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.

Looking For A Meaningful Life

I found my Mitch Albom in Paris. His book 'Have A Little Faith' caught my eye at the airport on our way home from Lyon. It is one of those books you can't let go until you've read it. So I wanted to pick up more Alboms in my Christmas reading cart at Amazon.

Yesterday I finished 'Tuesdays With Morrie'. The story was wonderful. It seemed to have all the answers I was thinking about in my last blog.

We have two main challenges in our western worker's lives. The first is how to be a good human: a parent, child, spouse, friend, citizen. The second is how to be a good worker.

Problems arise when our priorities get mixed. It seems that we are rushing around looking for shortcuts to Fame and Fortune. In that race we pause at the altar of Mammon to sacrifice everything that really carries a meaning in our lives.

One aspect of that rat race was covered by columnist Jaakko Lyytinen who wrote (Helsingin Sanomat Dec 24, 2010, page D4) about his week without media. On his third day he pondered about slow movement, downshifting and degrowth. On the outcome of the information society he quoted Dr. Jussi T. Koski:

Complicating every day life makes us simple minded.

Dr. Koski explains this further: It happens, because our time is consumed in surviving by dealing with different types of messes and putting out fires in our ordinary lives instead of true learning or gaining sustainable growth as human beings (as we should, eh?).

Hence, our obsessive consumption of media (as in hunt for more knowledge to grow wiser?) seems to turn against our better judgement.

Another media coverage in Taloussanomat, (F) hit really hard with its title: "30-year-olds need dementia pills in order to work". The article talked about doping in work and the new standard of workers. Stock brokers with no fear, no need to sleep, knowledge workers boosting their brain with dementia pills, the new office cocaine.

..they're chasing the wrong things..

What is interesting, is that excessive media consumption can actually be explained with chemical reactions in our brains. According to researchers Irving Biederman and Edward A Vessel, every time we learn something new, this realization releases chemicals that make us feel a bliss. Isn't that what different drugs do, thus causing addiction?

Would that be the all-covering explanation to all the discontent we struggle with and neglect we cause one another? That we've changed everything enduring (that can only be built with time, slowly and gradually) in our lives to something drug-like, something that can and will take us high and fast (until we need a bigger dose).

A culture with a cry "I want everything and I want it right now! Move out of my way!"

..people walk aroung with a meaningless life..

And in that altar of Mammon we abandon our kids - and our soul. Taloussanomat (F) analyzed in another article that parents who take work at home actually steal precious time and attention from their children. Trying to attend to kids with only half of your heart never works.

The crime in it is that we're all they've got. Their self-esteem is built on our attention and interest in them. The mere thought rises a silent sob deep within me.

This is where I want to bring in my Albom.

In 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' Albom haunts his reader by saying "All parents damage their children. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers". Fortunately, he also relieves the reader with his message of forgiveness.

Inspite all our past damages, we are blessed with possessing the key to our freedom. We just need to use it. We need to open the door that is stopping us. It is called letting go.

Mitch asks Morrie about getting used to his illness. "It's like going back to being a child again", Morrie says.

This theme of letting go and forgiving, others and - what is sometimes even harder - oneself, is strongly present in Albom's themes. If you were being deprived in your childhood, don't lose the rest of your life by letting your past hold you a captive. Dare to confront your fears and losses. Step outside your anger. Go after anything you've missed.

Be this wonderful person you now are, with your scars and deprivations and all.

Morrie's entire being becomes somehow victorious in front of death. In order to be able to go on to the very end, he finds the small pleasures of life anew.

"In the beginning of life we need others to survive. And at the end of life, you need others to survive. But here's the secret: in the between, we need others, as well", he reveals to Mitch. He dares to rely on Life, totally, like once before, as a child. He says,

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things."

After all, you are in charge of the rest of your life, whether you're going to be happy or miserable. Once the one who hurt you is gone, there is nothing he or she can do about your feelings. It's up to you now. Only you can let go. The choice is yours.

"The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devoting yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."


Previously on related topics:
Who is Man 2.0?
Empower every man

Looking Back

It's time to close the books for the working year 2010. And it's good to take a look back, at the projects you've been busy with. Actually, you really should make a list of your accomplishments, because day in, day out in your every day routines seem to bury them.

And the only thing you seem to recollect is the aching feeling of being only halfway there, too many things unaccomplished..

How grand it is to be able to be satisfied with what you've done.

Just before Christmas I visited my friend in the middle of her mourning. What a different Christmas she got. It was only the night before that I got education on how to prepare a traditional Christmas course à la Häme. There was also a knitting at hand.

The very next morning my friend found her mother in eternal peace. Who on earth will finish the knitting for her now, my friend pondered in the middle of her sorrow.

I left with the knitting.
It is time to enjoy the company of our loved ones.
Tomorrow, God willing..

Creativity or productivity?

Whenever companies strive for higher productivity, they should look into value. Our traditional thinking focuses on opposites which is a kiss of death to all creativity, said Dr. Edward De Bono.

Last week's seminar (Media Trivium, 25th anniversary of commercial radio in Finland) was set at the Senate Square. As creative people crowded around in this beautiful atmosphere, a sudden thrill struck me. What is a civil servant doing here? What would I answer if some one, hunting for top productivity, should come to me in the afternoon, asking "Prove me what you achieved today".

