LLDN eParticipation

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See generic description of Thematic Domain Networks

1 Openness
2 Scope
3 Objectives
4 Working Groups and Action Plan
5 Resources

[edit] Openness

The work of the e-Participation and media strand of the APOLLON project has enabled new links to be made between organisations across Europe who promote the use of Living Lab processes for testing new e-Participation products and services with citizens. In the case of the e-Participation and media strand, this has involved the IBBT (Belgium), Issy Media (France) in Issy-les-Moulineaux and Manchester Digital Development Agency, Manchester (UK) working together to carry out cross-border pilots of SMEs products. The Media thematic domain network is open to the participation of all ENoLL members and other interested parties. You are invited to send an expression of interest with a brief profile and an indication of the working groups of greatest relevance. In the e-Participation and Media domain we have collaborated and organized our work in an informal way, which allowed the different partners involved to contact directly the partners in an easy way. This is one of the strong points explaining the success of the e-Participation and Media domain notably in integrating the SMEs in each phase of the project. In order to build on the work of the e-Participation and media strand of APOLLON and to develop an e-Participation and Media Thematic Network, the following organisational model is proposed: 1. A management group, initially made up of the three Living Labs from the e-Participation and media strand (IBBT, Issy Media and MDDA), is formed. The work of this group will include:

- Promoting the Thematic Network and the cross-border Living Labs services the Network provides (as proposed in section 4.5 below) to local stakeholders and SMEs.
- Put in place a revenue-generation model (some ideas are proposed in section 4.7 below) to ensure that the activities Network (in particular the Manager role described below) can be resourced.
- Review proposed new members of the Network (e.g. by carrying out checks to ensure that the new member can carry out cross-border Living Labs work to an expected standard).
- Drive the future direction of the Network through surveying demands of local SMEs, responding to national and EU policies and setting up appropriate services as required.

2. A Thematic Network Manager is employed to support the development of the Network. The work of this Manager would include:

- Provide administrative support to the Network.
- Regular review of local Living Labs "eco-systems" to identify potential new members.
- Promoting the work of the Network by acting as its "public face".
- Identify and develop revenue generation opportunities.

[edit] Scope

In the last ten years, digital Media have succeeded in transforming the global media landscape. Every part of the industry, from television to movie industry, from newspapers to music has seen the way people consume media content change dramatically. The media creation, promotion, delivery and buying act have all been impacted. Business models are changing so fast that the industry tries more to keep old models than experiment new ones. Web 2.0 technologies have even amplified this change of behaviour by providing cheaper disseminating technologies allowing a new media to reach millions of readers with almost no capital expenditures. Media have an important role to play in e-participation and e-democracy as they foster new ways of developing user participation as active co-producers of content and services. They contribute to strengthen the process of open innovation, to maximize impacts in terms of social cohesion. New telecommunication networks as 3G+, 4G, Wimax, FTTx and new devices as iPhone, Android smart-phones, and notebooks generate also new consumer behaviours for the media industry. Living Labs can be an opportunity for conventional media to test alternative business models and new media channels to get user feedback in early stages. At a time when consumers are overwhelmed with digital contents and when every other media is just one click away, getting consumer attention and loyalty is everyday a bigger challenge. At the European level, thousands of start-ups are created every year and have to develop themselves in this worldwide competition. A successful company can have more than 10 employees after one year and 50 after two years. This gives an idea on the potential employment impact of an environment that helps companies to succeed. As such, the scope of the e-Participation and Media Thematic Network would be focused on:

Enabling local SMEs and citizens with new ideas and products for using e-Participation for citizen engagement to gain access to local resources which can be used to test and evaluate those new ideas and products;
Take clients through a structured process for evaluating new ideas and products;
Facilitate introductions to useful business contacts locally and across Europe;
Showcase new ideas and products at a local and European level;
Provide a Single Point of Contact for local stakeholders wishing to use Living Labs methods to improve services;
Share best practice across the Living Labs organisations in the e-Participation Domain Network.
Engage users early in the development process of new Media technology in order to better identify their needs and match their expectations
Support the development of local Living Labs “eco-systems” by working with members to identify local organisations who already offer services to support SMEs and bringing them together as a “catalogue” of local Living Labs resources.

[edit] Objectives

The e-Participation and Media thematic domain networks aims to generate value through members’ interaction, sharing and co-creation. The domain network will allow all players to launch new initiatives and transform social capital into business and make available all the resources and assets. Moreover, it will allow individuals and SMEs to take part in the innovation process by sharing:

Innovation Opportunities;
Research Challenges;
Resources (both technology infrastructures and Human Resources).

The objectives of the Media thematic domain network are thus:

To help the deployment and management of new Living Labs linked to new media, telecommunication networks or smart devices;
To share best practices to help SMEs to easily test new business models with costs and delays giving a good economic ROI;
To create a network of Living Labs allowing to easily test a new media in different countries with unified data matrix.

[edit] Working Groups and Action Plan

Three working groups will be proposed to the community of Media Living Labs:

Best practices and methods to involve users in testing and co-creating new technologies
Best practices to setup and manage a Media Living Lab
Best practices to test a new business model
Definition of a data model allowing unified trans-national testing.

Each group will follow a common working plan consisting in inventory the current methods used by the Media Network. 2010 would be the year of methodology convergence with the publication of white papers. The following Living-Labs have expressed their interest during the March 20th ENoLL Assembly Meeting in Brussels:

D-Mobile City Bremen
ES-Barcelona Digital Cluster TIC
FI-Helsinki Living Lab
FI-Tampere Central Region Living Lab TCR-LL
FR-GPR LL
FR-Issy-les-MoulineauxMedialand
FR-Silicon Sentier Living Lab
FR- IUL Integrative Usage Lab LUTIN
FR-ICT Usage LL (Sophia Antipolis)
IT-Living Piemonte
IT-TLL - Territorial Living Lab for the Sicilian Region
NL-Amsterdam Living Lab
UK-Manchester EastServe
UK Manchester MDDA

[edit] Resources

Here is below the place to describe the list of Resources and Services that could be shared among members of the e-Participation and Media Thematic Domain Network (access grant to be discussed case by case or project by project like in any Research Infrastructure). For each Living Lab, the list of resources and services should be described in the following way: the first entry should be the name of your Living Lab and the link to your website followed by your list of resources and services as presented below in a generic way. For example, resources could be specific infrastructures, technology platforms (testbeds), tools, methods and techniques. Services could be scientific services such as conducting an empirical study with your local user communities within your own cultural environment (these kind of services could be used by other regional Living Labs and SMEs in order to better address the EU market). One of the main outcomes of the Apollon project is the establishment of a validated methodology for cross-border Living Lab activities. The living labs initially involved in the e-Participation and media experiment within Apollon, now at the core of the e-Participation and media domain network, will share this methodology with the new members of the network, providing guidance and assistance where needed. As a reminder, the three living labs concerned are Issy-les-Moulineaux Medialand in France (www.issy.com), Manchester Digital Development Agency in England (http://www.manchesterdda.com/) and IBBT in Belgium (http://www.ibbt.be/en).

Download Domain Living Lab Network Charters extract

LIVING LABS

Issy Medialand Living Lab

Resources

Lutin User Lab is a Userlab", a platform for usability observations and experimentations which is located within the biggest science museum in Europe, la "Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie", La Villette.

Resources