Greater Edmonton Region Speaks

Thursday was the inaugural launch of fusedlogicTV – “On The Road.” A made for web live TV series we intend to continue and bring to a neighbourhood near you. Contingent on sponsors and interest of course.

I’m not going to run through the entire show play-by-play, but I would like to mention a few key take-aways.  Technically, we had very little really go wrong with the day.  Oh sure, there were guests I’d never met until seconds before going live, guests without pants, pet cameos, names I got wrong, a lack of food all day and not wanting to chow down on camera means I was operating on fumes.  Which probably contributed to situations with panelists where I rudely cut them off in mid-sentence, not intending to be rude, but what are you going to do? All in a days work on fusedlogicTV.  One thing is for sure, we had no shortage of great people on the show.  I’m so gratified that nearly everyone we asked was able to participate.

Another key moving forward is that we have some fine-tuning to do on our production.  I believe we can make programming improvements that will help the next show flow a bit better.  We gave everyone at least a half-hour on the show, and it seemed to me with all the panels, there simply wasn’t enough time to cover all that we wanted to.  In each and every case, we could have talked for hours.  A tribute to the quality of the guests, they were great.

In particular, I want to mention that this had an effect on the time that our Open Government panel had to speak.  Compounding the issue was that I elaborated a bit too much and because of some technical things with cell-phones, Skype bandwidth etc, I might have come off a bit rude cutting things off on air.  That was totally not my intention when setting the stage for a question or response from our panelists.  A panel that collectively could fill days of airtime with their wisdom and knowledge on Open Government was distilled down to a few moments each.

Note to self, “Walter, shut-up and let your guests speak, ya bonehead.” That’s something I’ll definitely work on for next time, less the presenter and more the listener.

I tend to get really passionate about the topics and excited about the guests.  Listening more will be part of my personal journey, something my wife will be happy about too.

Laughter

Of course, having said all of the above, if you caught our pro-sports with Allan Watt from the Edmonton Oilers, David Jamieson from the Edmonton Eskimos and the Team1260′s Kyle Chase, there was certainly no shortage of banter, laughter and great discussion going on.  Also, Kyle was kind enough to join us at the last minute and I wasn’t aware until literally seconds before going live who he was by face.  I said, “Hi, what’s your name?” “Kyle Chase, Team1260.” I said, “Kelly, great to meet you.”  Thankfully, there was no shortage of people there to correct me, thanks Allan. I got it right on air, watch the segment and notice Kyle shakes his head up and down as I mention his name.

More laughter was had on Skype with Duleepa (Dups) Wijayawardhana, CEO of local Edmonton start-up Empire Avenue.  This is a serious contender and we had lot’s of opportunity to tackle some of the misconceptions that are floating around on Twitter, and elsewhere.  During the interview the battery on Dups’ laptop was about to die so he said, “Please excuse me while I move, I didn’t anticipate this and I don’t have any pants on.”  Just shortly after that his cat decided to be the star of the show and walked into camera…awesome TV!

Thank-you to our guests

The proof of a great show is in the feedback.  Thankfully that has been very positive on many fronts.  From in studio guests, panelists, viewers in our chat room, by email and online.  I’d like to thank each and everyone one of you for providing feedback.  We look at each one as a chance to improve or continue in a positive direction.  You make us better.  Please continue to speak-up and let us know.  Do you see value in a regular video podcast telling the kind of stories we did on Thursday?

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the support from the community.  The show is only as good as the people on it and the discussion and we had wonderful people and organizations participate.  Here’s the list in no particular order.

Panelists	Title	Organization
Adriel Hampton	Investigator	City of San Francisco, City’s Attorney’s Office
Roxanne Carr	Councillor	Strathcona County
Don Iveson	Councillor	City of Edmonton
Don Westman	Councillor	Fort Saskatchewan
Jaqueline Biollo	Councillor	Beaumont
Gerry Gabinet	Economic Development Officer	Strathcona County
Kent McMullin	Economic Development Officer	Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC)
Dups	CEO	Empire Ave
Jerry Aulenbach	Realtor	YEGHelps
Alain Saffel	CEO	Page One SEO
Felicia Dewar	Blogger
Sue Huff	Trustee	Edmonton School Board
Mark Suits	Journalist	Edmonton Journal
Greg Gazin	Freelance Tech Journalist	Sun Media
Miles Hunt	CEO	Base HD
Gord McCallum	CEO	First Foundation
Chris Moore	CIO	City of Edmonton
Sarah Schacht	CEO	Knowledge is Power, Seattle
Allan Watt	VP	Edmonton Oilers
Dave Jamieson	Director, Communications	Edmonton Eskimos
Gilbert Allan	Local Director/Producer
Franco Imbrogno	Local Actor/Producer/Educator
David Bates	CEO	Tyrant Motion Pictures
Don Norris	CEO	Bamboo Strategy
Alexis McMillian	CEO	Christie Communications
Archie McLean	Journalist	Edmonton Journal
Shauna Scott	Freelance TV Director

More of the great feedback regarding our show includes one viewer’s comments that we had “too many good guests,” they would have liked a shorter show possibly.  We’ve also had feedback that we’ve reached new audiences as people who would have never consumed a live video podcast in the past tuned-in or showed up to witness it in person.

