The City of Vienna is one of the most liveable cities on this planet, aims to stay in this league and wants to become even smarter over time. This demands – amongst many other things – sound structures that support the increasing digitisation of the economy and society, involve citizens in decision making, improve the business location, and foster efficient and pleasant dealings between the City administration, citizens, enterprises and other stakeholders.

Der elektronische Verwaltungsarbeitsplatz der Gegenwart ist geprägt von vielen, über die Jahre/Jahrzehnte gewachsene, IT Systemen. Ebenso die Arbeitsweisen auf die diese Systeme aufsetzen sind seit Jahren bekannt und bewährt. Doch in den Jahren hat sich der Umgang mit elektronischen Medien stark gewandelt und mit ihm auch die Rahmenbedingungen der Arbeitserbringung an sich. Junge ArbeitnehmerInnen, welche mit dem „Smartphone“ aufgewachsen sind kommunizieren und dokumentieren anders als die heutigen VerwaltungsmitarbeiterInnen zwischen 30 und 65.

Around the world citizens like you and me are being consulted about all sorts of things. What kind of digital future do we want? How do we spend our leisure time?  Where should new homes be built? How much local tax are we prepared to pay? What should future provision for the Arts be like? Where should a new waste incinerator be located? Of course it’s not only towns and cities who want information from us; it’s health providers, transport undertakings, central governments and a lot more besides.

We all know discussions at schools, high schools and universities that are based on books, articles, reports, news, etc.  In the best case such discussions enrich our views on the issues, help us to deal with and understand the chain of arguments behind diverging views and educate us in the art of deliberation.

While the potential merits are obvious, it is a challenge for teachers to organise, moderate and evaluate such discussions as the classroom is far from being an ideal environment for this:

Involving young researchers into the design of organization wide measures to promote their careers is tedious. Getting them into joint committees is difficult as they typically devote 120% of their time to their academic projects, and often they are travelling to attend conferences or work group meetings or to lecture. On the other hand the needs of this group are highly heterogeneous, varying e.g. between disciplines and career stages. Therefore, representation by a few lobbyists does not work. Read how Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) employed cbased technology to find a way out of this dilemma.