Designing services?!

Helsinki will soon be the World Design Capital - and the media is waking up.

Last spring our Director General asked me to write a summary on our eServices: "It's for Helsinki WDC application". I have to admit, it took a while before I, a civil servant, was able to connect the dots.

But I loved the idea: Designing services! (F)

I was able to find the similar thinking as did Pete Kercher, the ambassador of Design for All Europe in last Sunday's HS Editorial (F)

I mean strategic design, using design to change the direction of the entire economy. What's happened in Finland past two decades is not a miracle. It is successful design.

Strategic marketing (F) focuses on the customer and his experience, instead of the product or a service. Designing services means the same: excellent user experience is the result of a service that has been designed (successfully). If the user experience is not pleasant, the whole investment of marketing communications is a waste.

Kercher summarized the concept of "Design for All": It is design that acknowledges that people are different, it promotes social equality and connect people into the community.

Another pro, service designer Satu Miettinen wrote in HS editorial (F) about service design in the public sector:

Service design challenges designers to work with people, hence new methods are needed. -- In the public sector it means change both in service culture and administrative procedures.

Taxation of individuals is a Design Service at its best!

We have designed the whole process of gathering data for taxation: money and information flowing from customers to businesses and Tax Administration. Have you ever given it a thought? Me neither, at least not before our Director General got the request to support the WDC applicant.

You take your Tax card to your employer for your taxes to be withheld from your salary and payed on your behalf. The data is also reported for your Tax return. This applies to all other monetary transactions, as well: the bank reports your interests for your housing deductions, while listed companies are liable to report your dividends and taxes withheld from them and so on.

There's a lot of collaboration behind the scene, and it all results as your pre-filled Tax return. All you need to do is to check it and fill in the blanks (if there are any) - do it in the web, if you like!

Good gets noticed!

Tax Return Online got us to the eGovernment Awards -finals. But that's not all: from the small country of Finland we had two posts: City of Helsinki was presenting her design beauty.

Helsinki Service Map is a great collection of services, search and maps, now including Espoo and Vantaa, as well. It is also communication: the user interface allows feedback. What a wonderful way to connect people with their community!

Next step is bound to cross the borderline between municipalities and the state. This was alredy planned in SADe (F).

This all is good news to the Brand committee appointed by the Foreign Minister. There's no reason to hold back the smile, even if the Financial Times does concentrate on the more traditional design..

BTW, Helsinki proudly presents Lahti, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen alongside her as the WDC2012.

You can follow Helsinki and her WDC preparations in
web: World Design Capital Helsinki 2012
Twitter: @wdchelsinki2012
Facebook: WDC-fan page

Are you a brand?

I was lucky on my first working day. We were three innovators, inspiring each other.

It's like a ball game, all aiming to keep the ball up in the air.

But more than that: each and everyone has his shot with the ball! After a day like that, everybody leaves home fulfilled.

We discussed personal branding, the personality of an expert and competence and its relationship to the organization.

On the subject:
Löydy - brändää itsesi verkossa (F) Tuija Aalto ja Marylka Yoe Uusisaari
Personal Branding Done Right Mike Myatt
Johtaja, perusta blogi (F) Harto Pönkä

What is it that entitles someone to speak up in the social media? How do you earn the credit? Who is it that should present the organization, who is allowed to? Judging by what I've been reading, we Finns are only getting there, where the rest of the world largely already is. My experiences and thoughts come from the public sector.

But hey, the same applies to face to face, my colleague pointed out:

You need to earn the trust in each and every communication

And I say, we've witnessed it a thousand times that the mandate is handed out to a pet person who then does nothing. In order to success that person needs the competence, too. Too often power and competence do not prevail in same roles.

That's when the organization faces the moment of truth: how do you settle the conflict like that? You either change the mandate-- or you go on. It has been seen, that the actual work is taken to the person with the competence but the credit goes stubbornly to the one originally appointed to the job. I know no bigger dismotivation than a situation like that!

We are drafting a report on our preliminary trials (F) in social media. Finnish Tax Administration took the risk and went out to the most popular social media community, Suomi24.fi (F) with the promise to answer all the questions regarding filing of personal tax return. Another trial was attending a popular blogging community of a major paper, Aamulehti.fi (F)

Another topic in our discussions was the notion of communities: social media is definitely not another tool in the endless row of niceties for the top communication officers, not for others. The passport is validated with the right attitude and a suitable role.

