Bronconnier will not run again; so who will?
So Dave Bronconnier has just announced he will be stepping down from the mayor’s chair and handing over his oversized mayoral necklace (does that thing have an actual name?) come October 2010. He will not be running for re-election.
While it is possible we could spend some time reflecting on our 35th mayor’s tenure – after all he’s been mayor of Calgary since 2001, having been elected three times, and before that was alderman of ward 6 for nine years as well – the real fun lays in what this means for the candidates that have been mulling about the starting line of the mayoral race for the past year or so.
Bronco’s announcement today almost guarentees Joe Connolly and Ric McIver will run for mayor, but who else? Will Alnoor Kassam now return for another kick at the can? Could we see Diane Colley-Urqhart or Druh Farrell step up in the coming months?
Personally, my guess is you’ll see one one Brian Pincott, who is currently ward 11 alderman, or frequent civic commenter Naheed Nenshi step up and take a serious run.
Either way, things just got interesting. Tie on your sneakers, because the race is about to begin.
On your marks, get set, GO!
Year-End Blog Review
Filed under: Alberta, Arts, Calgary, Marketing, Politics, Technology
As 2009 comes to a close I wanted to take a look back. It was a good year for me personally and I think this blog shows some of the highlights that come to my mind when I reminisce about the last year of the decade. I could simply select my favourite posts, but I decided why not not just let the readers “select” by highlighting the most popular posts on this blog for 2009.
So without further ado, the most popular djkelly.ca Blog posts of 2009:
14. What kind of bridge will $25 million get us?
May 22, 2009
This was my first blog post about the soon to be built Calatrava bridge. I decdided I would take a look at the design limitations given to Calatrava and try to predict what the bridge might look like. While, I was right about it not being white with soaring cables, I wasn’t even close to the guessing the Chinese finger trap design, which is much more ornate than I was expecting.
13. Conversing with Alberta politicians on Twitter
June 4, 2009
A useful post that should probably be updated given how many more Alberta politicians have joined since June!
12. New Ward Boundaries Demystified
February 21, 2009
A simple post created by laying the old ward boundary map with the new map that was being proposed by the chief electoral officer. (Showing off my Photoshop skills.) It turned out to be a post that proved it was sorely needed.
11. Loving or hating Calgary’s new bridge is not as easy as it sounds
July 29, 2009
This is probably one of my favourite posts of the year, as I went through what I observed to be each of the areas of complaint about the proposed Calatrava bridge and outlined which were fair game and which were not. It was my attempt at adding clarity to an issue extremely misunderstood by Calgarians. While it landed at number 11 on the most popular posts, I don’t think I was overly successful because people still complain about the price with little understanding of “why”. If you’re one of those folks, it might be worth a re-read.
10. Calgary City Council saves face by embarrassing themselves: ward boundaries solved!
July 14, 2009
The last blog post on the old blog template! It holds a special place for me for that reason, but most people probably just appreciated it for what it talked about – as outlined in the post title. This is the most proud I was of our council this year. They painted themselves into a terrible corner, but admitted their mistake and righted their wrong. I wish they would have done this more times during 2009.
9. Vanessa Porteous, ATP Artistic Director Designate
January 14, 2009
I am shocked an arts related post ranked so high on this list! (And it’s not even the highest one!) Is it because of the lack of local entertainment reporting resources? I think it might be, because non-Hollywood entertainment news tends to take a couple days to make it into the papers. Maybe I should take up Metro Calgary on their offer to blog about Calgary arts for them… It could prove to be a very successful blog that maybe long overdue.
8. Doug Elniski: how to do it right
June 24, 2009
This post – along with number 5, which I wrote a day earlier – simply outlined where things went wrong in MLA Doug Elniski’s mini-Twitter scandal. This particular post provided follow-up and greater context to comments I made in several media interviews on the subject. (You can say SO much more on a blog than in a media interview!)
7. University of Calgary cutting 200 jobs
July 14, 2009
Out of all the posts in this list I think this is the closet to “regretting” one as I come. Unlike all the other posts (save the honourable mention) this post was “breaking” news instead of my usual commentary on the news. I didn’t mean for it to be however! Here’s what happened: the UofC sent an email to all staff saying they were cutting 200 jobs. I heard about this and asked the individual if it was okay I mentioned it on Twitter. They said yes, because it was sent to all staff and thus obviously public info now. The problem was, UofC never sent a press release. So when I posted it on Twitter I was inundated with media requests for more information. The result was I had another source send me the text of the email and I posted it on this blog. That night the television and radio news lead with the story and it was front page news in the papers the next morning. I’m not sure if the lesson here is about the power of Twitter, or to always keep your communications department in the loop when making major announcements. Maybe both.