Thank-you to our sponsors

As I said live, a show like this cannot go forward without the kind support from the business community we were fortunate to receive.  Our lead business sponsor was First Foundation, Gord McCallum and his team including Sheila Hawkins stepped-up and said we want to be a part of this.  They put together a great panel including Kelly from CMHC, whom I only met a minute before going on air, and Stephen Lau, a successful Realtor. Great discussion regarding how people should prepare for applying for a mortgage.  Watch the high-priced car loan folks, it can prevent you from getting that new home.

The Golden Rice Bowl equals fantastic authentic chinese food.  I know this for a fact because after the show all of us were exhausted and Miranda Lau, the owner came by, took one look at us and said, “you guys sit down and eat, I’ve got food coming for you.” and boy was it good.  This is not the first meal I’ve had at the Golden Rice Bowl but it was a clear reminder as to why the place is packed much of the time.

What’s next?

Well certainly our archived video will be up as soon as Mr. Evan (I broke my hand) Adnams can work to get the video up on fusedlogic.tv for those who missed the live show to watch.  One thing I will caution everyone on.  We had lower than preferred upload bandwidth so our playback quality will suffer a bit as a result.  Still that’s mostly us being perfectionists.

Certainly, we’re looking for interesting stories to cover and we’ve received many requests to do “free” shows.  Unfortunately, there is quite a production that goes on to do this right and with high production values.  If you’d like to have a show for your organization, region or cause we’d love to help, we just cannot afford to help everyone for free or at a discount.  We are happy to work with you on getting some funding for your project via the sponsorship model, for the the right show that works really well.  We’ve generated over 100,000 viewer minutes in 2010 just with the few shows we’ve done, there’s more eyes looking at fusedlogicTV everyday and your great stories are the reason why.

How would you like to use live streaming video?

Small Business Week in Alberta

October is the month for Small Business Week festivities here in Alberta and across Canada for that matter.  In years past there has always been lots of events to attend and people to meet and this year is no exception.  Speaking of events across the province, here’s a list of many of the events as provided by the Business Link.  Being that I’m a (proud) director of the Sherwood Park and District Chamber of Commerce I’d like to suggest to everyone in the Greater Edmonton Region that they consider being a member of this great organization which has over 900 members and 30 years of history.  There’s nothing in the books that says you can only belong to one chamber.  fusedlogic inc., has been a long-standing member of the Edmonton Chamber and I have friends that like me belong to both.  Sherwood Park and the surrounding area of Strathcona County is a thriving northern Alberta business community and one that you should strongly consider doing business with.

In the spirit of sharing some business news during Small Business Week (and condensing posts because I’m so busy lately,) here’s some interesting new information for you.  Some of you may remember a video I shot earlier this year with Peter Urban of Smibs (featured below.)  At the time, SmibsNet (a collaboration and networking software for businesses) wasn’t ready for public beta.   That all changed last Tuesday with the launch of the public beta and Peter asked me while on Twitter the other day if I’d blog about it.  Peter provided me with a personal invite to sign-up for the beta and fusedlogic is now listed on the site.  This software is very cool and helps to solve the business development collaboration issue that many companies have.  I suggest that you consider signing up and trying it out.

Sidenote: Peter did agree to call me so I could asked him some specific questions as prep for a more in- depth blog post but if you know Peter, he’s hard working and a beta takes a lot of effort.  I’m sure he wasn’t going out of his way to ignore me.   Besides we bump into each other all the time at events and around the neighborhood.  Maybe he’ll bring his SmibsTV crew down the Web 2.0 meetup and present SmibsNet there on Nov 6th.   Below is the video interview with Peter some months ago on Whyte Ave in Edmonton.

Also, Peter if you’re reading this and I know you are, Smibs needs to be a Sherwood Park Chamber member right away…expect me to be relentless on this point.

James Ford CAN win in Sherwood Park!

Really I’m talking about the constituency of Strathcona County but I live in Sherwood Park.  I took my friend Ken Chapman’s advice and went down to visit James (Jimmy) Ford this evening at his campaign office.  To be honest with you, up to now I’d missed out on all the “Uppal-Gate” hoopla out here in the Park mostly having my head down building my company.  That said I did some digging and there’s definitely some history here to be aware of.

First, politically you should know that I’m a right of centre conservative.  Having said that, I wouldn’t call myself a political activist at all, certainly not like Ken’s daily routine that’s for sure.  My wife and I vote and we judge people on their character, morals, what they stand for and actions.  Jim Ford is a salt of the earth kind of guy, very experienced and I agree with him that election reform is absolutely required in this riding.  There’s no doubt that he’s a conservative given his history with the PC Party and beyond that he lives out here and knows our community.  A community that myself and my family have only just embraced a few short years ago.  This kind of Uppal-Gate thing (more here) really frustrates me and for that reason and many others I found out while talking with Jim tonight I’m voting for Jim and hoping that many folks in Strathcona County will do the same.  This is an election reform decision, it’s a pro-conservative philosophy move as well.  I just won’t endorse a candidate that’s parachuted in.  I certainly won’t vote Liberal, Marijuana (NDP) or Sierra Club Green either…that said, just to spin this, if I was an American I’d vote for Obama in a heart-beat but that’s another blog post and another country.   There’s a reason why James Ford’s Facebook group:

James ford for MP – Edmonton-Sherwood Park

is open to comment and his opponent’s group is not…Jim wants to hear from you, talk with you and even debate with you if required…yes he started his Facebook group late and still you should join and start a discussion.  Better yet, meet Jim in person, I know once you do you’ll most certainly vote for him.