Meet Don Iveson, though if you live in Edmonton, I’m pretty sure you know who he is already. He has been the mayor since 2013, and served two terms as a city councillor before that. Throughout his political career, he has explained himself and kept in touch with citizens through his blog at doniveson.ca.
In this conversation, you’ll hear the mayor talk about how and why he started blogging, why he brings bloggers into his office once a year to talk about the budget, what he thinks about the shrinkage of local mainstream media, what it’s like to be a politician on social media, and what he thinks about the changes happening at The Gateway.
He doesn’t blog about everything that comes up at City Hall. When his gut tells him an issue is complex enough that it needs a deeper treatment, he’ll use that space. “If it’s a really tough to explain in 10 words or less, sometimes you need 500 — that’s what a blog post is for,” he said. (That quote is not in the podcast, as I had some sound problems at the beginning, the vestiges of which you’ll hear for the first couple of minutes.)
Listen here:
You can also get it in iTunes, on SoundCloud or on Stitcher.
You can find him on Twitter — @doniveson — and his staff keeps the conversation going on his Facebook page.
On the podcast, the mayor recommended Dave Cournoyer’s political blog, daveberta, and after we turned the mics off, he also put in a good word for Mack Male’s MasterMaq blog.
This week’s Seen and Heard in Edmonton is brought to you by Storytelling & Time Management: Tips, Tools and Tactics, a workshop I’m putting on with Ashley Janssen of AgileStyle on April 28.
Learn how to get others to tell your story, and how to find the time to put in the work necessary to do that. Sign up today!
Musical credits: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2 No. 1, played by Daniel Veesey, from freemusicarchive.com.
Seen and Heard in Edmonton 