Below is a 2-minute video of the City of Edmonton’s Chief Information Officer, Chris Moore speaking about Open Data in relation to tomorrow’s big event, as well as, continuing the vision forward.

As mentioned, the stage is set for the regional Open Data movement to continue to travel leaps and bounds.  The list of folks scheduled to be in the room or participating online is diverse and represents our region, province, country and international friends from many angles and that goes directly to how well the communications about what’s going on has penetrated and inspired folks to take action, all this since the first event on November 21, 2009.  Whether that be through the use of social or traditional media, the results are clear.

Just this week, Edmonton was recognized as a leader in the Open Data movement during a major announcement by San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom in the United States regarding their National Open 311 initiative.

Please see the video below and pay careful attention to the organizations listed in the background.

How can you participate?

Well first, if you have an opportunity please come out in person and participate directly in the “unconference.” Secondly, if you are unable to attend in person, then you are invited to watch the live video stream.  Further, anyone in the world may also “embed” the live video stream into their website, blog, etc…

Why would you want to do that?  Those who are considering an Open Data initiative in their region may want to communicate and educate certain local audiences that frequent their site.  You now have that opportunity, thanks to the City of Edmonton’s willingness to share with other communities, not only here in Alberta and in Canada, but also around the world.  I’ve had personal discussions with people from the US, Australia, even with Annemarie van Campen who is excited about the Dutch “fresh government” Open Data initiative.  I love the “fresh government” tagline, it’s brilliant.  We won’t be able to tell or communicate leading up the event as to everyone whom might be planning to carry the feed unless someone confirms that ahead of time, so please tell us here if you can.  Such as in the case of Nick Charney and his very popular Gov 2.0 cpsrenewal blog Nick is also going to be a panelist here in Edmonton.  I’d also like to mention once again how cool it is for the Edmonton Journal and GovLoop.com to be participating as mentioned in a previous post.

The team

I know one thing for sure, regardless of the really great discussion, ideas and thoughts shared tomorrow at the workshop.  You should be very proud of the City of Edmonton event planning team.  This takes a lot of effort to properly represent the fourth largest city in Canada on such an important subject.

Councillor Don Iveson, Chris Moore, Jacob Modayil, Scott Lundy, Jason Darrah, James Rugge- Price, Devin Serink, Raffaella Loro and Ashley Casovan who has been rock solid in terms of keeping everyone marching forward to ensure the event is terrific, that’s a tough gig regardless and she’s handled it very well so far I thought.  I’d also like to mention our project team, Evan Adnams, Kelly Lalonde and Genoa Adnams who have been working hard on this project to ensure our first ever (and I believe for the city as well) “bilingual” webcast goes without a hitch.

Due to everyone’s hard work, increased awareness and even recognition for this region and the Open Data work has already happened prior to the event itself taking place and that’s something to be proud of.  Of course, there is a lot of work still ahead and yet, clearly the momentum is building going into tomorrow and that I must say is highly cool.

Can you measure buzz and awareness?

Absolutely, several different ways in fact.  This is where the use of social media is a no-brainer as a starting place.  In the case of the City of Edmonton and the upcoming Open City Workshop (register here space left is limited) my opinion is that increased awareness is critical.  Sharing ideas, listening and educating new audiences as to what Open Data is will be one of many messages I expect to come out of Saturday.  Further, software developers local and non-local alike are no doubt excited to hear about upcoming announcements, the vision in general and how they may play a direct role.

Magnify the effect through sharing

One of the fundamentals of Government 2.0 is participation.  The social web, in particular the government 2.0 segment of the social web is already responding to what the City of Edmonton is doing.  By agreeing to share the live bilingual webcast feed (a first for the City and very progressive by anyone’s standards in government) with anyone who would like to embed the feed on their site, it’s already opened up new communications doors for the City of Edmonton brand.  Not the least of which is GovLoop.com out of Florida.  With over 25000 Gov 2.0 community members having the stream featured on the home page of this site is important for the purposes of building international credibility and awareness for the Open Data movement and the City of Edmonton.

Here is another example on Mashable.com of the buzz potential surrounding what’s happening here.  Evan from our team made sure to mention in the comments what we’re all up to, nicely done Evan.  One never knows who may choose to watch and participate in the online discussion as a result and where that will lead, only time will tell.