6. Progress and respect
November 30, 2009
In the aftermath of the first Reboot Alberta conference I summarize my thoughts on the participants themselves.
5. Doug Elniski: now just another walled off politician?
June 23, 2009
(See number 8 first.) This is the blog post that started it all. I’m not sure why no one else was talking about Doug Elniski’s comments in context of his use of social media. It still baffles me that people think social media is some sort of special entity instead of what it actually is: just another way to talk to people. It’s nothing special, but is highly effective. This post was also was popular enough to result in me being invited to talk about his comments on CBC Calgary’s The Calgary Eyeopener, CBC Edmonton’s Edmonton AM and for a feature article in the National Post.
4. The #AskEd Accountablity Window ends tomorrow
December 3, 2009
Just like number 5 this was me talking about Alberta politicians and their failures with social media tools – although this time Mastermaq got the press coverage a week later 
3. How to fix Ed’s communications problems
December 14, 2009
After number 4 I felt like I had to address the Premier’s communications problems appropriately. It’s bizarre how he’s lost the media and the public so thoroughly by a simple failure to communicate. He’s our premier and I want to see him, and thus us, succeed. This is my attempt to throw the premier a bone. We’ll see if he and his team take my advice or if they continue to fumble their way through 2010.
2. Look out Alberta, you’re about to get “rebooted”: First Impressions
November 28, 2009
I honestly think the Reboot Alberta movement – along with the Wildrose Alliance’s rise – is the single most important thing to happen in Alberta politics since the creation of the Progressive Conservative party. This post outlines my initial thoughts after the first day of the conference. The fact so many people read it gives me hope that Reboot Alberta is on the right track in their discussions. You can expect more thoughts from me on this movement in the very near future.
1. Jeffrey Spalding, CEO of the Glenbow and cultural rockstar, unexpectedly steps down
January 9, 2009
Yes, an arts story made it to number one on the list! And for such a short blog post?! The people spoke.
Honourable Mention: “Open Government” coming to Calgary?
July 21, 2009
Usually you expect to see an honourable mention at the bottom of the list, but I think this one deserves to be at the top of the list. July 21 had more people visit my website that any other day in it’s history. By a LONG SHOT – almost twice as many as any other day. There was only one post written around that period of time, and it was written on that very day. I think what happened was the main URL of this site was circulated and shared rather than the actual URL of this paticular post. Therefore I don’t have accurate numbers on exactly how many people visited this particular story, but the numbers are just so overwhelming I had to include it.
I wrote this post during the morning hours in a business centre of a hotel in Portland, Oregon. I had been given permission from Ald. Pincott and Ald. Ceci to announce the open data notice of motion the day before it became public when the council agenda was released. People from all over North American immediately sat up and took notice and did so by reading this post. Amazing. Look for a lot more on outcome of this notice of motion in early 2010.
Calgary open data report delayed
I heard about this a couple weeks ago but didn’t get a chance to look into it any further until recently.
It looks like the City of Calgary’s Open Data report from Administration to Council originally scheduled for December has been delayed. Apparently it has taken a lot more work to put the report together than originally anticipated. I hear from the City’s eGoverment section of IT (who knew they had such a thing?!) that the plan is now to have the report come to the February 10 meeting of the Standing Policy Committee on Finance and Corporate Services. So mark your calendars.
This shouldn’t be too surprising given the way the open data suggestion came to the City of Calgary. (I suggested it to two Alderman.) I imagine there was a steep learning curve that resulted in a delay in the ball really getting rolling. I think of this like the Ironman: it doesn’t matter if you win the race so long as you cross the finish line it’s a victory.
One good thing to come of this is I have a meeting scheduled with the City’s IT department. It may not seem like much, but the fact they reached out to me is unusual for the City of Calgary’s Administration, in my opinion. Admin’s modus operandi in many areas is in strong contrast to what we’ve seen from the City of Edmonton’s IT department in regards to open data, who, being heavily involved in the Edmonton’s tech community, were the ones to bring forward the open data initiative there.
