Proudly presenting: Experimental Finland

Long time, no see is an expression quite suitable here, I'd say. It seems that in order to blog in multiple languages one needs multiple audiences, too. Past year I've received constant pleas to blog in English, so let me (re)present myself :)

I came to Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in May 2016, invited to build a digital platform for co-creating and (crowd-) funding small scale experiments.

After 19 years of multiple mini careers under one employer, the Finnish Tax Administration (FTA), it was quite refreshing. Everything I had learned was now needed.

The most valuable asset being strong networks floating with wisdom and knowledge. Otherwise our small - no matter, how energetic a - team would have been facing practically a

Mission impossible 

Originally I was supposed to do the trick in 7 months. A promise had been made to deliver the platform by the end of 2016. So I started with reading the background research describing the challenges stopping innovations and experimental developing. Endless meetings were the pool of wisdom and equipped us with enough tools to design the hazy blueprint we wanted to breath into life. In October we held a two-day hackathon where three teams competed and were all rewarded for their ideation. Of the competition works an anonymous jury finally chose one team to build the platform with us.

Place to Experiment beta was ready to welcome its first experiments Mid January 2017. Then we had a few months of live development, getting ready to really go public with the platform.

Kokeilun paikka was launched in May 3rd 2017 by our Minister Ms. Anu Vehviläinen. The very next day, as part of Tulevaisuuden valtiopäivät, (English at the bottom of the page) Mr. Sipilä's Government convened for a plenary session in front of a live audience. There one of the practical tools for democracy presented to the Gov't by Ms. Vehviläinen was Place to Experiment. It was an honor to be launched in such a once-in-a-lifetime celebration for the centennial Republic of Finland.

Finland acknowledged internationally 

What has brought Finland international fame, is the systematic approach, as mentioned by the report of OECD: Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges. Over and over again, the following three elements are highlighted:

• Mentioning experiments in the Government program
• Team situated in the PMO 
• Digital platform to support the work

In practice, the Gov't key project of implementing experimental culture is lead by a small team working at the Prime Minister's Office. A lot of our work is making networks and outcomes visible, sharing information and making the change where old ways are piling up.

Psst, not for the first time!

Back in 2010 I got a task to assist in the work of GAO as they we're preparing an assignment for Obama Administration. Mr. Obama asked GAO to look into best practices in tax administration around the globe, and the Finnish Tax Card Online grabbed their attention. During numerous conference calls it became obvious that gathering taxation data from employers, lenders etc. and preparing the tax proposal for the customer was the big innovation. Tax Card Online was a tool to adjust taxes withheld to the final assessment. In addition, eServices provided a more efficient way to gather customer data thus enabling cost savings for the FTA.

More details in the following reports:
GAO Report to Congressional Requesters
US Senate, Hearing before the Committee on Finance


What next? I have been asked to present the Place to Experiment in Urban Futures Conference February in Vienna. The Austrians learned about our platform while in Oslo..

Can't wait to see what else AD 2018 will bring about. Let's share the journey, shall we?

Open data connects taxation with public spending

Knowledge is power, they say. In western countries we aim to control public decision making by making it transparent and opening it for discussion. The voters then have the power to change the decision makers they're unhappy with.

Doesn't the Arab Spring source from lack of that openness?

When we think of the complex causal connections within societies, it is obvious that the voting power is distributed unevenly. How do you care about something you don't understand?

Open data enables democracy

The recent development in ICT comes in handy. Open data makes, say, presenting government spending in a more conceivable way much easier than the dead-boring budget ledgers could ever achieve.

Apps4Finland is a competition that has really boosted innovation for a few years now. It has invited IT nerds to come up with stunning solutions of presenting data. But it is also advancing open government with invitations to open data.

My personal favorite is data visualization. Due to my background, here are a few examples that are closely related to taxation.

Taxes and other payments as a proportion of a working day

A day as an tax payer (F) describes with a watch, how your gross earnings would be divided into different payments. Click the watch for further information. Hovering the mouse above the watch takes you further in details.

First section of your earnings belongs to you, it is your net salary. Second section will cover your municipality tax and the third your state tax. The fourth sector is your share of pension fees and the fifth section will be spent on other minor fees.

Tax receipt shows how you finance the society

Tax receipt (F), on the other hand, shows you, based on your salary, how you will be financing public spending. The application is based on state budget and general information of tax percentages. Since the state budget is quite difficult with its bureaucratic wordings to apprehend, this is quite a nice way to get a hold of the bigger picture of government spending.

Yet another strong symbol of the Nordic openness and equality in Finland is that Tax Administration opens the so called public data on how individuals actually were taxed each year. Tax Administration publishes on its website information on
How the publication of data is carried out (F)
What is included in the public data (F)

Public data can be used to show how the tax laws apply to different tax payer groups. After the people have the information, they will be more able to analyze it and draw conclusions on their society, respectively. And we'll be one step closer to democracy.

Taxation in Twitter?

From the Finnish perspective it looks awesome: behind the Atlantic they're already using social media to help people file their tax returns!

Okay, it's a tax consultancy business.. And sure, the taxation differs from what we have here in Finland. Plus, we Finns in Twitter are so few..

A question to you: do you remember seeing another article, say in six months, about this agency and its thoughts on social media? I really hate the constant search; browsing all the tags and link lists and bookmarks and coming out empty handed, all the same =(

Mashable wrote about a Twitter team of fourteen, ready to serve on this new channel. I guess here, in the middle of the snow, the first ones of us only start to stretch our boundaries towards the new media.

So it seems quite a wild thing to handle questions concerning taxation with only 140 marks. But let's take a look at the tweets:

Hi Mike. Which browser are you using? Site is up and humming along. Let me know how we can help. ^sg

Isn't that just the basic customer service on how to use our products? We could do that.

Tax councelling in Twitter?! Or any other public conversation? We're are being careful since the information in taxation and our customership are private. On the other hand, where the customers share topics in conversation there they seek for advice with each other. And if there is no one to know for sure, they're bound to find also some wrong answers. So wouldn't it be just great to make sure the advice given is correct?

The team is taking the service to new channels (to broaden its funnel) where new customers can be addressed and forwarded to the real answer, longer than just the famous 140 marks.

Where's my refund? Good question. Here's an answer: http://bit.ly/dr5wbB ^C

This is multi-channel at its best, Twitter, a blog and a community site.

Mashable was also pondering whether the team will have enough resources once the rush heats up as the April 15th draws near. All the best to you, Twitter Team!

By that time we are only starting our business here in Finland. The pre-filled tax returns start arriving in mail after which you're supposed to check and correct the income and the deductions. This year you can file rental income in the web. Stay tuned.