It’s time to pay attention… to men! Believe it or not, walking around naked in public isn’t a man’s favourite pastime. We buy clothes. In fact, some of us would go as far as *gasp* buying nice clothes! So, where’s the love?

Halifax suffers from an acute shortage of men’s clothing stores. The gap is more apparent when looking for stores that cater to young professionals. The disparity between the number of clothing stores that exclusively cater to women vs. stores dedicated to men’s fashion is most visible in downtown Halifax.

The figures in the pie chart represent the split in downtown Halifax between clothing stores that exclusively cater to men vs. stores that are dedicated to women’s clothing and unisex stores. The study was conducted on January 25th, 2012 and did not include sports-related stores (Cleve’s, Lulu, etc.). The survey covered downtown Halifax as shown in the map below.

So, here’s an obvious business observation: the men’s fashion retail clothing market in Halifax is under-served and ripe for the picking!

And here’s a free tip: the market is even more lucrative if you cater to young professionals in downtown Halifax. I conducted a retail clothing market study in 2010 that estimated an average of 65% of sales of men’s retail clothing in downtown Halifax came from a customer demographic 25 to 44 years of age. According to 2006 census data (latest available at the time), this age category makes up 35% of males in HRM.

So what’s the hold up Halifax? The demographic exists, demand exists, supply is short. A couple of boutique men’s fashion clothing retail stores in downtown Halifax, offering wares at the right price point, will make a killing in this market. Pants, shirts, sweaters, coats, jeans, ties, shoes and suits are a staple of every man’s wardrobe. And you can be guaranteed to have at least one repeat customer (and all his friends)… right here!!

Friends,

You are receiving this email because you have written to me about the proposed Halifax Convention Centre.  For some of you this is the first time you’ve heard from me on this issue, and for others we have had a back and forth as the issue progresses.

First of all, thank you very much for contacting me with your thoughts, ideas and opinions.  The work that I do to represent this wonderful riding in Parliament is only as strong as the feedback and conversations I have with members of our community.

When considering the issue of the Convention Centre, it is essential that I look at the issue through the lens of being a federally elected representative.  Whenever any new issue emerges, the first question I ask myself is how this fits into the federal realm, and I try hard to take a principled position.

The NDP has always stood for the principle of local and provincial control over decisions with local scope.  If a community decides to invest infrastructure funds in a facility that benefits their community, then it is the role of federal government to support that decision. These are important local decisions that should be made in an open and transparent way.

However, as federally elected official, it is also my duty to ensure that any federally funded project reflects the needs of the community.  After hearing a lot of feedback from community that they don’t feel that this project reflects the community’s needs, I deliberately sought feedback from constituents about their thoughts, ideas and opinions on the proposed convention centre.  The feedback I received was robust, but not unanimous.  There are some who were very much opposed to the centre, some very much in favour, and others who really wanted to see their needs reflected in the design.

I have written a letter to the Prime Minister to share with him these ideas and opinions.  I have also called for public consultation on design, because I believe that if the federal government is going to fund a local project, we need to ensure that the project best reflects the needs of the community.  The only way to achieve this is through a fulsome consultation process, as we saw with the consultation on the new public library, for example.

This issue will continue to evolve, and if I become aware of any new information, I will be sure to be in touch with you.  Please do continue to be in touch with me.

Thank you for expressing you views on this issue and for your passionate civic engagement.

All the best,

Megan

 

Megan Leslie

Member of Parliament for Halifax

Health Critic and Deputy Justice Critic

519 Confederation Building, House of Commons

Ottawa, ON  K1A 0A6

Ph: (613) 995-7614 / E-mail: leslim@parl.gc.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MeganLeslieMP

Website: www.meganleslie.ca

Letter from Megan Leslie to PM Stephen Harper Re: Federal funding for the Halifax Convention Centre.

