Work 2.0 comes with a revolution

Our minister of communications Suvi Lindén blogged (in Finnish) Arjen tietoyhteiskunta on building the information society, responsibilities of her ministry and accountability.

The National Audit Office (NAO) wrote in its surveillance report 9.6.2010 (F) about the missing results in information society.

For some reason we're good at planning, strategies and all that other stuff on paper - but we don't seem to be able to move on to concrete results. What's stopping us?

The missing communications

NAO pointed out the missing communications: " The site Arjentietoyhteiskunta.fi (F, some content also in English) has been updated quite passively and there is no information on the work of different working groups." (translation mine)

I'd point out missing target groups, too. My experience is that a new site only comes to my knowledge in three ways:

a friend recommends it to you

it pops up in Google results (no matter what you search)

the link has appeared on one of the sites you visit regularly

These three need to be taken care of in communications. Of course, things are already quite a lot more "findable" and open than just a few years back.

I can still recall the day Ota kantaa (F) was introduced in our office. What a thrill: this is the beginning of an new, open era! But then, the discussions grew thinner and thinner. The topics stayed somewhat distant (even for a fellow civil servant). So what can you do; if it's not your thing, there is nothing that would draw you back.

Today the site looks good and the topics are interesting. Moderated discussions are off, at the moment.. Anyway, let's take a look (at the links that unfortunately are solely in Finnish).

"Discussion is closed" -page has a link to .. project site.. at the site of the Prime Minister's Office. There's a loooongish text.. And there! On the right you have Read more -link to.. a third page, with a pdf, press release and - this is good - a video release.. And on the menu bar on your left there's the Web discussions -link.. Nope. Nothing new there: it takes us back to the press releases..

Although I pretend to be pointing out things with my finger, my wish is that together we are able to improve the user experience on these sites. It's no good to seminate links and web pages unless the entity is meaningful and takes the surfer to the goal that has been promised.

Do I have all the Right Answers? Of course not. But I do want us to begin the search for the better together. The main thing is to talk about all this, so that more and more citizens find in to our mutual search.

Missing openness in communications

Communications in public sector is missing timeliness and openness. It often feels like the only signals of life are official releases (missing the concreteness) or registered requests for official statement on this or that. The subsidiaries then come to attention and start churning out the official mumbo jumbo with high respect.. Is this level of interaction acceptable in 2010's?

On the other hand, openness and activity are on the rise in the Facebook. A few hundred fans support Vertti, virtual master of the Ubiquitous Information Society Facebook page (F).

The person / function / ministry behind this Vertti creature is quite bashful: he or she doesn't want to come out. (THE topic at the moment: should public sector officers give out their names in the social media or not).

On this page you can discuss anything about the information society. Do share your suggestions, ideas; give a prop, challenge us, make a comment or an argument. The forum is yours. -Facebook - Data (F, translation mine)

Quite an encouraging message! Yes please, I'd be happy to participate. Here are a few top links I've found eg. on Gov2. Are you guys with me; or what do you think? No answer. Silence. For some reason Vertti really is shy.. Perhaps we haven't been introduced properly?

I can't help it: I would so love it if the Official Oracle of the site would, in the spirit of the social media, make even a small nod stating: "I heard you". Because, that is the only way to have a dialogue. I talk - then you - then I respond - your turn.. connecting, communicating!

We must remember, though, that IRL (in real life), all the representative meetings between different ministries or boards are still far from spontaneous communication. It is perhaps the tradition (not noblesse) that obliges civil servants to behave like a bunch of mummies at a cocktail party. Or, even worse, like in a play where loyal servants race to praise the prevailing circumstances as if there is nothing to improve anywhere in life..

Just like in that fairytale of the Emperor's New Clothes! Only.. if it's not proper to point out the failures, there will be no change.

For a revolution you need..

It's not that we don't have networks: we do know each other, we do business together. Email is floating with stuff to and fro. The point is that it is oddly missing the hottest topics, the ones that are in the middle of the change and demand crowdsourcing in order to improve further.

Is it possible that the civil servants still don't dare to communicate in a less official way? "I have no authority to be the one to talk about it, yet", is that it? There are just the home page to be updated in a somewhat passive way and the official press release to be published.

Why? Is it unclear responsibilities? Undefined content? Lack of courage? I say, Work 2.0 needs a revolution for

Civil servants to have courage for unofficial communication

Platforms to entail sharing (Like this, Share this)

Networks to work together intentionally

Communications to become continuous: no pain, no gain!

Without the new approach, communications is like a relay where no one told the runners whether they're running 4x100 or 4x400 tracks. Bound to drop the baton, eh?

Disclaimer
This writing is an intentional wake up call. Even though I've *gathered this evidence* as a representative of my employer, the opinions and poking questions are mine and mine alone. Thus this post does not represent the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer.

Work 2.0 is collaborative

On my last post I used mobile, camera and publishing as "new media user experience". With Web 2.0 the ways we do things are in a constant change.

As the matter of fact, the only constant in our lives seems to be change.

