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Over the past decades a number of new perspectives on public administration have emerged, for instance New Public Service, New Public Governance, and Digital Era Governance. Several of these perspectives seem to have the concept of co-production in common, implying that the public sector engages citizens to take part in the design and execution of services. A rather new way to achieve co-production in the public sector has been to utilize crowdsourcing or social media monitoring. However, the way these “methods” have been implemented in public sector is often associated with difficulties, and to overcome some of them we propose an Internet of Things (IoT) approach that hopefully will create improved conditions for data-driven business development. At present, the approach is tested in a local government in northern Sweden in which we have set up a Low Power Wide Area Network designed for wireless battery-operated sensors. Although the test is still in an initial stage, results so far are promising and using sensor data in business development may be one way to improve public sector services. However, our test also shows that there are some issues that are of importance when designing and using IoT in public spaces. We conclude by suggesting that the concept of affordance can be useful to understand how we design and implement sensors in public spaces.

The past decades a number of new perspectives on public administration have emerged, for instance New Public Service, New Public Governance and Digital Era Governance. Several of these perspectives seem to have the concept of co-production in common, implying that the public sector engages citizens to take part in the design and execution of services. A rather new way to achieve co-production in the public sector has been to utilize crowdsourcing or social media monitoring. However, the way these 'methods' has been implemented in public sector is often associated with difficulties, and to overcome some of them we propose an Internet of Things (IoT) approach that hopefully will create improved conditions for data-driven business development, and innovative citizen sourcing. At present, the approach is tested in a local government in northern Sweden in which we have set up a Low Power Wide Area Network (LoRa) designed for wireless battery-operated sensors. Although the test is still in an initial stage, results so far are promising and combining IoT and social media may be one way of creating co-production of public sector services.

The main objective of the Bitstream project was to create a transnational platform for capacity building and exchange of experiences in the area of innovative business development. This includes capacity building for staff in the public sector in Norway and Sweden. The project deliverables has been to accomplish

• A virtual and physical transnational platform for capacity building that includes a cross-border exchange of experiences, research and developments in innovative business development.
• Increased competence of the public sector to conduct innovative business development and to act as a competent authority in procurement processes, and also increased competence of Norwegian ICT companies.

• Prototypes of methods and tools that are adapted to sustainable innovative business development in the public sector.

As the app market expands, new challenges arise for developers. Creating useful applications is important in achieving extensive and cohesive use. This paper presents a mobile application called "The Time Machine", offering location-dependent information about the environment in a town. The app is evaluated through expert evaluation, as well as user evaluation conducted as a field observation with 15 participating users, measuring the level of usability in the application. Results are used to discuss guidelines on how to develop useful mobile applications. Knowledge about user behavior, a clear application purpose, an understandable interface, and cross-platform functionality are all important aspects for developers to consider.

Design of learning spaces has to correspond to users’ needs and goals, how current and future practices evolve in them and users’ appropriation of new technologies. Financial constraints, increased diversity among students, more and more students taking part-time and flexible learning options, etc. have created new challenges for the design of learning spaces in higher education. In this new context innovative technologies are also emerging and the ways people communicate, coordinate and collaborate are continuously transforming and changing, which affect learning space design.

Our empirical data consist of focus group interviews with students and directors of studies. Students preferred learning spaces that integrate formal learning activities with more informal and leisure activities. Directors favoured spaces that integrate their roles as teachers, researchers and administrators. Based on the results of the focus group interviews we designed three different learning spaces supporting classroom teaching as well as more informal learning, which allow students to perform both individual and group activities. The learning spaces described are not yet evaluated. We believe that the appropriation of a learning space is a complex process. Hence, when evaluating the use of learning spaces it is essential to understand users’ practices, their needs and goals and their use of learning resources.