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.
Plan It, round 2: The most important decision facing Calgarians
Next week is a BIG week in Calgary. As Naheed Nenshi correctly states in his Calgary Herald op-ed today, “On Monday, Calgary city council makes a decision bigger and more important than all the other decisions it has made since being elected . . . combined.”
Plan It – the document that lays out how Calgary will grow for the next several decades – is coming back to council for a second reading.
Plan It has been the hard work of many years of public engagement, determined to define how Calgarians want to manage their city’s growth. In short it is all about the kind of city we want Calgary to be and how we will ensure it becomes that.
In June, after the final public hearings, council made about 100 suggested amendments to the proposed Plan It document and gave it first reading.
The city’s administration (the author of the document) went back to their desks and poured over the amendments to determine which were good ideas and strengthened the document, and which were poor ideas and weakened the document or contradicted other pieces of legislation. The results have been released here. But I’ll break it down for you a bit.
A summary of Administration’s recommendations are as follows:
That Council:
1. Receive for information Attachments 1 and 2, which summarize Administration’s response to key issues brought forward by Council in the proposed amendments to the MDP and CTP.2. MDP Amendments:
a) Adopt Administration’s Recommended Amendments to the MDP (Bylaw 40M2009) as proposed in Attachment 3.
b) Receive for information Attachment 4, which lists suggested amendments to the MDP that are not recommended by Administration.
c) Receive for information Attachment 5, which contains red-lined pages for the entire MDP (based on amendments proposed in Attachment 3).
d) Amend Bylaw 24P2009 by deleting Section 4 in its entirety and substituting with “This Bylaw is effective February 1, 2010”.
e) Renumber and format the sections in the MDP (Bylaw 24P2009) required to account for the inclusion of all Council-approved amendments.
f) Give second and third reading to the proposed Bylaw 24P2009, as amended.3. CTP Amendments:
a) Adopt Administration’s Recommended Amendments to the CTP by Resolution, as proposed in Attachment 6.
b) Receive for information Attachment 7, which lists suggested amendments to the CTP that are not recommended by Administration.
c) Receive for information Attachment 8, which contains red-lined pages for the entire CTP (based on amendments proposed in Attachment 6).
d) Renumber and format the sections in the CTP required to account for the inclusion of all Council-approved amendments.4. Direct Administration to report to LPT no later than January 2010 with the terms of reference for a MDP/CTP Sustainment Committee, implementation program and an ongoing monitoring framework.
Okay. Now what about the attachments? What’s in those? Answer: a whole lot of reading that we all have to do. Here’s a summary about what attachement includes (all links are PDFs):
1. MDP Key Issues Summary
2. CTP Key Issues Summary
3. Administration Recommended Amendments to the MDP
4. List of Council-proposed MDP Amendments Not Recommended by Administration
5. Red-line Amendments of the MDP (as per Attachment 3)
6. Administration Recommended Amendments to the CTP
7. List of Council-proposed CTP Amendments Not Recommended by Administration
8. Red-line Amendments of the CTP (as per Attachment 6)
I encourage you to click on the links above and learn more about what Administration recommends including and not including. These are what will frame the discussion on Monday at Council. A discussion that WILL change the future of Calgary forever. If ever there were a time to know what your council is doing, this is it.
And we all have a lot of reading to do between now and then.
I’ll provide my comments here and to the Aldermen once I have read the documents. Please do the same.
The one thing that excites me is the 4th recommendation – the creation of a Plan It “Sustainment Committee”. The idea behind the goal of this group was laid out in my comments to council during the June public hearing. At the time I said to council, “It will have to be a living document… Personally I’m more concerned with the City’s track record of follow through on ambitious plans.” This was also the theme of the questions I was asked by Ald. McIver following my presentation. I then followed up with some more detail in a two part blog post on Alberta Venture’s Think Alberta blog the next day where I said:
The good news – or bad news as the case may be – is that the success of Plan It will fall directly on the shoulders of the City of Calgary and how the plan is implemented. Calgary City Council has done a very good job over the years looking down the road and helping set a vision for the city’s future in motion. Plan after policy after plan have been enacted, but clearly the citizens of Calgary feel unaffected for the most part by these plans and policies…
I’m glad the City is taking this seriously and I think a sustainment committee will be a great addition. After all, it is almost exactly the kind of “Citizen Response Team” my group at the first CivicCamp in April suggested was needed.
Administration has echoed mine and Ald. McIver’s concerns by stating:
Two of the issues raised by Council and stakeholders that apply to both the MDP and CTP are ongoing stakeholder engagement, and plans for implementation and monitoring.