Further, the media is also getting into the act and so you can expect to find the feed on one or more major traditional media websites on Saturday too.  In fact, the Edmonton Journal has authorized me to let everyone know that they’re excited to be carrying the feed, it’s so great that they’re participating and helping to spread the word about Open Data.

The bounce

What can we expect short to mid-term out of this effort on behalf of the City’s IT and Communications collaborative efforts?  In politics and other circles it might be called the “bounce.”  I predict that Edmonton area companies, the Alberta and federal governments, more than one post-secondary institution, as well as, countless folks outside the region will definitely see all kinds of opportunity coming out of Saturday.

I also think City Council and administration in Edmonton (and others whom I know are watching closely) will be able to witness first hand just how much the City of Edmonton is quickly moving towards being a strong model for Open Government.  Saturday will prove yet again that working in real-time with citizens can be extremely beneficial and not something to be feared but embraced.  That sharing our plans with the world outside our region is progressive and it too will benefit the local economy and attract new people, business and brand awareness.  The Edmonton area (I’m in Sherwood Park) is a great place to live, work and play.

Live!

Here’s a special twist.  fusedlogic is proud to announce that we’ve been hired by the City of Edmonton to provide a live bilingual webcast of the event.  We’ve twisted the City’s arm (it didn’t take much) and asked if we could provide the live stream to others who may want to share it.  They said yes.

Hello embed code! If you’d like to generate traffic and attention to your Government 2.0 focused blog, website or community this is a terrific opportunity to provide content to your online community.  If you’re in the media and would like to have the stream on your site, let a thousand flowers bloom.

The City of Edmonton is listening to your Open Data ideas and they’re acting on it.

The spirit of this event is to share ideas and thoughts, learn and collaborate on the way forward.  It’s events like this that help to shape a city, everyone’s job is to come out and contribute directly or online.

Trust

One of the fundamental elements of an Open Government is trust.  The City of Edmonton said it would open its’ data, it has.  The City of Edmonton said it would expand this Open Data movement to the entire region so as to benefit all citizens, it is.  Citizens are often skeptical of government for many reasons not the least of which is they don’t feel their voice will be heard.  The City of Edmonton’s IT Branch is listening and led by Councillor Don Iveson, CIO Chris Moore, and the team in the IT Branch they’re acting on it.  Look out folks, this is only the beginning.

Special Guests: 3 impressive Open Government minds are flying in to Edmonton to participate on a Open Government panel.  David Eaves, Mark Kuznicki and Nicholas Charney I expect this to be great fun, and a tremendous learning experience.

See you on Saturday and follow along on Twitter using the Twitter hashtag – “yegdata”

Embed code will be provided for you on our site here:  http://fusedlogic.tv/events/yegdata/

More information on the event itself is on the City of Edmonton’s website

Register here to attend the FREE Open City Workshop

If you have set out a plan and defined success that’s great and, I wonder if your plan also includes how to build consensus?

Many in Government 2.0 circles talk about the need for increased openness and transparency between government and citizens.   While this is critical as a direction, we should dig deeper and explore what has to happen in order to facilitate such an outcome.   In addition to educating the right people in government and citizens alike as to what an Open Government looks, smells and operates like, we need to address the “power struggle” and cynicism which usually undermines everything.  This battle takes place below the surface and behind closed doors, and can have many faces.

For example, a government I.T. department doesn’t want to allow outside technologies into their network.  They claim security and effective systems administration as the reason.  This does a number of things simultaneously, including the retention of control of a locked down system designed to stifle any innovation left within.  Just ask the Health Canada employees who attempted to tune into a live webcast we did recently where the landing page for the stream was blocked.  Health Canada bosses couldn’t tune in to an event they paid for and no amount of requests sent to I.T. was going to change that reality.  Maybe you live and work in such an environment, where this type of Open Government/Open Organization battle is taking place as we speak.  Building consensus is very difficult and very costly as a result.  Why say yes today when you can drag out the discussion for months, using every excuse possible in order to justify your existence?

