Co-creative media : theorising digital storytelling as a platform for researching and developing participatory culture

This paper considers the question, ‘what is co-creative media, and why is it a useful idea in social media research’? The term ‘co-creative media’ is now used by Creative Industries researchers at QUT to describe their digital storytelling practices. Digital storytelling is a set of collaborative digital media production techniques that have been used to facilitate social participation in numerous Australian and international contexts. Digital storytelling has been adapted by Creative Industries researchers at QUT as a platform for researching the potential of vernacular creativity in a variety of contexts, including social inclusion of marginalized and disadvantaged groups; inclusion in public histories of narratives that might be overlooked; and articulation of voices that otherwise remain silent in the formulation of social and economic development strategies. The adaption of digital storytelling to different contexts has been shaped by the reflexive, recursive, and pragmatic requirements of action research. Amongst other things, this activity draws attention to the agency of researchers in facilitating these kinds of participatory media processes and outcomes. This discussion serves to problematise concepts of participatory media by introducing the term ‘co-creative media’ and differentiating these from other social media production practices.

Creative urban regions : harnessing urban technologies to support knowledge city initiatives

In the rapidly growing knowledge economy, the talent and creativity of those around us will be increasingly decisive in shaping economic opportunity. Creativity can be described as the ability to produce new and original ideas and things. In other words, it is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or transforms an existing domain into a new one. From an economic perspective, creativity can be considered as the generation of new ideas that is the major source of innovation and new economic activities. As urban regions have become the localities of key knowledge precincts and knowledge clusters across the globe, the link between a range of new technologies and the development of ‘creative urban regions’ (CURs) has come to the fore. In this sense, creativity has become a buzz concept in knowledge-economy research and policy circles. It has spawned ‘creative milieus,’ ‘creative industries,’ ‘creative cities,’ ‘creative class,’ and ‘creative capital.’ Hence, creativity has become a key concept on the agenda of city managers, development agents, and planners as they search for new forms of urban and economic development. CURs provide vast opportunities for knowledge production and spillover, which lead to the formation of knowledge cities. Urban information and communication technology (ICT) developments support the transformation of cities into knowledge cities. This book, which is a companion volume to Knowledge-Based Urban Development: Planning and Applications in the Information Era (also published by IGI Global) focuses on some of these developments. The Forward and Afterword are written by senior respected academic researchers Robert Stimson of the University of Queensland, Australia, and Zorica Nedovic-Budic of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. The book is divided into four sections, each one dealing with selected aspects of information and communication technologies and creative urban regions.

Knowledge-based strategic planning: harnessing (in)tangible assets of city-regions

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways of best managing city-regions’ valuable tangible and intangible assets while pursuing a knowledge-based urban development that is sustainable and competitive. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a theoretical framework to conceptualise a new strategic planning mechanism, knowledge-based strategic planning, which has been emerged as a planning mechanism for the knowledge-based urban development of post-industrial city-regions. Originality/value – The paper develops a planning framework entitled 6K1C for knowledge-based strategic planning to be used in the analysis of city-regions’ tangible and intangible assets. Practical implications – The paper discusses the importance of asset mapping of cityregions, and explores the ways of successfully managing city-regions’ tangible/intangible assets to achieve an urban development that is sustainable and knowledge-based. Keywords – Knowledge-based urban development, Knowledge-based strategic planning, Tangible assets, Intangible assets, City-regions. Paper type – Academic Research Paper

Business process modeling : perceived benefits

The process-centered design of organizations and information systems is globally seen as an appropriate response to the increased economic pressure on organizations. At the methodological core of process-centered management is process modeling. However, business process modeling in large initiatives can be a time-consuming and costly exercise, making it potentially difficult to convince executive management of its benefits. To date, and despite substantial interest and research in the area of process modeling, the understanding of the actual benefits of process modeling in academia and practice is limited. To address this gap, this paper explores the perception of benefits derived from process modeling initiatives, as reported through a global Delphi study. The study incorporates the views of three groups of stakeholders – academics, practitioners and vendors. Our findings lead to the first identification and ranking of 19 unique benefits associated with process modeling. The study in particular found that process modeling benefits vary significantly between practitioners and academics. We argue that these variations may point to a dangerous disconnect between research projects and practical demands.

Value-oriented process modeling : integrating financial perspectives into business process re-design

Purpose – Financial information about costs and return on investments are of key importance to strategic decision-making but also in the context of process improvement or business engineering. In this paper we propose a value-oriented approach to business process modeling based on key concepts and metrics from operations and financial management, to aid decision making in process re-design projects on the basis of process models. Design/methodology/approach – We suggest a theoretically founded extension to current process modeling approaches, and delineate a framework as well as methodical support to incorporate financial information into process re-design. We use two case studies to evaluate the suggested approach. Findings – Based on two case studies, we show that the value-oriented process modeling approach facilitates and improves managerial decision-making in the context of process re-design. Research limitations / implications – We present design work and two case studies. More research is needed to more thoroughly evaluate the presented approach in a variety of real-life process modeling settings. Practical implications – We show how our approach enables decision makers to make investment decisions in process re-design projects, and also how other decisions, for instance in the context of enterprise architecture design, can be facilitated. Originality/value – This study reports on an attempt to integrate financial considerations into the act of process modeling, in order to provide more comprehensive decision making support in process re-design projects.

Using ontology for the representational analysis of process modelling techniques

Selecting an appropriate business process modelling technique forms an important task within the methodological challenges of a business process management project. While a plethora of available techniques has been developed over the last decades, there is an obvious shortage of well-accepted reference frameworks that can be used to evaluate and compare the capabilities of the different techniques. Academic progress has been made at least in the area of representational analyses that use ontology as a benchmark for such evaluations. This paper reflects on the comprehensive experiences with the application of a model based on the Bunge ontology in this context. A brief overview of the underlying research model characterizes the different steps in such a research project. A comparative summary of previous representational analyses of process modelling techniques over time gives insights into the relative maturity of selected process modelling techniques. Based on these experiences suggestions are made as to where ontology-based representational analyses could be further developed and what limitations are inherent to such analyses.

"Her lively Looks a sprightly Mind disclose, Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those." - looking, fashion media, and risk culture

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of fashion from the perspective of ‘the look.’ This is achieved by the wearer (as opposed to the designer) and also forms the basis of fashion media, where it represents the ‘decisive moment’ of photography. The chapter argues that the evolving ‘look’ of fashion can be analysed to identify tensions between novelty and emulation, the unique and the universal, in contemporary consumer culture and status-based social-network markets. It explores the work of fashion photographer Corinne Day and artist Olga Tobreluts to identify the theme of ‘risk culture.’

Abstimmen oder Schwimmen? Plebiszitarer Sport und synchronisierte Wahlen. [Sink or swim: Plebiscitary sport and synchronised voting.][In German]

This chapter starts from the observation that new sporting attributes are growing up unnoticed in popular entertainment and ‘reality’ TV. They celebrate not individual heroics but spectator-oriented teamwork which must look effortless and stylish. Instead of objective measurements – ‘faster, higher, stronger’ – winners are picked by voting and consumer choice. Sport and media are converging and integrating. As they do so, what counts as sport, why it is valued, and what it symbolises for contemporary culture, are all changing. I take these changes to be emblematic of something emergent in the culture at large as the modernist paradigm shifts towards a new consumerist paradigm. This is symbolised in new sports, of which the paradigm example is synchronised swimming. The chapter traces these changes via the career and legacy of the Australian swimming and fashion pioneer Annette Kellerman.