Shenja Van Der Graaf – författare

Cities are possibly the most dynamic and important administrative units today. Cities play big roles in addressing many of the complex challenges the world is facing today, including climate change, public health, and migration. This places pressure on public administration and the public sector, to do more with less, particularly at the local level where government services have the most direct impact on people's everyday lives as well as paradigmatic societal shifts associated with the rise of platform economies and new consumption patterns which transform public service delivery whilst changing public expectations.Co-creation and Smart Cities: Looking Beyond Technology highlights ways to meet these new demands with a more robust value-based perspective on public service development and delivery, specifically via co-creation. Co-creation is a way to plan, execute and evaluate public service design and delivery for contemporary cities, a valid means to support the ‘balancing act’ of promoting efficient and cost-effective governance. Built on insights gained through years of experience with and research on co-creation, as well as testimonials from practitioners, this volume presents collaborative and innovative solutions associated with smart city ideals, while continuing to develop a citizen-centric focus that is sustainable over time.Co-creation and Smart Cities helps structure co-creation processes that foster responsible innovation and a systemic, value-based approach to sustainable urban development. This title will be of interest to government officials, researchers and bottom-up communities looking to implement methods for co-creation within cities.

This book critically analyses user-firm technology relationships and socioeconomic structures at the crossroads of community and commerce. It investigates businesses that let users participate in platform development on the internet. An empirical study of the online world Second Life is used as an early illustration of the pivotal role of user participation in design, development and sustainability of digital platforms. Van der Graaf sheds light on aspects of the ongoing platformization of the internet and on new norms and mechanisms for user participation which are linked to values of creativity, community and labour. ComMODify makes clear that robust theoretical and empirical investigation of the integration of user participation into mainstream business models and its implications for platform development is key to understanding contemporary businesses like Facebook, that sustain the internet of today. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learn more about the socio-economic implications of user participation associated with user-generated content, particularly within the 3D software and game industry.