Here’s an NYT article on how the US Department of Defense is moving forward with their social media policy.  When you dig below the surface, there is certainly evidence of issues and skeptism.  Despite all of this, the directive has been given and so now comes the actual implementation of the policies.

The combatants do not always include the I.T. command and control group versus the entire organization.  The sabre rattling can also include mid-level executives who have little recourse to prevent change (in their language – more work) in their world than to engage in “passive-aggressive” war games with evangelist colleagues.  They state support publicly for the course ahead while quietly and tactically undermining the project like a nearly silent virus.  Frustrating the hell out of co-workers who have great intentions.  If this is allowed to persist it rips at the very fabric of the corporate culture and good people leave as a result of a few poisonous apples.

Open Government, indeed an open and innovative organization is a result of “open hearts”

For me, in the case above, success is defined in many ways.  Not the least of which includes the early detection of committed open hearts and minds within the organization in question.  You can tell the difference pretty quickly.  People either stand for being innovative and for collaboration or they see fear at every turn.  They either see the possibility of solutions or they see barriers.  Here’s an example, compare the Twitter feed of your favourite elected official to that of Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey.  Do you think Mayor Booker would be open to his municipality embracing Government 2.0?  This is a Mayor who replies to direct comments about the clearing of snow on his roads.  That alone is worth remarking about.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear – Chinese proverb

We come across clients all the time who want an hourly rate for a few simple social media solutions, essentially they don’t understand what they’re asking about so they look to limit risk and exposure to the project without stalling it completely.  Consensus is far easier to build on a foundation of respect and rapport and, if they’re ready to learn then great things can happen.  We’re in the social media education business in many ways, and yet, if hearts and minds are closed for business there’s little we can do.

This may sound like I’ve pinned success on warm and fuzzy, vague constructs and in reality that’s not true.  There are metrics to be aware of, objectives to be identified and a strategy to be constructed including which tools to use when and how.  Having said that, building consensus and momentum for change involving Open Data and/or the deployment of social media within government and businesses often takes much more.

Building consensus is about “open hearts and motivated minds” and our experience has shown that you can’t have a successful social media or Open Government result without starting here first.

Alberta has some really terrific elected officials at the municipal level and AUMA as an organization is doing some amazing things.  As we found out today with the joint-announcement made with the AUMA, Government of Alberta and AAMDC  covering the new Municipal Climate Change Centre to be housed at the new AUMA building.

Below are the presentations that I referenced several times of the course of the two days for you to use and in the case of the PPT you can download that, I just ask that you continue to keep the branding in place and provide credit as have done…

I found our experience to be fascinating albeit too short, and yet, it was great to hear Jerry and Grant provide their perspectives.  What I found even more fascinating was the group of Mayors and their questions.  Grant asked how many of the audience was on Facebook and I’d say nearly 75% put up their hands.  This is a good sign.  When it comes to twitter however, only three folks not including myself identified themselves as being micro-bloggers.

65 minutes!

There were questions about time commitment, what tools to use, how to engage regionally via the social web but actually the most fascinating question was really more of a statement for the record by a Mayor, who’s first name was Barb, I didn’t catch the name of her community but she wanted to raise the issue about ambulance response times being nearly 65 minutes in her community.  Essentially, she explained that Alberta Health Services AHS had cut services which affected her region.  Now if you’re a citizen having a heart-attack first responders “can give you an IV and an aspirin while everyone waits for the ambulance,” said the Mayor.  When Barb asked if any other communities were experiencing similar service reductions other hands definitely went up.  Are you kidding me? What are we doing in this province?  We’re not broke, why are we operating as if we’re a developing country when it comes to essential services?

AUMA’s President Darren Aldous who is also the Mayor of the Village of Breton, Alberta said that the good folks at the AUMA will be submitting the formal written communications on this issue to the Government of Alberta and AHS which is great.

So much could be done

However, here’s where social technologies could play a direct role in terms of communications in a case like this.  While paper is being submitted through formal channels, towns and villages with small councils and little in the way of resources could be leveraging other means to get the word out, gather support and consensus and get things moving.  Of course, my head jumps to Open Data and how if only the province moved immediately towards releasing a data catalogue people could start creating value-added services that could help these hard-working folks and the citizens in their communities.