Below is the email I sent in response:

Hon. Megan Leslie

Thank you for your response. I’m disappointed in your position and bias to the opponents of the convention center. Your letter to the Prime Minister claims to be an attempt at passing along the diversity of citizen comments, but spends it’s entirety relaying only those comments from individuals who oppose this project.

As a Federal representative, you have failed to carry the wishes and interest of the community as displayed by the approval of both municipal and provincial governments of this project. Both bodies approved the project after considerable public consultation and it was determined that the benefits to the whole outweigh the concerns of the few.

Regards,

Issmat A. M. Al-Akhali
Halifax, NS

Your World Today has been following the development of Masdar City since the project’s announcement in 2007 (See Post 1 and Post 2 for background). Below is an animated video that explains the vision. Many are likening the Masdar initiative to The Venus Project.

Next week, I will be joining meetings between Masdar officials and Nova Scotia’s Department of Environment. Mirroring the aspirations of Abu Dhabi, Nova Scotia is already a North American leader in sustainable waste management, with composting rates at 200% the Canadian average, and near 100% of residents having access to curbside collection of paper, food, and recyclable waste. Nova Scotia’s Waste management experts, together with stakeholders from academia, government, and industry, are working to create an international Waste Resource Management Institute right here in Nova Scotia. The institute’s mandate will be to share the province’s expertise with the world to promote sustainable, community-driven environmental initiatives.

Similarly, Phase 1 of Masdar City included plans for a world-class institute of science and technology with a focus on graduate-level research in clean energy and green technologies. So where are those plans now? I’m happy to report that the institute was the first building to be completed in Masdar City, and the first cohort of 88 students (selected from a pool of 1200 applicants from 22 Countries) commenced their studies in the Fall of 2009 as the first residents of Masdar City! The Masdar Institute is operated in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Masdar Institute

Another plan for Phase 1 of Masdar City was to power the construction phase using renewable energy sources. In June of 2009, a $50M Solar power plant came online to power the construction of Masdar City. The 10 Megawatt plant occupies 55 acres and is the largest photovoltaic system in the MENA region. The plant was designed and built by Enviromena: a young UAE-based company whose four founding members are all Canadian!

And before I conclude this update, I will leave you with a video demonstration of the driver-less, track-less electric cars that will be the main mode of transportation in Masdar City’s ULTra – PRT system (Urban Light Transit – Personal Rapid Transit). The system is developed and implemented by 2getthere, a company based in the Netherlands.

Artist Rendering of proposed new convention centre in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I recently organized a symposium at the current convention center, where I had to cram 100 people in a room made for 80 due to lack of space. I work for a local organization and I expect to be able to conduct business and host local regional or national meetings for my industry in appropriate facilities in the city where we are located.

The scarcity of space is an issue that plagues the convention centre all through the convention season in Halifax. If even small businesses in the local community are struggling to find appropriate space in the current convention centre, I hate to imagine how much business they’re loosing from larger meetings and larger industries.

This new convention centre (ConventionCentreInfo.com) needs to be treated like any other community facility investment. It’s a place that can host events by any community group, not just businesses. We invest in libraries, hockey rinks, community centres, and other projects in the city all the time. They all have similar cost/benefit arguments to the convention centre, where the costs are clear but the benefits are largely understood (and accepted) to be social, not financial. Most people accept this, even if that rink/library/multiplex facility is not in their geographical area or doesn’t cater to their specific interests.

It’s just not fair to turn around and look at the convention centre, which is obviously not in the geographical or interest area of most opponents, and apply a different measuring stick when it comes to the benefits side of the analysis. Just because it will benefit a different slice of the community doesn’t render this an abomination.

If people are going to oppose the convention centre and argue that it doesn’t turn a profit, then why not apply the same argument to the new central library? it can be easily argued that libraries are a relic of the pre-Internet era, when information was concentrated in a few select locations that everyone had to go to if they wanted to sip from the well of knowledge.

