AUMA Mayors’ Caucuses Presentation
Wow, what a wonderful couple of days with great people.
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…
data.alberta.ca
This afternoon I was invited to participate in the first of three Mayors’ Caucuses being held by the AUMA. This first group of Mayor’s were representing communities of 2500 people or less. I was on a panel with Mayor Jerry Iwanus (@bawlfbomber) representing the Village of Bawlf Alberta and Grant Ainsley of Grant Ainsley Inc., a media and management consultant from Edmonton.
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.
Do citizens care about Gov 2.0?
In a word, NO. If you walked down main street of your town and ask the average citizen what Government 2.0 is, you’d probably get a blank stare and maybe even a bonk on the head for wasting their time.
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
- Increased citizen engagement
- Increased process efficiencies
- Increased relevant communication reach internally
- Decreased tax dollar spending on IT, while increasing available applications driven by the private sector
- Increased information distribution which will lead to improved citizen conveniences
- Increased awareness of the community-at-large, good for economic development and tourism
- Increased opportunities for collaboration internally and with other levels of government
- 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.
Social experience
I agree, the words “social media” are being over used!
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.
Gov2!
- Image via Wikipedia
Tim O’Reilly describes “Gov 2.0″ as government operating as a platform. This is a terrific description of what is currently evolving within many a legislative ecosystem. I’ve been a long-time, vocal advocate both on this blog and in public presentations for an open and engaging government. In particular I’ve focused my thoughts on our provincial government here in Alberta. Imagine the Government of Alberta as an open collaborative platform where citizens get to contribute directly in the outcomes that affect us all. We live in the greatest province, jurisdiction and country in the world. I believe all three tiers of our government structure need to be on that leading-edge as well.
Think Gov2
I wonder just how many within government are spending time contemplating what Gov2 is and how it will impact their work within government? If you’re not doing this, you should be.
Whether you’re a rural town or urban city council, a provincial Cabinet Minister, MLA back-bencher or MP, you must spend time learning about this. Stopping the rural brain drain takes more than a Facebook fan page and an events calendar. Want to get inside the heads of the locals regarding a new policy? Gov2 is where it’s at. Traction is being gained all over the world in this area, and the amount of success being gained is substantial. Are you so upset with your present government that you’ve started a new party? Gov2 holds a lot of promise if you can integrate it quickly into your processes. For a party that is gaining momentum, establishing social media channels is great but not nearly enough. Your policy platform must include Gov2. Opposition parties should be racing to understand the finer elements of Gov2 and how it impacts citizen engagement should they ever want to lead in their jurisdiction. Want to get elected in your next election and have a spectacular campaign? Well, you already know what the answer is…
Attend this conference
If you fit in any of the above scenarios, then you should look to attend the upcoming Advanced Learning Institute conference (ALI) in January, taking place in Edmonton, Alberta. The line-up of speakers is great and I anticipate learning a tremendous amount from all the great stories and examples that will be presented during the four day conference.
Further, I’m really looking forward to this conference for a number of other reasons. As Chair of the conference I’ll have more responsibilities than my normal role as a single presenter which I’m so excited about I’m shaking in my space boots. I’m also excited at the prospect of getting to meet all the new presenters and conference goers coming into Edmonton to learn more about social media and Gov2.
I’ve heard from Kelly Flynn with ALI that the registrations are coming in very well for this conference which is terrific and it’s great for the Edmonton region to be hosting such an important conference. Here’s the agenda that the folks who attend from all over Alberta, Canada and the US will enjoy.
Now I’m off to continue working on my presentation material for the conference, I have high expectations of myself as I know all the presenters do. See you next year in less than 30 days, this conference will be an excellent way to kick 2010 off.