I’ve said before that Premier Stelmach and his administration need a CIO who could then align with the Open Data Movement here in Alberta and launch something real (instead of a broken link) - data.alberta.ca.

We need more sites like what Gisela Hippolt-Squair is doing over at the Alberta Geological Survey

Without providing specifics on my ideas here, there’s no doubt that lives and services could be improved in rural Alberta nearly overnight.

Imagine your family member waiting while having a heart-attack for 65 minutes just to have an ambulance arrive and the only reason, as explained by Mayor Barb, is due to funding cuts…it’s absolutely shameful.  Just because you’ve chosen to enjoy this great province in a rural setting shouldn’t mean you also dramatically increase your chances of dying because of it.  Rural Alberta, indeed rural communities in general simply get little to no respect.

I’m excited that there’s more to learn during two additional social media related panel sessions tomorrow with Mayors from medium and large communities.  Expected to be in the room are provincial MLAs…Hmmm, this is going to be fun.

Well then, who should be paying attention to the Government 2.0 movement?

Elected officials, town or city administrations that’s who.  Ultimately citizens want their roads cleared, buses to run on time, garbage picked up and…well you get the point.  Citizens want services in exchange for tax dollars.  Most of the time citizens feel like they’re getting the short-end of the stick and they’re not afraid to light-up the complaint line and let you know about it either.

Why don’t they care?

Most people get into their car and turn the key, they’re not interested in precisely how the engine works with each turn of the crankshaft. Should the car break down, they’ll take it to a guy who knows how to fix it and frankly, they’re mostly upset about the cost and inconvenience of the whole ordeal and not so much the part.  The same goes for Gov 2.0, and most people absolutely care-less with respect to the fact that I’m writing a book on the topic.  As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be writing about typewriter maintenance.

That’s ok, I’m not discouraged and here’s why.  Do open government initiatives save tax dollars?  Absolutely!  Do open government initiatives improve the quality of life for massive amounts of citizens?  Absolutely!  Do Web 2.0 technologies play a key role?  Once again absolutely!  These are the end results and outcomes citizens care about.  Should Premier Stelmach fire-up a conversation with kids in government about what the province should do?  Of course, yesterday in fact, truth is I know he’s already having those kinds of chats.  The real test will be if the Government of Alberta gets past the chatter and takes action.  We’ll have to wait and see but at this point the province is lagging behind.  I know, no surprise right?  Despite that fact, we’ll keep cheering them on.

If you’re a town administrator or Mayor and you do not understand these concepts, it is recommended that you get up to speed quickly. Will it mean more work?  Oh the cry of the overworked bureaucrat.  Of course!  In the short-term, learning new things always means more work, and there’s terrific payoffs for your community should you be able to heard the rest of the cats in your administration.

The potential payoffs

1. Increased citizen engagement
2. Increased process efficiencies
3. Increased relevant communication reach internally
4. Decreased tax dollar spending on IT, while increasing available applications driven by the private sector
5. Increased information distribution which will lead to improved citizen conveniences
6. Increased awareness of the community-at-large, good for economic development and tourism
7. Increased opportunities for collaboration internally and with other levels of government
8. Government speeds up – HURRAAYYYY!

There are others and this is quick list for you to consider.  As for motivation to care, we’re heading into a municipal election year are we not? Hmm, you may want to be careful, your opponent or a citizen at a town hall may be well-versed in these areas and you could find yourself at a disadvantage at the worst possible time.  The outcome being that you suddenly have plenty of time to read my book and the soon to be released expanded edition on typewriters.

My personal pipe dream

Imagine a world where the federal government banned the phrase “that’s the way we’ve always done it” and began to collaborate in real-time internally and with provinces and the provinces shared data and information in real-time with cities and towns and they in turn all shared that data with us…(appropriately of course).

Unfortunately, in order for that to happen we need leaders.  Leaders who care about what I’ve just written above and leaders who care about you.  Further, we need administrations who don’t cringe at the hint of learning and implementing something new.  We need leaders who demonstrate caring through action rather than words to placate.  Leaders driven by the motivation to collaborate for the greater good rather than by identifying barriers out of fear of losing their jobs.

That my friends, is why in many cases, this is a pipe dream and yet I remain optimistic.