The Library is a cost center that provides a service that the majority of people don’t use and can easily obtain through a variety of alternatives. Renting old DVDs, reading books, and flipping through magazines can be done online or through a ton of other mediums and providers. Using subsidized space for community groups to meet can be done by subsidizing existing meeting spaces (that are actually equipped for meetings, like convention centres) rather than building a library and using some of its rooms as makeshift meeting spaces.

But, we support that library investment (nearly $60 Million split between the Province and HRM). We support it because we acknowledge that there are intangible benefits to having a public library. There were some questions about how this library would contribute to the economy, but the majority accepts that the contribution can’t be directly measured in dollars and cents on a balance sheet.

So, let’s not get lost in the minutia of the numbers and demand profitability when it comes to the convention centre. Instead, let’s look at the overall impact. Is it positive or negative?

Will there be more jobs created? Yes. Does it matter if it’s 1000 jobs or 2000 jobs? Not really. Will the new center meet the needs of the community better than the old centre? Just ask the community that uses it or plans to use it. Is being able to bring more out-of-towners to Halifax a good or a bad thing for the economy? It’s a good thing.

The current facility is 25 years old and has reached capacity. Obviously, getting to capacity didn’t happen overnight. We should be happy that Halifax was able to grow it’s convention business over time until they filled the building. Let there be no expectation that a new convention centre will open it’s doors to full capacity either. However, it is crucial to invest in a larger facility to accommodate the current business as well as the inevitable growth over the next 20 years.

Nova Scotia has the highest sales tax in Canada, and the second highest income tax rates after Quebec. We are already getting charged up the nose to live in Halifax and have very little to show for it. For the high cost of living here, you’d think we have some urban public structures that we can point to and say “at least we have this world-class stadium here” or “look at that Guggenheim Museum by the waterfront. It costs money to take care of that!”

My opinion is that if it comes down to it, I don’t really mind paying a few extra dollars on top of my already sky-high tax bill to invest in something other than miles of asphalt throughout the Province or subsidizing commercial tax rates for suburban big box stores. And if that investment can create a few extra jobs and make a little money, that will be nice too.

… … …

(To support the new Convention Centre, please join the online letter writing campaign at WriteSomeone.org – Support HRM’s New Convention Centre)

Paul MacKinnon, Executive Director of the DHBC, unveils new campaign at Extreme's head office in downtown Halifax

I say the initiative is unique because, unlike previous initiatives, this one seems to target a demographic that had previously been largely ignored by city and provincial initiatives. It is also unique in its abandonment of cliche imagery that is normally associated with such campaigns (lobsters, waterfront, Citadel Hill, etc.).

The poster below is one of four executions revealed at the campaign launch, along with a new website at www.downtownhalifax.ca. Unfortunately, I only took a picture of this one. I’ll post the rest as soon as I am able to get my hands on them (hear that, Extreme?)

Account Director: Geoff Wills
Creative Director: Cliff Thompson
Account Planner: Martin Delaney
Account Supervisor: Allison Garber
Designer: Amy Boehmer
Art Director: Tyson Hynes
Copywriter: Trevor Millett
Project Manager: Karen Bell

During the campaign launch event at Extreme’s downtown headquarters, I asked the Account Director of the campaign and he confirmed that the departure from using common imagery was deliberate. The DHBC and Extreme group seemed to be on the same page in regards to what attracts the demographic they are targeting, and what imagery is seen as ineffective.

The campaign direction is interesting to me, as it reflects several conversations I have had recently with friends and colleagues that loathed the lack of an ‘after-work’ dynamic in the downtown. In other cities, the after-work crowd is a key soruce of business to shops, restaurants, and bars, resulting in an active downtown core throughout the business week.

Extreme Group is a local ad agency with offices in Halifax and Toronto. The agency received 13 awards in the 2008 ICE Awards, a prestegious annual advertising awards gala to recognize the Atlantic region’s best advertising and design.

