BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

Though following different paths and approaches in response to different contexts and needs, a common pattern can be seen in these emergent solutions: they all use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to do things and organize activities in a way that was previously not possible. The new paradigms in ICT – mobile communication, social media, Internet of Things, and cloud computing – increasingly put the end user at the center of innovation processes, thus shifting the emphasis from technologies to people. This is the key feature of the Web 2.0 model, which explains the disruptive success of services such as Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook by the fact that they all rely on their users to create value. It is normal people and not 'experts' who generate content, give support and advice, define quality, and, to the degree that they are empowered to do so, effectively co-create the service offer: the more users, the greater the value.

Technology is thus not only promising unprecedented levels of efficiency, but it is also the key driver of new forms of participation. The exponential growth of smartphones in recent years enables individuals to connect not only to almost any other individual in the world, but also to interactive services that process and analyze information on the move while customizing content to local and individual interests. The mobile phone has by now emerged as a nearly ubiquitous platform for which technology developers are designing a vast array of innovative applications and services, such that 'app' marketplaces for web and mobile services (Android Market, Windows Store, and Amazon Appstore) have become an integral part of the innovation infrastructure in many cities.

Similarly impressive has been the massive scale of adoption of social media, enabling new forms of digital engagement as never seen before. Facebook surpassed one billion users worldwide in 2012, with over 80% now accessing via a mobile phone and over 800 million logging in on a daily basis. With the rapid emergence of its new modes of interaction – status updates, news sharing, event tracking, checking in, etc. – the social media revolution has changed the nature of communication from mass publishing to mass participation.

As governments take stock of these changes, new roles for 'digital citizens' are defined in a framework of open innovation. Cities encourage the 'digital innovation community' to listen to citizen needs and put new ideas into practice more rapidly and effectively than administration can achieve on their own. In a model dubbed Government 2.0, citizens, developers, and city administrations form partnerships to deliver new and improved public services, enable transparency, and facilitate meaningful performance management.

This collaboration is particularly evident in the area of Open Data, where public sector information is made openly available for developers to create innovative services. By considering information held by city administrations as a new kind of public good – and the service opportunities created of mutual benefit – new technical standards are being defined to facilitate the use and re-use of public data. This makes it easier for an application developed for one city to be adapted to another city and further lowers the entry barrier for innovative city services. Open Data is thus yet another example of how cocreation with citizens and local community members can reduce costs for service development while generating a wider diversity of solutions, ensuring that user needs and behaviors are accounted for in all aspects of design, before the launch of a service, product, or policy.