Tonight I took part in HBR chat, under the topic From Corporate Ladder to Lattice. The main idea is that, not only our life, hobbies, targets of interest and how we carry them change - but also and even more so, our work is under a radical change.

The workplace isn't what it used to be--and neither is the workforce. Today's companies have fewer hierarchical layers. The nature of work is also more virtual, collaborative, and transparent than at any previous time. -HBR

In my mind those two have a strong connection. It doesn't matter what you do for a living, in order to proceed in your career, you need the constant change.

Bus driver 2.0

If you're a bus driver, instead of gasoline, your new vehicle might use natural gas or even electronic batteries. And as you drive along, traffic lights favor you: thanks to the new technology allowing the integration of the satellite - GPS - traffic light system(F). Sustainable development in mind: the less you need to wait with your motor running, the less you cause exhaustive fumes and pollute the nature.

If you started your career some 20 years ago, there's been a huge change, at least in your mind!

Knowledge worker 2.0

Even bigger is the distance between the old office worker in comparison with today's knowledge worker. Back in 1997 when I started with the Tax Administration, the departments received their instructions on paper. Bulletins were pinned on a board for every one. - Today everything comes in email, 2-10 times a day, and the highlights for customers are also published on our website.

My boss explained to me at my first week: "Our PC's are all new: last year (or so) we had just one PC in a team of 8-12 workers." -Today I have a laptop and a Nokia E90, and emails reach me through both those devices.

Outsourcing the reason?

But these are not the only changes around. In the name of productivity organizations are cutting back fixed costs. Good bye secretaries, good bye bookkeepers and ladies who used to calculate our salaries or arrange our business trips and so on. All the assisting work is being outsourced. The question is, do we really gain or lose on this track?

Today I need to operate on three separate applications in order to report my working hours, prepare for the development discussions and approve the invoices. (There is no OpenID, no common logic or user experience. People, even bosses make the coffee, since there are no more secretaries..)

On the other hand, I love to update the campaign site myself, instead of giving the text to someone to copy-paste and then do it all over again because I'm not happy with the layout. - Not all agree with my point of view. How do you feel about it?

Social media is Collaboration!

For us knowledge workers this is a golden era. Social media tools enable us to group with like minded people. In "tribes" we can learn more efficiently on the subjects we're all interested in and also share our expertise with other Like Minds.

In essence, it is this bigger picture that tonight's HBRchat was about:

Q1: What are the major trends at play that are changing the traditional career model?

Q2: How can companies transition from this traditional model to flexible, more strategic one?

Q3: How can we as individuals shape our own “career lattices?”

Conversationalists brought up open dialogue, collaboration and transparency. As things become more transparent, strategy and sharing values are an essential part of the new leadership. Finally, stepping stones to the new career are constant learning, pushing the edges and a somewhat entrepreneurial mindset that flourishes with trust.

The motto for the new worker could be, as @bennydu put it:

Always be humble, open-minded, never stop learning! Coach Wooden said: "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts"

If you're interested what else was said, you'll find the hashtagged Tweets in Topsy

On the way to Information Society

A bit over a year ago I blogged about how to plan services (F) For user experience to be pleasant, the service needs to have all bits and pieces in balance.

A good example of nice experience is how you plan your Google front page. Some might say "nonsense", but I love it for showing me news headlines at a glance. I also love beauty; so this is how my iGoogle looks like.

This year's foot ball finals (F) was my first game ever (en spite of the fact that I loved Goal! a lot). Fanny, our cat, got so excited, too, that we took some snapshots to share with our friends.

I'm a Picasa user (over Flickr) for the simple reason of user accounts: I already had an account with Google. Oh, how I'd love OpenID: the less accounts (and passwords), the better!

To my regret, I have a Nokia E90 instead of an iPhone, so sharing photos has been a pain in the neck. Google's Picasa offered a good option to do the trick via email. Fast and easy, and the results you can see here.

Social media opens new horizons also to government officers, those wanting to share experiences, learn from one another and create new innovation. I believe we need to speed up the development: all too few of us use tools enabling bigger productivity or crowd-sourcing type of innovation.

Public sector in Finland (perhaps the whole country, too) is still in the phase of slow adaption with Twitter - and I wouldn't have the time to wait =) LinkedIn is more used but, all too often, poorly so. Facebook is all the more famous but mostly used for private purposes. (Dear reader, a word of warning: the previous estimation is based on my professional public sector networks and may not represent the whole truth)

I am part of a big team SADe (F) that is building information society and eGovernment in Finland. I'm not saying that government offices' first priorities lie with tweets or sharing photos, but my few examples above are definitely worth learning from. Information society should be innovative and easy to use.

What needs to be gained, in my experience of a year as a blogger, is networking, sharing and enriching the experiences. Only thus can we benefit and speed up the learning curve.

That's how innovation is spread. First there was Gutenberg's printing press. Today we blog to spread our thoughts.

My blog at Arjen tietoyhteiskunta (F - unfortunately not translated).