One poet squeezed out this bitter piece at a recent Gaza rally in New York City. It may give you a glimpse into what the Palestinians see as the real unresolved issue. Before the suicide bombs. Before the rockets came along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a22CNVrrT-w

The root of the problem has persisted since the establishment of the state of Israel. There is no real will from the international community (read: USA & Britain) to resolve the real issues, as they refuse to instate a permanent and viable solution for the Palestinian refugees who have been displaced by the creation of Israel.

According to the latest figures from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), there are currently over 4.5 Million Palestinian refugees who persist in shanty houses in refugee camps and cities in and around the disputed territories.

It is widely believed that there can be no two-state solution until clear provisions are made to address where the refugees will return to, seeing how their homes and lands have been appropriated by Israel. You can’t squeeze that many new people into the little slice proposed as the Palestinian “state” (that Israel and the US will “bestow” on the Palestinian people, but only if they begged nicely) and expect everything to be fine.

Surprisingly, most public comments I have read in Nova Scotian news articles regarding the recent Gaza situation show an overwhelming tendency by readers to fall into the practice of cursing the symptom while ignoring the disease. “Hamas are terrorists”, they say. “The rocket attacks must stop”. “Don’t poke the bear if you don’t want to be mauled”, they wisely offer.

So here is a crude attempt at providing a bit of perspective to those Halifax/Nova Scotia readers, from the Palestinian side of things. Feel free to dispute this version of events, but remember that truth is in the eyes of the beholder. What really happened is somewhere between the following fictional analogy, and what you believe to be the truth.

Imagine that tomorrow an army of Vulcans arrives at Halifax harbour, having been displaced from their Vulcan planet due to unfathomable reasons that have rendered their planet un-inhabitable, and with the understanding that Nova Scotia really belonged to their ancestors, who had landed and lived in the area some 10,000 years ago.

Jewish settlers arriving at Haifa harbour, Palestine in 1946

This army, using the latest and greatest in military might, then proceeded to herd all current residents of Halifax (including you and your family) into two designated areas: Sackville and Cole Harbour (Gaza and the West Bank). This army then proceeded to appropriate all vacant lands, and moved their families into the homes that previously belonged to Haligonians.

As Haligonians huddled in Sackville around camp fires and in gas stations, they pondered their future. The humiliation was unbearable. Food was scarce, medical capacity inadequate, and the ever watchful eye of the Vulcan troops surrounding their area are a constant reminder of their state of imprisonment in their own city.

Of course, they were always given the choice to leave the city altogether and seek shelter in another province or country, but Haligonians were silly people with salty sea-faring blood who clung to such old fashioned notions like ‘home’, ‘pride’, ‘freedom’, ‘justice’ and ‘resistance’. So they decided to stay.

Those without homes in Sackville and Cole Harbour formed camps and shelters which they built out of scrap metal and any materials they could gather to protect themselves from the harsh winters. The Vulcan army controlled entry and exit to these camps, ensuring that occupants do not obtain any weapons or significant means of resistance.

Palestinian Refugee Camp, 1952

Yet, Haligonians persisted. They refused to leave the city, and continuously caused trouble with various attempts at resistance over the years. This kept the Vulcan army at a constant state of alert, and prevented them from enjoying normal lives with their families and friends that had moved in to the rest of Halifax. So, they decided to create ‘incentives’ to encourage the occupants of Sackville and Cole Harbour to leave the area permanently.

For example, on one dreadful evening, guards at a particular camp (called Sabra & Shatila) in Sackville gathered a gang of known enemies of the Haligonians (let’s call them the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia). They let the armed gang into the camp, then closed the gates behind them. In the following 60 hours, the gang carried out a systemic rampage of rape and murder on the men, women, and children who occupied the camp. An estimated 400 to 800 were killed. (Israel launched an inquiry into the Sabra/Shatila massacre and found then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to be ‘partially’ responsible, and forced him to resign his post. He later became Prime Minister of Israel, while preparing to defend himself against charges of war crimes.)

