This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2018, held in Žilina, Slovakia, in June 2018. The 14 revised full papers and the three revised short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on architectures and management; data analytics and models; community and public collaboration; innovations and digital transformation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2016, held in Vienna, Austria, in June 2016. The 12 revised full papers presented together with two short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on navigation and data management; monitoring and decision making; coding and security; collaboration and workflow; routing and technology; topic and object tracking.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2021, held in Bamberg, Germany, in May 2021 as a hybrid event. The 14 full papers and 2 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. One short invited paper is also included. The papers focus on topics such as services for critical infrastructure; network architecture for communities; applications and services supporting work and life; community data and visualization; technology empowers industry processes; and future community support.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2017, held in Darmstadt, Germany, in June 2017. The 12 revised full papers presented together with two short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Social Networks; Cooperative Networks; Optimization Algorithms; Infrastructure Planning; Energy Management; Short Papers.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2019, held in Wolfsburg, Germany, in June 2019. The 16 revised full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on communication systems; teaching and collaboration; smart cities; innovations and digital transformation; data analytics and models; community and quality.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2020, held in Bhubaneswar, India, in January, 2020. The 16 revised full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. The papers focus on all aspects of: communities and social networks; information and system security; cloud and network security; communication and networks; and data analytics and e-governance.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2021, held in Bamberg, Germany, in May 2021 as a hybrid event. The 14 full papers and 2 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. One short invited paper is also included. The papers focus on topics such as services for critical infrastructure; network architecture for communities; applications and services supporting work and life; community data and visualization; technology empowers industry processes; and future community support.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Innovations for Community Services, I4CS 2023, held in Bamberg, Germany, in September 2023. The 15 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. One invited talk in full-paper length is included in the volume. The papers focus on topics such as distributed architectures and frameworks for community services, advanced applications regarding digital communities on the move, new trends of socialization covering the ambient work and living of digital societies.

Advance praise for Service Innovation: "To the CEOs of all service companies I deal with: READ THIS BOOK!" -- Dave Wascha, senior director, Bing Product Management, Microsoft Corporation "Lance Bettencourt deftly blends his academic and consulting experience to provide an example-rich, readable, practical, and innovative discussion of service innovation." -- Leonard Berry, coauthor of Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic "Provides the robust framework to design services that unlock growth opportunities for every business." -- Lance Reschke, vice president, Ceridian Corporation "The tools and guidance in this book will inspire companies, small and large, to create effective and innovative services that are desperately needed." -- Mary Jo Bitner, Ph.D., W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, and coauthor of Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm "Cracks the code from the fuzzy front end through the complete life cycle of Service Innovation." -- Angelo Rago, division vice president, Global Customer Services, Abbott Medical Optics "Filled with rich examples of how firms can innovate service through helping customers get jobs done." -- Stephen W. Brown, Ph.D., W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University "Any leader intent on providing distinctive value to customers must read Service Innovation." -- Michael Reynolds, staff vice president, Commercial Marketing, WellPoint, Inc. If there’s one truism about the service sector, it's that businesses don't succeed by inventing a better mousetrap; they succeed by finding the best, most cost-effective way to get rid of their customers' mice. In industries ranging from heavy machinery to health care to financial services to consumer goods, service innovation is helping businesses find new revenue streams--and enhance existing ones--by satisfying their customer's need to get things done. Few understand this better than Lance Bettencourt, a strategy adviser at Strategyn and a leading educator in management innovation consulting. And in Service Innovation, Bettencourt gives a master's class on the art and science of creating breakthrough service products. True service innovation demands that you shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. To achieve this shift in your business--one that takes you from making educated guesses to building a clear model to guide service innovation--Bettencourt instructs on the finer points of how to rethink your approach to the customer's needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. Bettencourt mines nearly 20 years' experience in teaching and advising clients with service- and product-dominant businesses to demonstrate proven ways you can build, streamline, and focus your company's service product innovation processes. Among the numerous key ideas and practices are: Insight on understanding the different types of clients you serve—and how your products deliver value to them Ways to design specific frameworks for discovering service innovation opportunities for new, improved, and supplementary service products Practical guidance on staying focused on the "fuzzy front end" of service innovation The fundamental elements of a winning service strategy Finding new ways to help people solve problems and get things done is why there are goods and services in the first place. And in Service Innovation, Lance Bettencourt fills a vital need by delivering the essential guide that can put your business on the latest frontier of value creation.