Overview

The City of Munich is looking for new ways to get in touch with citizens who have been less involved so far. Due to digitalisation and the new possibilities to communicate with people, the city turned to the University of Applied Sciences Munich to find suitable techniques to re-establish the connection between the city and its citizens.

Problem

Currently Munich's citizens do not have a public social network available that would allow them to connect with other citizens or to easily find services of the City of Munich. They have to resort to private social networks which may not value their privacy or that do not always inform about public matters in a neutral way. The City of Munich therefore wished for a compelling analysis about whether setting up a local social network for its citizens would be a good idea.

Approach

During the solution-finding-process, the team worked together with AWS (Amazon Web Services) and learned about the innovation method “Working Backwards”. That technique includes focusing on the final client’s needs by answering five “Working-Backwards”-questions. To get more input about what users of social networks like or dislike and what their wishes and expectations include, a survey with 123 participants was done. The problem and the solution were then visualised in a storyboard and concretized with the help of a press release. The press release was a fictious newspaper article presenting their idea as if it had already been implemented. This overall approach helped them to set up a prototype, developed from the customer’s perspective, allowing them to shape their ideas in an easy and understandable way. In addition to that, the team defined pillars (USPs) to support their idea for a solution.

Prototype

For the prototype, the team used PowerPoint and created a mockup website. All the team's functions and ideas were presented on it.

Next Steps

The City of Munich will use the information collected by the student team to discuss about taking further steps in developing a real social network, run by the City. Mr. Schmidt, representative of the City of Munich, already informed the team that it might be invited to present its idea in front of the City Council.

About the Co-Innovation Lab

This challenge was carried out as a joint project between the DTLab and the Co-Innovation-Lab of the Munich University of Applied Sciences. The Co-Innovation-Lab is a comprehensive concept for innovation projects between students and companies. Temporary innovation partnerships - in the form of projects - are created between companies, students and lecturers. Initiated by Prof. Holger Günzel and Prof. Lars Brehm (both Munich University of Applied Sciences), more than 25 innovation projects are currently carried out each year, often on an interdisciplinary basis. The Co-Innovation Lab is structured as an open community. Interested lecturers can use the concept of the Co-Innovation Lab in their courses and are welcome to actively participate in its further development.