As similar ‘incentives’ were creatively introduced across the designated Haligonian areas, more and more Haligonians left the area for fear of the safety of their families and children. They became the largest known group of nation-less refugees in the world, surviving on the charity of neighbouring nations and requiring special permission papers to be able to move from one place to another.

Meanwhile, life for the Vulcan families in Halifax was prosperous. Vulcan children played in school yards. Vulcan students attended Dalhousie University, which was renamed “Vulcan Institute of Higher Learning”. Vulcan guys and girls partied the nights away at the Lower Deck, oblivious to the strife of Haligonians a few miles away.

Slowly, the simmering anger and discontent of Haligonians erupted into a major uprising (the first intifada). Men, women, and children picked up what they could and attacked their Vulcan prison guards in any way they could. They threw rocks, whacked tanks with sticks, and shot at anything wearing a military uniform, using any ammunition they could get their hands on. The resistance took to the streets of Sackville and Cole harbour, and urban warfare was in full effect.

First Palestinian Uprising (intifada) 1987-1993

The resistance continued for 6 years, yet the Vulcan army kept it firmly contained within the designated Haligonian areas of Sackville and Cole Harbour, ensuring that the daily lives of the Vulcan army’s families and friends in Halifax were not being disturbed by the Haligonian nuisance.

The uprising yielded no results for the Haligonians, and the death toll was far more significant among the stone-throwing Haligonians and their families than the tank-riding Vulcans. However, during 6 years of active resistance since the uprising, Haligonians formed guerrilla groups of former police officers, firemen, volunteers, and anyone who knew anything about handling guns and/or defence tactics. These groups paraded under a variety of uplifting names and acronyms, like HAMAS, FATAH, etc.

These groups studied the futility of the uprising, and came to a dreadful conclusion. They decided that, after nearly 40 years since the Vulcans arrived at the Halifax harbour, the stakes for the Vulcan army were not high enough for the Vulcans to consider any form of change in their policies towards the afflicted haligonians, let alone the idea of returning Halifax to its previous inhabitants.

These groups decided that in order to be effective, the fight has to affect the Vulcan army’s families and children just as much as it is affecting the Haligonian families and children in their camps in Sackville and Cole Harbour. The suffering had to befall both sides of the conflict, not just the side that is trying to break free.

Since the Haligonians did not have the means to remotely launch attacks into Halifax (where the Vulcan families resided), they looked at options and came to the conclusion that the only way for their attack to reach places like the South End or Clayton Park is for one of them to smuggle a bomb in person, then detonate it manually, inevitably sacrificing his own self in the process. These ‘martyrs’ were to be praised as fallen heroes of the resistance, achieving near comic-book fame of caped/masked crusaders of the Justice League.

Following Role Models. A child dressed as a suicide bomber during a demonstration in the West Bank.

Thus began the era of suicide bombings. Unfortunately, the tactic worked. The vastly unaware Vulcan populace in Halifax began to take note that the chirping canaries they had locked up were screaming in pain, not singing in joy. International observers, previously silent, became active and rushed in with proposed ‘solutions’ to end the war and the conflict. Things began to look up, but not for long.

The Vulcan army came up with a new tactic. To stop Haligonians from escaping their settlements and sneaking into old Halifax to plant manual bombs, the Vulcans decided to build a wall around Sackville and shoot anyone that comes within a few hundred yards. This ought to bring things back to the way they were before the uprising, they thought. The same idea they used with the refugee camps in the past, but on a larger scale.

This way they could control what comes in and out of Sackville, and have total rule over the livelihood of the Haligonian inhabitants. If the Haligonians act up, the army can cut off food, medicine, power, and water. They will squeeze Haligonians into submission.