Personally, I believe that in this age of social, many organizations lost an opportunity to engage.  Doritos seems to be the clear winner of this year in terms of laughs and online conversational footprint among consumers.  With one clear exception, there’s no one talking to me or anyone else for that matter about Doritos online from Frito-Lay.

Bridgestone Tires has a SuperBowl specific section on their site but that’s not enough.  Here’s E-trade’s Youtube Channel as listed in their continuing baby commercials and NO online interaction that I can find.

Gary Vee quickly pointed out this issue and I find it clear evidence that many a large enterprise and their ad agencies for all their tweeting and Facebook groups and fan pages are still living in the…

“build it and they will come, bolt it on rather than bake it in mentality.”

They still don’t get it.  This is the difference between having accounts and using them effectively to build brand presence and social capital.  I’ve enjoyed many of the commercials this year, and I wonder if the lame ones like Boost Mobile could have improved their status through online engagement?  I’m watching the game as I type this so if someone finds something interesting regarding some online engagement let me know…

Check these Twitter accounts out: @vizio & @dockers – disgraceful…thanks for pointing this out – @josephaldrich

Here’s the Youtube AdBlitz 2010 channel with all the ads from the SuperBowl so you can check them out.

This whole conversation with Tim happened as a result of doing research for my upcoming book entitled Escape Velocity and Tim was kind enough to share an unpublished chapter from his upcoming book – Open Government.  He gave me permission to work with small parts of this body of work in support of helping me form thoughts about Government 2.0.

Tim has approved this content which is an important point, as I want to ensure I don’t overstep my bounds.

Being this fortunate means not only has Tim afforded me with the ability to study his work ahead of release, but also to communicate with him directly.  This wonderful gift also means that I can share brief thought provoking portions with you here on my blog as part of the process.

You’ll notice elements of his work in my PowerPoint from the recent ALI Social Media for Government Conference available for download here.  http://bit.ly/anwOWY

From Tim O’Reilly’s chapter within the book Open Government.

As President Obama explained the idea during his campaign: “We must use all available technologies and methods to open up the federal government, creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington, and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.”

Allowing citizens to see and share in the deliberations of government and creating a “new level of transparency” are remarkable and ambitious goals, and would indeed “change the way business is conducted in Washington.” Yet, these goals do not go far enough.

I agree

I agree with Tim that the idea of an Open Government Initiative as explained by then Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama doesn’t go far enough.  The next paragraph that Tim provides starts to talk about “government as a platform.”  Why?  Simple, just having citizens participate in a government based conversation is only the beginning of the change required and the change that is taking place.

For example, one of the things I’ve personally experienced is that it is the private sector who in many ways is driving innovation within an open and transparent government ecosystem.  Open Data is a step towards the foundation of government operating, as Tim would say, a “platform.”

My firm is a direct beneficiary of Open Data and we’re the ones driving a specific form of innovation on behalf of three city governments at the moment with respect to our Route 411 transit application.  We’re not the only ones or the first but we’re in the game.  As Chris Moore, CIO for the City of Edmonton told a crowd at Pecha Kucha the other night.  ”No tax dollars were harmed in the making of Route 411.”

I’m not making the above point to brag, only to reinforce one of the many positive outcomes which go beyond citizen generated conversations or direct participation in government deliberations.

The Open Data movement is a concrete step that governments can take to inspire innovation while saving tax dollars in the process.  Our goal as citizens should be to push this effect further via those important digital conversations.  Let your government know (regardless of level) that this is important to you.

Yesterday I read “Is Social the new dirty word?” by John Moore out of Boston.  Moore’s post highlighted what I’ve been feeling for nearly a year or more but especially in the last 6-8 months.

I’m concerned with the dramatic “watering down” of the burgeoning industry that my team and I work in full-time.  So I thought I’d reference a point in time and then tell a bit of our story.

