The focus of this year's Service Conference, which was organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and held at the Berlin Congress Center on 27 and 28 May 2014, was on the 'digitalization of society' and the associated changes and developments in the service sector. In this context, Professor Leimeister chaired the session "Crowdsourcing - new global value creation concepts", in which crowdsourcing was discussed and debated by experts from research and practice as a possible future model for the organization of IT-supported/digital work.

Following Professor Leimeister's introductory lecture on the basic principles, terminology and areas of application of crowdsourcing, three further lectures were held, providing insights into the topic of crowdsourcing from different perspectives. As a representative of Applause - a crowdsourcing intermediary in the field of software testing - Marvin Burman began by explaining how crowdtesting works and the key challenges faced by crowdsourcing intermediaries. The Senior Vice President of SAP AG, Prof. Dr. Martin Przewloka, then discussed the concrete application of crowdsourcing in the field of software development from the perspective of a crowdsourcing company. In the final presentation, Dr. Thomas Klebe, who works in the management of the Hugo Sinsheimer Institute, addressed the legal framework of crowd work.

The session was attended by representatives from business, politics and academia, who followed the presentations with a panel discussion on current challenges, opportunities and risks as well as research needs in relation to crowdsourcing and crowd work.

The specialist area was also represented at the service conference marketplaces: At the "Engineering of Services" theme island, Philipp Ebel had the opportunity to present the project results of the TANDEM project to date and learn about the work within other funding priorities. In addition, there was the opportunity to talk to numerous interested parties from business management practice about possible joint follow-up projects. Overall, Philipp Ebel draws a very positive conclusion: "It was really exciting to see what is happening in other funding areas. I was particularly surprised by the overlaps in content. All in all, the service conference was really great, we had plenty of room for discussions, the presentations were exciting and the supporting program was very entertaining."

It was also a complete success for Nadine Hammer, who presented the Kultig project at the service conference. "The discussions I had were all very stimulating and I got some input on where the journey with Kultig can go. I will definitely be back!"