Why I’m going to ChangeCamp
A change will do you good.
We were going to do a story about this weekend’s ChangeCamp, but it’s been pretty well covered by outlets such as Vue Weekly and the Journal.
Instead, I decided, I will write about my own reasons for wanting to go. Perhaps it will convince someone who didn’t know about it, or know what it was about, to come out Saturday and talk about change.
First of all, I like the idea of a bunch of people who don’t really know each other getting together to try and figure out ways of engaging citizens.
Voter turnout at all three levels of government is terrible, people don’t tend to remember a lot from high school politics and civics classes, and the news can become a series of stories about boys in balloons instead of what your governments are up to. So, there’s clearly room to improve the level of debate.
Second, unlike most conferences and symposiums, you (yes, YOU) can show up Saturday morning and pitch an idea you want to talk about. You could be leading a discussion on that very topic within minutes.
There’s also lots of talk about data. The City (and provincial and federal governments) has lots of information. Everything from where buses are coming and going to where police officers are responding to calls. Data junkies, and people far better at computers than I, would love to have this made widely and freely available so they could build phone apps, wikis, maps, and all kinds of other helpful tools for you and me. Government just has to be willing to hand it over.
I suspect there will be talk about small pilot projects involving such data, what could be done if some other information was just made available and the best way to ask nicely to get it.
I’m also looking to meet people who are really excited to be a part of something here in Edmonton. They are going to be at ChangeCamp to try and engage with the wider community and I look forward to talking with them.
Maybe I’ll see you there.
