Trans-disciplinary | Action-oriented | Learning from practice

Real-world problems defy the boundaries of individual scientific disciplines. Developing innovative solutions which can be effectively turned into practice often requires bringing together knowledge and experts from different domains and bridging the gaps between them. Rather than framing the problem in terms of the knowledge known to a particular discipline, the challenge lies in framing existing knowledge from different disciplines in ways that make it relevant to the problem at hand. This is the essence of trans-disciplinary collaboration.

We turn these principle into practice by structuring our research not around individual fields of competence but around broad research themes in which different core competences from our network are brought together in creating novel solutions to real-world challenges.

The Internet and Web 2.0 technologies have profoundly changed the way how people, institutions and companies interact with each other. Knowledge and media content, new products and services, are no more centrally produced and delivered by companies or public institutions on their own. They are increasingly created, recombined and exchanged in networks connecting end-users with professional and institutional actors in complex webs of relationships.

Effectively managing networked interaction and communication with their customers and stakeholders has become critical success factor for both companies and public institutions. But how can platforms for participation be successfully designed and implemented in practice? How can communication and cooperation in networks be effectively managed and designed for?

This increasingly requires technological support for semantically structuring and visualizing knowledge, processes and communication flows. Different stakeholders involve different goals, interests, knowledge and perspectives on the problem at hand. Effectively supporting communication and cooperation in such settings is no trivial task. Some reseach challenges include: How can the different perspectives and knowledge created, exchanged and negotiated in networked interactions be made visible and brought to use, for different actors involved? What principles underly successful participatory platforms which connect processes in the online setting and the physical world?

While some of these questions have been intensively researched in the last years, there is a growing abyss between academic research and real-world practice. In this case, reality is faster than science. By trying out novel ideas in real-world environments accompanied by scientific inquiry, we seek to bridge this gap.

Projects:

• ELOCAL - Web2.0-Platform for Participatory City Management
• KOLEGEA - Cooperative Learning and Mobile Communities for Physicians
• Case-Study Knowledge Base: Participatory Media in Business and Society
• Multi-perspective Knowledge Visualization for Participatory Decision-Making
  
• Knowledge Tools for Social Enterpreneurship

...project websites to be available shortly.

Online media are merging with mobile communications, video and broadcast technologies into next-generation media networks allowing seamless access to information, content and services across different media channels and devices. What happens when the power of participatory platforms is combined with next-generation media systems?

How will we work, live and play in future media ecosystems pervasively interweaving our private and professional lives? What new needs will emerge and how can we design technologies that empower users to satisfy them in congenial ways? What new forms of business or services enabling novel forms of social and economic organization between individuals, systems and institutions can we envisage?

For organizations of all kinds and for media companies especially, effectively structuring and managing large amounts of multimedia content is a daily challenge. Intelligent information and media management requires the flexibility to automatically adapt content views to different work processes, user groups, contexts of use and media devices. While many approaches attempt to achieve this primarily through automatic processing, we explore best-of-bread solutions which combine human and machine intelligence: leveraging the power of intelligent computing with the power of social networks.

Projects:

• CUbRIK - Human Enhanced, Time-aware Multimedia Search
• Panopticum: The Living Newspaper
• Multi-perspective Media Classification and Recommendation
  
• Future Media Network

...project websites to be available shortly.

Electronic services (E-Services) are increasingly becoming an essential ingredient of succesful new products, which combine technologically sophisticated products with accompanying services enabled and delivered through Internet and digital media (e.g. iPod+iTunes). But this is only the peak of the iceberg. E-Services can be found in almost any arrangement of cooperation between different organizations. Especially in business webs and value creation networks, the value creation process involves a number of different actors, frequently including end-customers, which cooperate in the creation and delivery of a given product or service system. As a result, the need emerges to better understand the design and management of complex arrangements of relationships and configurations of people, technologies, organizations and related resources that interact with each other in a value creation process. The emerging discipline of services science management, design and engineering reflects the growing importance of this area.

Technologically, one important aspect is the development of powerful cloud computing and grid technologies, which make distributed computing resources seamlessly and instantaneously available, based on on-demand needs of organizations and individuals. On the business side, stimulated by the collective power of users and customers connected in social networks, companies are increasingly devising cooperative business models in which end-users are empowered to active co-creators of value (e.g. product personalization, co-design toolkits). This is the case accross different branches: from media and publishing, consumer electronics and entertainment to manufacturing, travel, health and finance.

While many different kinds of e-services are being offered in modern organizations and marketplaces, the systematic design and implementation of technically feasible ideas in user-centred and market-affordable solutions is still a challenge for most organizations. In our work, we investigate the systematic design and management of e-services and related business models, enabled by digital media and state-of-the-art cloud computing and grid technologies. A special focus is the user-centred conception, design and management of e-services, which involve end-users as active participants in the value creation process. Some of our experiences include applications in IT, media and publishing, travel and tourism, public administration, banking and financial services.

How will we work, live and be governed? What and how will we buy, consume and exchange? What role should institutions play when it is not costly but ubiquitous to transact?

Innovation is often associated with the development of new technologies, products and services or technological processes. But the development of new forms of social, cultural and economic interaction and organization (e.g. social enterprises, open source, social commerce) also represents an important form of innovation that greatly influences our lives. Such social innovations often develop through creative use of new technologies in an interplay between technological possibilities and organizational or socio-economic interactions. They transcend boundaries: between disciplines, between technology and society, between public administration and business.

In cooperation with the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance we are building-up an innovation lab providing a trans-disciplinary playfield for learning about and experimenting with novel forms of social innovation. The Social Innovation Lab combines courses, workshops and pilot projects and offers a cooperation platform connecting actors from business, public administration and civil society in joint projects.

We welcome inquiries from companies and public institutions interested in participating in and supporting the work of the Social Innovation Lab. Contact us to discuss concrete possibilities most appropriate for your needs.

Projects:

• Social Innovation Lab