For example, I was walking to my truck while at nextMEDIA in Banff, Alberta last summer.  The timing was such that I happened to bump into Kris Krug (@kk) who was outside taking photographs of the beautiful scenery,(here we are).  We had an interesting chat, not only then but later on camera, as the fusedlogic team streamed live interviews from nextMEDIA and Kris was kind enough to stop by.  Kris is a unique character, a non-conformist, and I’ve learned a staunch evangelist for his community, his craft (photography) and the non-use of labels.  I know Kris well enough now from our online exchanges and phone calls to know that he reluctantly refers to himself as a “web strategist” but really, he’s a guy who likes to be a part of the social experience through is crazy skills as a photographer.  He’s also committed to and an integral part of the cool happenings around his community of Vancouver which often includes considerable charity work with the Union Gospel Mission and others.

Here’s the dilemma, not all of us can develop the nomadic persona or lifestyle of a Kris Krug, our clients wouldn’t understand it and it wouldn’t be authentic.  That’s in part, what makes Kris a unique human being and business person, he has real-world experience having started Bryght in 2004 and successfully selling the company in 2007 to Raincity Studios.  That aside, he’s just being himself.  I respect Kris for what he’s accomplished and I suspect countless others do as well.

Having said that, I’ve never asked him directly, but to Kris during that chance meeting at the Banff Springs Hotel I must have appeared to be that outsider guy, that “what gives you the right to be a social media strategist guy?”

Interestingly, Kris said something I’ll never forget after our interview was over.  I thanked him for taking the time to speak on camera and told him I really enjoyed the experience of meeting him.  Kris said, “no problem, you know, it’s interesting we’re all here to talk about social media and you guys are in the room doing it….that’s cool man.”

Here are the “yummy chunks…”

November 2004

This is the night my Web 2.0 journey began. I watched CNN as they pulled commentary off of political blogs for the broadcast.  I found this amazing and started researching the blogosphere.

Many haven’t heard the fusedlogic story so I’m going to go over the last year or so rather than go over every blog post starting in September 2005 from my blogspot blog or since our incorporation in March of 2000.  (Secretly, I’ve been doing some thinking about where fusedlogic has come from and where we’re going, since this coming March will be our 10th anniversary).

Interestingly, I blogged about Twitter in April of 2007 but didn’t join until 2008.

In 2008 we continued to deliver social media work for several small businesses including Edmontonians Magazine, also notable was our project with the Public Affairs Bureau – Government of Alberta.

Crossing into 2009, we worked for ATB Financial, MacEwan School of Business, EEDC, Fringe Theatre Adventures – Industry Canada’s Marquee Tourism Program and we broke all sorts of ground on that project, multiple projects for NorQuest College which are still in play and again a number of small businesses mingled in.  Including our first Pay-Per-View live streaming sporting event with Aggression MMA. (our second PPV event will be tomorrow and it’ll be even bigger). We’re proud to say that our footage from the last event (as with our work tomorrow) will be broadcast on the FIGHT network, as well as, HDNet.

Also in 2009, we took on the digital marketing for Pik’s Revenge, an ambitious indie iPhone game developed by Edmonton’s Fluik Entertainment Ltd. Starting with zero Google search results for “Piks Revenge,” we now have nearly 1500 results and it will continue to grow as we’re expecting a big review from a major US property later this month.  The game was featured on the Apple app store which is not an every day occurrence.  Also, we’re doing something different with Pik as we build out the character a bit in real-life, expect more fun and dare I say “cheesy by design” things on that front soon.

Further, I started writing my book on Government 2.0 in 2009 entitled Escape Velocity, which is due out this spring provided I live up to the expectations of my editor.

In January 2010, we finally launched our iPhone transit application Route 411 and in less than 2 weeks we’ll be posting an update that will dramatically change the user-experience in Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto.  All I’m willing to say at this moment is that we’ve integrated York transit data with Toronto and we hope folks out there will appreciate that integration because it wasn’t easy to pull off that’s for sure.

Also, we’re celebrating a big week as we’ve closed a few new deals including a project with Health Canada and Alberta’s Centre for Child, Family and Community Research.  There’s much more to say about February and March but I’ll leave it there for now.

My point with all of this is simple, credibility in this game (as with all business and life) is paramount.  If Kris had asked for background in Banff I would have at least been able to provide names and brands as above where we have taken projects from concept to metrics. Granted, the brands are not global brands like Coke or Virgin, but to us and our clients, they are successful examples of digital planning and deployment experiences and it’s a story we’re very proud of and not even close to finishing.