently I learned that the City established a Social Media Advisory Committee (SMAC) in the spring of this year. I asked Jason Darrah, Communications Business Partner at the City of Edmonton, to tell me more about it. He started by explaining how the committee came to be. I’m paraphrasing here:

In the early days, the City was a fairly simple system. The roads people worried about roads, and the sewer people looked after the sewer system. These were silos, but it worked fine. When a new way of dealing with the world appeared, each silo handled the changes on its own. So at some point in the City’s history, Transportation handled all media related to Transportation, and Waste Management handled all media related to Waste Management. Eventually, it became clear that economies of scale and a unified voice could be achieved by creating the Communications department. More importantly, the Communications department could use its experience to help each of the silos be more effective than they could be individually.

The SMAC followed a similar trajectory. The difference is that today, the City is a complex system. We still have silos, but a change in one area quite often has an impact in another. I think that’s the reason that the SMAC was created so quickly. Jason and his colleagues in Communications recognized some of the advantages:

  • The committee can act as a resource for each of the silos. So when a department wants to get started, they know where to go to learn.
  • They can also provide operational support, actually doing some of the social media work.
  • It’s a way of managing risk, by establishing a competency.
  • The committee is a way of distributing knowledge. They gather information about all of the different social media projects taking place, and can offer advice based on experience.

That last point is particularly important. The SMAC is an advisory committee. Unlike many City committees, whose members are designated by senior managers, the SMAC is comprised of 26 individuals with social media experience (as you can imagine, many of them are young). It has grown fairly organically by attracting people who are using the tools. At their first meeting in May, the SMAC members simply talked about what they knew and had experience with (and they have since recognized a few gaps, Legal for instance).

The key for SMAC is to avoid becoming the social media police. If a department or group wants to do something with social media, they might have a representative on the SMAC, or they would reach out to one. They’d make a pitch to the committee not for approval, but for knowledge. The SMAC might share information about similar projects, or it might make recommendations for tools to use, but it doesn’t say no. The other characteristic that’s interesting is the pull model – SMAC waits for people or groups to come to it, rather than proactively preaching. Obviously some projects will happen without SMAC’s knowledge, but that’s okay.

I really love the SMAC approach. I talk with a number of local organizations about using social media, and I often wonder why they want to learn from me. Obviously I think I have something to offer, and I usually do it for free, but I have always felt that most organizations have untapped knowledge and experience within. By getting all of the individuals with social media experience together, the City has recognized that and has created a fantastic resource for all other employees. I’m particularly intrigued by the fact that although SMAC was started by Communications, it exists outside of it. Kudos to Jason and his colleagues for embracing the notion than social media is something different.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Social Media Advisory Committee will play an integral role in helping the City of Edmonton use social media effectively, and I believe it’s a model that other organizations should look at adopting also.

Somewhat related…

While social media is different than other communications tools, some of the same rules still apply. The City of Edmonton (and SMAC) is currently drafting a set of Social Media Guidelines, to help employees use the tools effectively. Note this is not a policy, because there are three policies already in place that cover employee conduct with social media tools and everything else: the Employee Code of Conduct, the Media Relations Policy, and the Conduct and Acceptable use of Telecommunication Technology policy. The other advantage to having guidelines rather than a policy is that guidelines are easier to update, which is important when you’re dealing with something that changes as quickly as social media.

Update on Open Data in Edmonton

I’m encouraged by the progress that is being made on making open data a reality here in Edmonton. I think the open data sessions at ChangeCamp had an impact, as did Councillor Iveson’s formal inquiry. There’s still a lot of work to do, however!

A few brief updates:

  • Just a reminder – we’re using #yegdata on Twitter.
  • The Edmonton Public Library has created an Open Data portal, and is hosting a CSV file of all EPL branch locations, complete with latitude and longitude. It also shows recent tweets!
  • I updated the open data page on the ChangeCamp wiki with some more notes. If you have notes to add, please do so!
  • Chris Moore, CIO for the City of Edmonton, is really embracing the concept of open. He’s charged with delivering a report to City Council by the end of the year, and has decided to open up the creation of that report anyone interested. You can see the document on Google Docs here, just ping Chris and he’ll give you access.

We’ve also started having open data chats with beer! Our next one takes place tomorrow evening:

#yegdata conversation
November 4, 2009 at 4:30pm (come whenever)
Rose & Crown Pub, 10235 101 Street

RSVP on Facebook
See the event on ShareEdmonton

Feel free to drop after work. Our last discussion was really great. One of the things we talked about was the approach we should take. In general, I think the preferred approach is something like the following:

  1. Low-hanging fruit (stuff that is already on the website, just in a closed format, etc)
  2. Data that doesn’t have FOIP implications but that isn’t already available
  3. Everything else
  4. APIs for real-time data?

We’ve got more than enough with the first two to keep everyone involved busy for quite some time.

One of the things we discussed was identifying and prioritizing the first two. What kinds of data does the community want? Which data is already up on the website in a closed format? To help facilitate that, I’ve created a UserVoice site for #yegdata, and have seeded it with 18 types of data that I’d like to see the City of Edmonton make available. Here’s where I need your help!

  • Add other types of data that you’d like to see/use, or that you’ve identified as already available in some format on the City of Edmonton’s website.
  • Everyone gets 10 votes – please vote on the data you’d most like to see/use.
  • Spread the word and get others to add/vote as well!

There are no guarantees that the data and priority identified through the UserVoice site will be what actually happens, but it’ll definitely help the City move forward. Thanks in advance!

Help us identify and prioritize open data here!

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!

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!