2007 Transit Camp

Toronto Transit Camp '07

Toronto Transit Camp is a fun BarCamp style event aimed at finding creative solutions to Toronto's transit authority's website and the user experience of transit in the city.

It was an ad-hoc gathering at the Gladstone Hotel of designers, transit geeks, bloggers, visual artists, tech geeks and cultural creators passionate about transit in Toronto and the TTC. The event was a platform for Toronto's talented design community and enthusiastic transit users and fans to demonstrate their creativity and contribute to a better way for Toronto's transit system. The content and ideas generated in this open unconference was delivered to the TTC for their consideration in their work.

Toronto Transit Camp happened at the Gladstone Hotel on February 4th, 2007. You can read notes from the event on the wiki (right here). Or there's media coverage to get an idea of what happened on the day from Toronto Star, Now Magazine and CityTV. Plus, there are photos, videos and blogs if you want to know more about what happened.

What is Toronto Transit Camp?

Come ready to share, contribute and collaborate! Transit Camp is inspired by BarCamp. Bar Camp events are powered by participation. The event will be well-documented in the form of blog posts, wiki content, photos, and video for everyone who is unable to attend. (Please use the tag: transitcamp.) If you would like to be part of the event, please keep in mind that we are limited to 100 people and so everyone there must be interested and involved.

 

We will hold simultaneous small-group sessions on a self-organized basis around topics of interest to the community: redesigning the TTC's website, creating and selling user-generated media and articles (music, buttons, t-shirts), photography, illustration and music inspired by the TTC.

This celebration and workshop-oriented event is intended to inspire a fresh approach at the TTC in how it serves users and engages with community in order to achieve its organizational goals.

See the tentative (and evolving!) schedule to understand the format.

What This is Not!

Toronto Transit Camp is not a complaints department, it is a solution playground.

We will not be changing bus schedules, talking about stop locations, complaining about creaky infrastructure or otherwise telling the TTC how to do its core business. The organizers respect that there are many hard-working, dedicated and experienced professionals in the TTC who have been able to accomplish remarkable things for this city's transit infrastructure over the years under very difficult resource constraints.

Bar Camp Principles Apply:

1. We are equal individuals in an open community.
   
2. Leadership can emerge from anywhere.
3. We are all participants. More on that here.
   

What is the Skype Backchannel?

The Transit Camp Backchannel has been created. Add davidcrow37 or markkuznicki to your Skype list and we'll invite you in.

How Do We Continue the Conversation?:

An email discussion list (Google Group) has been established for Toronto Transit Campers to continue the conversations begun at Transit Camp. Please feel free to add yourself here: http://groups.google.com/group/torontotransitcamp

What Was the Outcome?:

Some of the Toronto Transit Camp participants produced a report of Community Recommendations to the TTC and submitted it to Alice Smith, Chief Marketing Officer of the TTC.  The purpose of this report is to summarize the Toronto Transit Camp community's ideas, feedback and recommendations for the future of the TTC website, associated communication tools and applications that will inform the TTC's current website RFP process and future directions for the site's continued development.

How to make changes to these pages?

This is done by clicking the Edit Page link in the bottom left-hand corner. Any time you want to edit this or any content page, just click on the link!