But the Haligonians have learned a few things now. With some help from some PEI volunteers, they learned how to make potato-fueled rockets to carry their homemade bombs a limited distance. They no longer needed to carry bombs in person into the army quarters in Halifax, so the rate of suicide bombings dropped significantly.

Instead, they now lobbed as much as they can over their prison wall, as far as they can get it into Vulcan territory. While the practice was virtually ineffective, it continued to send to the Vulcans the timeless message: that Vulcans will not live in peace in Halifax and drown out the injustice taking place in the besieged territories in Sackville (Gaza) and Cole Harbour (West Bank) until they face what they have done to Haligonians and fix it.

In over 60 years since the Vulcans landed in Halifax and began herding Haligonians out of their homes and concentrate them into the two camps of Sackville and Cole Harbour, no solution has been offered to Haligonians that truly addresses the humiliation and injustice they have suffered. It is as if this little part of the world called Halifax just doesn’t matter to anyone other than the Haligonians themselves.

In 6 decades, Haligonians lost everything. Any notion of a normal future for them and their families had vanished one or two generations ago. There is no industry. There are no jobs. There are no schools. There are no Saturday morning cartoons. Food is scarce. Medical supplies are even fewer. Death and destruction surrounds their daily lives, as they remain besieged in Sackville, hopelessly looking over that notorious wall, wondering if the nightmare will ever end, and if they will ever be let out.

Until then, they might as well send another message in a rocket to the outside world. ‘Help Us’.

……………………………….

I will leave you with a compelling insider account of the deep rooted causes of the conflict in Palestine/Israel, by Jewish Israeli journalist  Gideon Levy of the Haaretz daily news paper in Israel. He gave this talk in Halifax not too long ago. (From the website of the Halifax-based organization called the ‘Canadians, Arabs, and Jews for a Just Peace‘.

Audio: Gideon Levy

That’s where the features of the Pomegranate Phone start to draw skepticism from people. But the features that follow leave no doubt that this is a gag-ad. The ad showcases the phone as a personal shaver and mobile personal coffee brewer.

Thus begins Nova Scotia’s latest, slickest, and most expensive endeavour into using new media and social networking to pass the message of the ‘Come To Life‘ campaign to their unsuspecting target market. The viral campaign peddles this ‘it does everything’ phone with all the might that a $300K advertising budget can provide. Yet it seems that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of this campaign.

Visit the website by clicking the image below. Or see the videos below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq2A6bi_sDE

The campaign was produced by Bristol Group, Egg Films/Hatch, and Breathe Media.

• Art Director: Dan Couto
• Copy writer/creative director: Albert Ianni
• Production Manager: Collette Snow
• Designers: Andrew Grantham, Michael Gatto
• Internal Programmer: Melissa Castle
• External programmers/designers: Breathe Media
• Production/Post: Egg Films/Hatch Post
• Actors/Models: Christopher Killam, Lita Lewellen, John Beale, Laura Bleasdale, Andrea Wilson, Pasha, ?Others?

Synopsis:

The impossible-made-possible features of this phone are not so far fetched. In early 2007, I reviewed a new product by an Israel-based technology company that produced a pocket projector device not unlike the built-in fantasy projector showcased for the Pom. The Explay Nano Projector is effectively the world’s smallest consumer projector and was planned to launch to market in 2008. The company was working on providing the technology as OEM for cell phone and camera manufacturers to incorporate into future devices. Click picture below to visit their website.

Similarly, the voice translation function currently exists, though the technology is not fit for seamless speech recognition yet (only phrase by phrase). Devices combining voice recognition and translation software are a dime a dozen. A simple speech-to-speech voice recognition translator can be bought from Ectaco for a little under $400 CDN. The software itself is available for installation on smart phones.

Last but not least, a hybrid musical instrument phone was recently launched by Japan’s Kddi in collaboration with Yamaha. See my review of this technology here. It can be played as a harmonica, trumpet, flute, and various other instruments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-76oq_AHHg

The campaign can be said to have three components:

• The medium
• The message
• The actual product it peddles.