The Draft Implementation Framework included with CPC Report M-2009-012 provided high-level actions The City will need to undertake in order to enable achievement of the Plan It Calgary goals and objectives. Some of these actions are already underway, and Administration is currently developing more detailed implementation plans. These plans will be complemented by an ongoing monitoring framework that will provide useful data to aid in growth and investment decisions. Both the implementation plans and ongoing monitoring framework will be brought forward to the Land Use Planning and Transportation (LPT) Standing Policy Committee no later than January, 2010.
Administration recognizes the critical role that external stakeholders will play in achieving the goals and objectives of Plan It Calgary. In order to facilitate effective communication between The City and stakeholders, Administration proposes the creation of a MDP/CTP Sustainment Committee. This committee would require a broader stakeholder group than the Advisory Committee for Plan It Calgary. Terms of reference for this committee will be developed in consultation with stakeholders, and will be submitted to LPT along with the implementation plans and monitoring framework by January, 2010.
That’s all for now, but I’m excited by the direction this is all heading. Time to go do some reading…
Loving or hating Calgary’s new bridge is not as easy as it sounds
A few months ago I wrote to ask Calgarians to wait until the design of the new Santiago Calatrava bridge was released before deciding if the $22 million price tag was worth it. The design was supposed to be released by the end of May, then the big day was scheduled for August 6, before yesterday’s surprise release of the images. A bumpy wait, but now that they are out Calgarians are able to have their full say. (Click here to view the design on CBC’s website where many are giving their comments.)
It appears as though price is no longer the only contentious part of this bridge however. In addition to releasing the artist renderings yesterday, the Mayor announced on Friday that the bridge is meant to honour the Canadian Armed Forces. Then this past Monday he emerged from a closed door Council meeting to announce the bridge will be named the “Peace Bridge”.
So by my count that now gives Calgarians four different things to complain about when discussing the bridge:
- The cost.
- The spin.
- The name.
- The design.
And so it begins. The newsrooms, the editorials, the twittersphere, and the blogs have all become sounding boards of confused fury. People are being lumped in as either “for” or “against” the bridge. But as you can see from the list above there must be nuances not being explored. So I break it all down thusly:
1. The cost.
Con: This bridge is costing more than any other pedestrian bridge in Calgary’s history. Given the current state of the economy, reasoning suggests the large amount of cash resources could have been better spent elsewhere, on something Calgary has a demand for. I have not seen any data suggesting that what Calgary really needs right now more than anything else is a pedestrian bridge just west of Prince’s Island.
Pro: You can’t build a bridge for much less than this. The rumour we could have done it for $2 million simply is not true. It is also important to note the City of Calgary is not paying for this bridge out of their property tax revenues. The money for the bridge is coming from the Provincial Government as part of the Municipal Sustainability Initiative funding. As such, there are a number of “strings” attached to the agreement that mean Council can’t do much with the money except build a bridge. (Remember the Bronconnier/Stelmach public battle of about a year ago? This is what that was about. Bronco wanted to be able to spend the money on other more pressing civic needs. He lost this part of the argument.) Because the money is unexpected and limited to only this use, it stands to reason that you might as well build a better bridge than you normally would have rather than giving the money back. (You’ll hear more from me in the future about provincial/municipal funding issues. It is this kind of messed up relationship that illustrates why we need a new deal for cities.)
2. The spin.
Con: The number one reason why Bronconnier is so happy to honour our troops with this bridge is to help deflect some of the public criticism over the other three items on this list. It’s hard to argue with this. Even though the Mayor says this was the plan all the way along, it is news to just about ever observer. Including many – if not the vast majority of – council members. It smacks of using our troops as a political shield. Just about the lowest tactic I can think of.
Pro: Bronconnier may be telling the truth – we don’t know for sure. And either way naming the bridge in honour of the Canadian Armed Forces is a great idea, given the bridge’s proximity to Memorial Drive and the re-vamp that is underway there – also in honour of our troops. Most everyone thinks this is a good plan; however we must be wary that accusing the Mayor of political gamesmanship does not mean the accuser things this is not a worthy group to honour in this manner.
3. The name.
Pro: “Peace Bridge” is an appropriate name given that the bridge will be in honour of our troops. Peace is what they stand for. The name is also symbolic of Calgary and Canada as well as the joining of two shores.
Con: It is such a good name we already thought of it 82 years ago when we named the Niagara bridge that joins Canada to the United States at Fort Erie/Buffalo. Don’t our troops deserve to be honoured in a manner not already reserved in Canada for a different group? Couldn’t we be just a little bit more creative in the name we chose to honour them? I’m sure they’d be much happier not having to share a name with a much more famous bridge. It seems like the least we could do.