In fact, thanks to the Open Data Workshop put on by volunteers from the City of Edmonton’s IT department on November 21, I can officially say I’ve met more of their IT department than I can even name in Calgary. Hopefully my coffee meeting is a sign of a changing way of the City interacting with citizens. No pressure, right?
In other Calgary open data news, I think it’s time to get the Calgary tech community on board! The data won’t be very interesting if there aren’t coders out there willing to work with the data. To that end, I’ve enquired about presenting on Open Data, what other jurisdictions have done, and what kinds of apps we could build for Calgary at the next Demo Camp. I’m not sure when the next one is, but it’d be great to have some community support heading into February.
All-in-all, things are heading in the direction. Slow and steady. Stay tuned for more.
Imagine the things you could do
Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with Mack Male (who was down from Edmonton) and Andrew McIntyre. As you might expect the conversation quickly dove into all the local projects each of us are working on and how difficult it can be to balance those projects with an actual job.
Me: “I could do so much more useful work if I just didn’t have to worry about paying the bills.”
Mack: “That might actually be a more useful investment.”
Then the light came on for both of us.
So here it is: a pitch for you and anyone that you might know. It’s an idea for a programme aimed at making the future Alberta an even better place to live. It could be something for EnCana or First Calgary Savings or W. Brett Wilson or the Government of Alberta to take on. I don’t care who wants to pick it up and run with it. If you agree this is a good idea and want to see it implemented, pass the idea around. I’m confident someone within your earshot will make it happen eventually.
What’s the idea?
Each year 5 Albertans are selected, they take a leave of absence from their jobs, a sponsor pays them each a ‘salary’ of $50,000 so they don’t have to worry about paying the bills AND… they work on as many projects aimed at improving the province of Alberta as they possibly can.
Each day, rather than going to the office or the job site they meet with other Albertans who can help make their idea(s) a reality. They work exclusively on their once extra-curricular projects that have made them a valuable Albertan. I can all but guarantee they will work an inhuman number of hours over the course of one year on forward-looking, cutting edge projects that we so sorely need. (Certainly much more that they would have at a the average “standard” job.)
Mack is right, giving someone an opportunity like this is a much more useful, bold, game changing, investment in our future than many of the tasks each of us do daily.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I love the work the company does and I think it is important. (If I didn’t I wouldn’t work there.) But the question does need to be asked from time to time: if money wasn’t an obstacle, or if profitability wasn’t the number one concern, what might I actually be doing with my time instead?
I spend a lot of time doing extra community improvement projects so perhaps that isn’t the most important question we could be asking. Perhaps a better question is: what amazing thing would you be doing if a programme like this existed? How would your community be a better place?
And: isn’t that worth the rather paltry investment it would take?
So go ahead, share this idea with anyone you think could make it a reality. Reshape the idea. It could be one Alberta a year, or 10. It could be a two-year program. It could be open only to young Albertans. Whatever. At the end of the day, all I’m looking for is more people dedicating more time to making Alberta’s future unparalleled elsewhere.
And only you and I can make it happen with ideas like this one.
PS – Check out Mack’s blog for his take on the conversation.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel
On this blog I usually talk a lot about things that are happening in the world and how I feel about them. I don’t often talk about what I’m thinking about independent of the news of the day. But several things I’ve been undertaking have coalesced recently into one moment that I wanted to share, because it has everything to do with what I normally talk about here.
(Note: Bear with me, this might be a post of Enlightened Savage length proportions.)
As part of my Leadership Calgary course I’m currently reading a book called “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”. It’s an eye-opener in every sense of the word. The main premise of the book revolves around “cognitive dissonance”; which, put simply, is the process individuals undertake after receiving information that is contradictory to their belief system. It raises a VERY important point: what do you do when you encounter something that is counter-intuitive to everything you’ve learned to be vitally important from your mother/friends/employer/church/political party/etc. In short it is self-justification, something we all do each and every single day.The examples the book gives ranges from how we convince ourselves the new gadget we just bought is better than every gadget out there and everyone is a fool for not owning the same one; to how our political leaders find themselves in trouble from time to time and simply cannot admit they made a mistake only to find themselves further down the rabbit hole.
I highly recommend the book to everyone. It certainly made me rethink a lot of my rationale for decision-making and made me appreciate the “other guy’s” point even more.