It's like a market square! Our blog (F) was one stand; Suomi24 Q&A site(F) another. Thus the corporate site Vero.fi is the third, campaign site (F) fourth. - Together they all give Tax Administration its face.

We gave a disclosing party / feed back occasion to the participants. They were ordinary tax officers trying out something new. It was a joy to hear their comments: this was a new way to face the customer, it enriches the ordinary work plus they had the opportunity to develop new skills.

They want more!

I'd rather publish the advice to thousands in the web than repeat it over and over in the phone, one by one.

Most of all, Work 2.0 is collaborative it calls for a revolution in the minds of people. Along the way comes something new, Man 2.0

He is a brand, a living person with values. Those values guide his life, let him represent proudly his employer and yet meet with his customers in a humble manner. He can and wants to share his competence because there's a need for it out there. He's not like the ancient civil servant, saying, This is mine, hands off! He doesn't hide his knowledge.

Public sector is undergoing a revolution. Great many people cry out: let's stay out! We already have our website, that'll do!

What do you think, is it enough?
Is the expert also a brand? Are you?

Empower every man

Robin Hood's sales pitch seems to be the one of social media's, too.

But it also entails elements of one of the greatest truths: do unto others as you yourself would like to be treated. One missionary truth is, that one shouldn't help people to helplessness but to help themselves.

A few weeks ago I read an HBR article by Clayton M. Christensen.

“Look, I’ve got your model. Just tell us what it means for Intel.” -- But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.

The great change we are experiencing has two sides. It can suck you into an endless hunt of more and more to yourself. On that road you're bound to be seducted to choosing wrong, against your better judgment. Or you can get a sort of glimpse what it's all about, and choose to want to help others.

Mr. Christensen writes that according to Frederick Herzberg the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.

Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.

That's why this great teacher takes his students to some very basic questions. They don't seem to handle managing at all, or so it seems at the first glance. But come to think of it, a Man is an entity that cannot separate his private Self from his working Self.

Or at least, the behavior is a co-creation of motives and values: that's why these questions are, in fact, the only right ones!

First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not.

I've loved this social media community that co-creates, shares and helps one another. Then there would seem to be the other kind, like in all life: those to whom everything is a great sales pitch on Me (Myself and I).

Someone once asked, Can humans truly act with altruistic motives? Or should even the rewarding feelings from an unselfish act be counted among selfishness. What do you think?

Who is Man 2.0?

A few months ago I was struggling with "evil minds", the scene and plotting on a level that reminded me of the French court.

Is this where Man has "risen" in 2010, I remember thinking. Then I bumped into the latest Robin Hood with Russell Crowe.

Rise and rise again..until lambs become lions

I opened the trailer (sorry, can't seem to find the one anymore) and completely fell in love with the words. They promised change. I wrote them down so that I would remember.

Empower every man and you'll gain strength.
Are you ready to be who you are?

There's a familiar echo in here. Is Robin Hood getting social in 2010?

Yesterday I had a nice *talk* with Scott Gould. We pondered what was keeping people from sharing and collaboration. Scott is about to blog about that.

We've lived an era of enormous wealth and greed. Wealth rips off man's humanity, claim the humanists, it's every man for himself. Even in this era of social media, they say, the majority of people is just screaming their name. It's all about me, myself and I.

My recent experiences give hope for humanity.

My friend started a fight for her Down sister, as her weaponry she has a blog (F), Twitter and Facebook. It's only her first week, but she's already raised a significant amount of support from her own network. Social media can make a difference.

Her question is, why don't the civil servants care. I have been worrying something quite alike: the civil servants seem to lack courage to be themselves, or think by themselves. In trying to make the Gov 2.0, the good old obedient attitude "Don't do anything unless you're told to" turns out to be the loser's garment.

Fortunately, people want to dive in when they become passionate about something.

Last night I watched Griff Rhys Jones in Sydney. There he heard an astonishing witness to the Sydneysidean concept of mateness. The ladies he met told him that they are ready to give up on materia in order to be able to spend time with their friends.

Then a young woman told what the level of that friendship really is. After her husband had got a cancer, their friends collected a half a million dollars so that he could travel to the States to get treated there. He got cured.

That is Man 2.0.
Caring. Putting others before oneself. Prioritizing the real thing. Life.