The Medium:

A great viral campaign by Bristol, Hatch, and Breathe. World class, really. It achieves the desired effect of getting people to pass around the url to give their friends and colleagues a quick chuckle. The campaign was implemented in Boston, Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa. On Tuesday of last week, 200 pomegranates (the fruit, not the phone) containing the url (pomegranatephone.com) were passed around to people by street teams in Boston, Ottawa, and Toronto during their morning commute.

Yet, there appears to be a disconnect from the Pom site and the site containing the client’s message. It’s as if two different companies were hired, one for the flashy viral campaign, and another for the Come To Life mini-site.

The Message:

Here is where it gets tricky. Critics of this campaign point to how the message is hard to locate in this viral. Even when you do get to the mini-site containing the video clips that are meant to pitch Nova Scotia to the target market, there appears to be a disconnect between the demographic target of the videos and the demographic target of the Pom’s viral.

The Pom’s viral appeals to a tech-savvy younger demographic that spends a lot of time on the internet and enjoys passing around virals. Other demographics that spend a lot of time on the internet and pass around junk mail and viral videos are employees, stay at home parents, and teenagers without much to do.

Yet, Bristol notes that the key demographic they are after is “influencers and business leaders in key markets”, a group that usually stays on top of trends and the latest in technology.

Bristol is correct in that influencers and business leaders stay on top of technology and trends. However, perhaps a fatal flaw here is that the Pom phone is neither a new technology nor a trend, so it would be of little interest to business leaders to visit the site or forward to their contacts. It is just a gag site, and we have already established who is attracted to gag sites. Leaders and influencers are too busy leading and influencing to spend time checking out gag sites.

So, ultimately, the main visitors that ended up on the site were teenagers from around the world, and expat young professionals who out-migrated from Nova Scotia seeking opportunities in other Canadian or international cities. They clicked, they chuckled, some sent it to their friends.

Some followed the viral into the Nova Scotia Come To Life message, and were disappointed. The video testimonials mainly showcase entrepreneurs, doctors, and enterprises. No representative age group was showcased doing the things these expats fled the province to do elsewhere. This brings us to the third and final component of this campaign.

The product:

Regardless of how flashy the packaging is, the sale ultimately relies on the product itself. Does the product deliver as advertised? Is it reliable? Ultimately, the expat demographic left Nova Scotia for a reason. They are aware of the challenges, and are in touch with the motherland enough to know if these challenges have been overcome by the province/city or not.

So, you want people to ‘Come To Life’ in Nova Scotia? Many believe all Nova Scotia has to do is actually provide the product they are peddling, not just market a false image with pretty packaging and slick marketing. What if HRM City Council actually spent time implementing this fantastic 5-year Economic Strategy they came up with in 2005?

I will leave you with this MSN conversation between me and one such expat that might shed light on what I mean (look! He is using technology too!)

Jeff Lohnes graduated from Saint Mary’s University with an excellent record in student leadership and community involvement. Shortly after, he left for Toronto, where he currently works for the National Speakers Bureau as a Youth Market specialist.

First, allow me to clarify the parameters of this review. This review will not delve into the experience of each candidate. It will not scrutinize them on key issues either. While important, a review as thorough as that is simply beyond my capacity for time. Therefore, I hope readers will accept my attempt at deciphering the suitability of a candidate based solely on: Their use of technology in their campaign.

My reasoning is simple:

1. For a city to grow and prosper, it must have a vision of how it wants its future to look like, and appoint capable people to lead it towards that future,
2. Any talk of working towards or within ‘the future’ ultimately involves some form of interaction with the tools of this future, namely existing and upcoming technologies that are designed to provide leaders with the ability to efficiently and productively collect, analyze, and communicate information.