Those who read this blog regularly know that my main point is often “cut through the crap and get to the root of the problem” or “don’t just blindly follow, ask questions”. I consider myself post-partisan and, not being a member of any political party, more able to rise above the majority of the fray.
On Monday I suddenly found myself applying some of the “seek proof” ideology from the book to something Lianne (@prairies) mentioned on Twitter. We had a great short conversation about children and violence and whether witnessing violence causes them to be more violent. The outcome of the conversation doesn’t matter in this context, but it let me leave work at the end of the day with my mind just a little more open (as I hope it did for her too).
The night before, on Sunday, I was immersed in Bob Edwards quotes at a script writing session for Alberta Theatre Projects annual Bob Edwards Award Luncheon. (For those unfamiliar with Bob Edwards he was the founder of the Calgary Eye-Opener in the 1900s. He poked fun at Calgary and Alberta politicians with a goal to open readers’ eyes to the day’s issues. Basically he was the Jon Stewart of his day. And yes, he was HI-LAR-E-US.) At this particular script writing session we – I’m happy to be working with comedian Cory Mack – were focused on writing questions for a panel discussion featuring Peter C. Newman, Catherine Ford, Hugh Dempsey, Jane Urquhart and Lise Bissonnette; all former recipients of the award for their “shit-disturber” writing capabilities.
The questions were the kind you might expect me to be interested: why is the media important, who in politics might you like to call out, why don’t more writers rock the boat, etc. (You’ll have to attend the luncheon on November 2 to hear the final questions and their answers.) As you can imagine, having this kind of conversation with other people rather than just my computer screen got my brain moving a little bit more.
Back to Monday night: as I get off the bus on my way home a song that I haven’t thought about in almost 10 years comes on my iPod. When Ani DiFranco’s “Little Plastic Castle” came out in 1998 I bought it right away. I was in an Ani frame of mind back then: I felt connected to her frantic guitar playing and thoughtful lyrics. As a result one song stuck out for me even back then: “Fuel”. I played it over and over again and it slowly became my favourite on the album. It was this song that came on my iPod on Monday night and everything I’d experienced in the past few days started started coming together. It all started clicking for me.
Before I explain further, I suggest you play the music here and read along with the lyrics. (I’ve posed them below the video.) It probably won’t affect you in the same way it does me, but you’ll get the idea.
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan
And they discovered a slave cemetery there
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon
And we’ve moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who’s gonna be president
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who’s gonna have the big
Blockbuster box office
This summer
How ’bout we put up a wall
Between the houses and the highway
And then you can go your way
And I can go my wayExcept all the radios agree with all the TV’s
And all the magazines agree with all the radios
And I keep hearing that same damn song
Everywhere I go
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb week
For another hum drum hit song to appearPeople used to make records
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It’s about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs
You chooseWe got it rehashed
We got it half-assed
We’re digging up all the graves
And we’re spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipstick on the whores
Cuz we know the difference
Between the font of twenty percent more
And the font of teriyaki
You tell me
How does that make you feel?
You tell me what’s realAnd they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Even when they’re dry as my lips for years
Even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different
Is he different
Has he changed
What he’s about
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie aboutAm I headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do
About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan
And dig deeper
Dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage system and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water main
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all
Beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
I bolded the sections that strike me the most.
In 1998 it was the phrase “we know the difference between the font of twenty percent more and the font of teriyaki”. It amazed me then that, yes indeed, we can recognize the font that indicates a store “SALE” and the kind you would use at a Chinese food restaurant. And you would react poorly if a proprietor used the opposite one for their shop.
I guess this is where it all comes to for me: so much of what we do, or see, or pay our attention to is only scratching the surface. There is always more story than you could possibly know. Yet we are so quick to assume we know the ins and the outs of any given event. (You just have to read the comments on any Globe and Mail or CBC.ca article to realize how quick people are to judge.)
So how do we combat this? How do we, the average person, ensure we don’t leap to any false conclusions? How do we stop ourselves from buying into the convenient to understand, watered down, bite-sized bullshit politicians and media have little choice but to feed us?
The answer is the entire last verse of the song.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel. I am a fire waiting for fuel. And I know you are too.
And there is plenty of fuel out there; we just need to dig deeper into every story to find it. Question everything. Never discourage someone from asking “why?”. Never stop learning and approach everything with an open mind. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. If we do this we can pry open any issue. And that is something we sorely need more of in our politics.
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