4. The design.
Pro: Calgary needs more iconic and unique architecture. The city is one of the most creative places in Canada – and I would argue the entire world. However the city has been mostly built during “boom” cycles, meaning getting a building up as quickly as possible had to be the number one goal. This kind of accelerated program doesn’t allow much time for the design process to create new engineering marvels. When Santiago Calatrava was commissioned to design this bridge it was because he had a history of unique designs that people the world over talk about. This design is unlike any bridge Calgary has, and is unlike any bridge anywhere else in the world. It is uniquely Calgarian and has the potential to quickly become a local treasure.
(We’ve known for months the bridge wasn’t going to be a standard Caltrava-esque design because of the limitations created by having a helipad so close. So if you expected the high towers and cables give your head a shake and get over it.)
Con: As Don Braid said in his recent post: Parisians didn’t love the Eiffel Tower when it was first designed either. They felt it was ugly and inappropriate given the scale and design of the rest of their city. So far I have heard Calgary’s new bridge design referred to as a Chinese finger trap, a blunt, a futuristic tunnel, a candy stick, a ribbed condom, and a drinking straw. (The design has only been out for about 18 hours so I’m sure there will be more to come or some I’ve missed.) What do these descriptions all have in common? It makes it sound like people don’t like the design. But I’m not buying that. I think this is people simply trying to make sense of what it is they are looking at. And that’s a good thing. Just like with the Eiffel Tower, iconic architecture is rarely immediately embraced the way the status quo is. Hopefully once is all said and done they decide they do like it.
via @stephenpeasley
So there you have it. All the pro and con arguments summed up. If you think I missed anything please let me know. I hope this will be able to help us frame the argument for or against the bridge with a little more nuance.
Or at the very least get to the point of accepting it a little quicker. Because I think it’s pretty cool Calgary has something so different, finally. (Even though I think it is a lot to pay, but we had little choice on what to do with that money so I’m happy with our choice. I also think naming the bridge in honour of our troops is a great idea, even though the Mayor’s political spin was terribly executed and the resulting name was unoriginal. Hopefully you understand my nuanced opinion on the bridge a little better given everything that came above in this post. If not, at least I tried.)
“Open Government” coming to Calgary?
It’s pretty exciting to be able to announce something the City of Calgary is about to do on a blog. It’s also rather fitting in this case.
Open Government projects have started popping up around the world; most recently in Washington, DC and Canada’s own Vancouver. And now we can hopefully add Calgary to that list.
Included in next week’s Calgary City Council agenda will be a notice of motion drafted by Aldermen Joe Ceci and Alderman Brian Pincott. If approved it instructs Administration to draft a report about the possibility of making all data collected by the City of Calgary (where appropriate given privacy and security concerns) available to all Calgarians. Perhaps just as importantly, the data would be made available in an open source format.
The text of the motion is as follows:
NM2009-July 14
RE: ACCESS TO CITY DATA AND SERVICES
ALDERMEN CECI AND PINCOTTWHEREAS Calgary is a well-connected on line community with 92% of Calgarians being Internet users;
AND WHEREAS this community profile leads to high citizen expectations and demand for online service delivery;
AND WHEREAS 89% of Calgarians support The City’s efforts to enhance resources, information and services via the Internet;
AND WHEREAS in the 2009-2011 Council Priorities document, Council has made a commitment to increase on – line citizen services;
AND WHEREAS other Canadian municipalities have recently made commitments to provide greater public access to civic data for the benefit of citizens, business, suppliers, community and social organizations;
AND WHEREAS The City of Calgary has had success in implementing open source solutions for our technology infrastructure;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Administration prepare a report outlining an overall strategy and to present it to the SPC on Finance and Corporate Services no later than 2009 December and that the report include:
- Identification of opportunities to make more of The City’s data open and accessible while respecting privacy and security concerns , and ensuring that data is available through use of open standards, interfaces and formats
- Development of an integrated information lifecycle management policy
- Increased opportunities for on-line citizen participation
- Increased City services on – line
- A policy on the use, procurement and support of open source technologies going forward
- Integration with Webwave and egovernment programs
- An implementation schedule and any associated costs
In my mind this motion is long overdue and a “no brainer”. The data the City holds is about US. In addition WE are the owners of that data because it is collected by the organization we created to make our lives better.
If it is about us and we own it, we should have access to it. Why hide it away, not available to the public, and in a proprietary format very few citizens would be able to use?
Where I get very excited about this potential new program is when I think about the kinds of things that can happen when this data is made available to someone other than just City of Calgary officials and in a more flexible format. Coders and academics alike now have the ability to build programs and applications we may not even know we need right now. With all these individuals and companies with access to this data the number of resources (human and computing) increases exponentially. The potential for new businesses goes through the roof!
This is an exciting day for Calgarians. I’m hoping you share the excitement as well.
PS – A big thank you to Ald. Ceci and Pincott for agreeing to allow this motion to be released via the internet before the official Council agenda goes out on Thursday.
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