In other words, if a candidate can not collect, analyze, understand, and communicate information quickly, accurately, and efficiently, then it stands to reason that they may not be able to plan/implement/respond in a timely manner to the continuous pace of changes that are needed for a successful march towards the future. Of course, this is only a problem if a united vision of the future is present and if there is a collective will on council to achieve it within this lifetime.

THE SCORE CARD below will attempt to reflect a candidate’s ability to work with the communication tools of existing mainstream technologies (the internet), which may tell whether or not a candidate has access to the tools that open a world beyond Halifax or their district for their consideration, tools that allow this candidate to draw on this world’s marvel when it’s time to envision the future of Halifax as a city with its place in Canada and the world.

You may disagree with the above criteria. Certainly, an elections candidate can serve his/her immediate district constituents very well without ever having to send a single email. “What’s that Bob? Need snow plows to clear your cul-de-sac twice a day? I’ll call the person responsible and see what can be done about that right away.”

However, I contend that a candidate that can get the street plowed AND use the internet is infinitely more productive, and more informed. But that’s just me.

The big question is: can a candidate’s awareness of technology (the internet, productivity and communications tools, etc.) be a good indicator of their capacity for visioning a future for Halifax? Does this mean this candidate is completely unfit for council duties? Is it more acceptable for a candidate to be less apt with technology, vision, and the future if these things are not a priority to their target voter? Where is the line drawn between individual district priorities and the priorities of the city as a whole? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

I will leave this determination to your individual and collective priorities for the city and your understanding of the qualifications you require of your elected leader to achieve these priorities.

So then, let’s proceed to the rankings!

Measurement Criteria:

To offer a fair comparison, we will mainly analyze a candidate’s use of the internet to communicate in their campaign. If a candidate is unable or unwilling to use the most basic form of today’s communication technologies (a website), then I am willing to safely assume that this candidate does not have the knowledge of the tools of today’s productive leaders and visionaries. But, again, that’s just me.

Candidates will get 1 point on their use of each of the following online communication tools in their campaign. This does not mean that the candidate has to know how to program or create any of the following. It would suffice if they were merely aware of their existence/importance and have directed the appropriate resources towards addressing them.

- Website Presence
- Website professionally built?
- Mobile version of website? (For text message campaigns)

- Website contains:
- Bio
- Platform
- Clear description of represented district boundaries
- Contact Info
- Form to join an email list or newsletter

- Press Kit:
- Downloadable/Printable High-Res Candidate Photo
- Downloadable/Printable High-Res Campaign Logo
- Downloadable/Printable Bio
- Downloadable/Printable Platform
- Notable Candidate Quotes
- Dated Press Releases
- Log of Candidate mentions in the media
- Voting Information
- Volunteer information
- Donations information
- Support information
- Online Support signup form
- Online Volunteer signup form
- Online Donations capability (Paypal, etc.)
- Useful links to related external information
- Video clips (1 point for each video up to a max of 5)

- Use of Social Media tools
- Presence on Social networks (Facebook, etc.)
- Presence on YouTube or other Vlog (Video Blog) sites
- Frequently updated Blog
- Provide link-back tags/banners/widgets
- Use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

With the limited time at hand, I am only able to rate candidate websites that I am able to easily find. For those who do not have a readily identifiable web presence, I have assumed they don’t have a website altogether and are therefore marked as ‘0’ in the score card. If you know that a candidate marked with a ‘0’ actually does have a website, please send the web address and I will revise their score accordingly.

Notes:

1. The information in the score card is accurate as of Friday September 19.
2. Please allow for human errors.
3. If a candidate has updated their website to include any of the above elements after Friday, let me know and I will update their score.
4. If you wish to apply your own criteria to rate the candidates, please feel free to use this score card format. You can download the Excel file by clicking here.

Here are some excerpts from the score card. Click on image to enlarge. The complete score card is available as a PDF file Here.

Bedford Candidate Online Campaign Analysis

Halifax Mayoral Online Campaign Scores

Downtown Candidate Online Campaign Analysis