The so called quarterly capitalism means no time for creativity. At its worst it means that a project of, say, 800 days can't afford one single day for developing its own work. Reasonable??

Dr. De Bono wore red socks, and I loved him the moment I saw him. He sat down, had a lovely set of pens to write and draw on old-fashioned slides. His words gave life to lines he drew, the words he wrote gave rhythm to the stories he told us. New horizons spread our consciousness.

Traditional western thinking squeezes us to look for only one solution, the ultimate right answer, the Truth. Every problem we seek solution for, tends to take us in opposite corners, just as enemies. Take heed, said Dr. De Bono!

In less than an hour this Nobel nominee (2005) pictured dozens of situations where abandoning the traditional thinking freed the solution seekers to see in new ways instead of the obvious. Certain mobile giant had spent millions of dollars in search of a solution where Dr De Bono and his lateral thinking elevated them in just one afternoon. But, the few thrills he threw us, showed that new thinking needs exercise.

All higher productivity seeking government offices would do well in practising their own thinking. We need desperately new tools for knowledge work. In addition we should be taught creative thinking. We need six thinking hats! Today's HBR article The Three Threats to Creativity focused on exactly the same topic.

Trend researcher Herman Konings reminded us about how short the time was for mobile phones to spread around the globe. Augmented reality is already here. What else awaits us just around the corner? - Makes me wonder, how taxes fit in in the future.

Mark Selby from Nokia led us, the new content designers, to our common topic. Radio connects audiences with advertisers; CRM in a studio has already revolutionized the means of engagement.

And, let us not forget the power of the radio! Sound without pictures means that we all illustrate a story of our own. Such a content is highly emotional and, thus, engaging.

Productivity in knowledge work?

Productivity in public sector is, in principle, justified. Everything financed with tax refunds must constantly be under critical viewing: can things be done more effectively, with less resources - perhaps even outsourced?

But. A big BUT. Time to stop to think!

The mechanistic models of measuring financial efficiency were based on scarcity in industrial production processes. The quicker you can get the product out of the line, the better. Do these laws apply in society, to people or knowledge workers?

Helsingin Sanomat (26 Aug 2010, page D1) featured an article about mental hospitals and their hard measures in treatment. However, an Imatra model came up: their statistics always looked better than elsewhere, their patients kept coming in but were also let out easier than elsewhere. Others were stunned: why do you what you do?

The answer is beautiful in its austerity.

Imatra looked at its health care system as a financial entity, like a zero-sum-game. If mental care closed their doors, ie. ceased treating patients with early symptoms, their life gets worse. Later those same patients are bound to need help, this time only more drastic and definitely more expensive measures.

The problem in sectoral management is, that all departments optimize their "sub-costs". Imatra, a blow away from bankruptcy at that time, resorted to the good old common sense. They reviewed total costs. When help is needed later in another section, child welfare, schools or social services, their costs exceed dramatically those of early stage intervention's. True leadership!

Researcher Ilkka Tuomi continues on same lines (HS 26 Sept 2010, page C14). Productivity laws that apply in mass production, can severely twist decision making in information society. Value is born in social networks from innovation and production of new meanings.

How do we speed up these processes? Think faster? I don't think so.

Leadership faces enormous challenges when organization's entities entail both physical products (tax returns), process developing (services, education, communications) and ICT (customer applications and office tools). Money is the scarce resource that they all are competing for. Without true leadership and solid vision sub-optimization is a real threat.

Organizations and decision making must be built on interaction. Sharing knowledge is essential. Collaborative tools and a new mindset enable Enterprise 2.0 and Society 2.0, accordingly.

Becoming a knowledge worker does call for a small revolution.

What then happens is nothing but magic, as Oscar Berg, a net friend of mine, beautifully put it: It's actually pretty simple.

Previously on new ways to work:
Work 2.0 comes with a revolution
Work 2.0 is collaborative
On the way to Information Society

Too big to fail?

Recent Fiscal Times introduced me with Pres. Reagan's former budget director David Stockman. This "enfant terrible" shocked in his time by admitting: “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers’’.

Our public sector is now in the phase of building bigger and bigger entities of services. In doing so, I've come up with a similar thought.

Economy of scales may also carry a side effect. As things grow bigger, the number of those who can really understand what is going on grows smaller. Failures and misbehaviors do slip through, giving room to delusions of being too big to fail, so victorious nothing can harm us anymore.

In service chains covering the whole of society also their financies tend to complicate.

Open economy and eternal growth

In the times of regulation the economical ecosystem was (somewhat more) controllable. Now the whole world is an open economy, and a rapid growth or shift in consumption in one corner is bound to carry an effect somewhere else. Whoever tries to foresee the future developments judging by the numbers in recent history, truely needs to be quite a genious.

Stockman, like our ministry of finance a few years ago, Mr. Niinistö, calls for debt deflation, downsizing and a rise in national savings.

The principle is chrystal clear, let's just recall our studying years! If you gain 200 and have no assets to liquidate, 200 is what you can spend. After that, you are in the loan market. If you can prove a future revenue, you may discount that promise for a loan at the present. - I believe the whole world now knows, there is an end on that road of getting into debt..

Streamlining processes lowers expenditure

The Finnish way of cutting back public expenditure is to streamline processes. Up until now we've done that because of scarce human resources, a problem common to the aging western world, sometimes even for the benefit of our customer.

However, the next step must be unifying the common pools of data, gathering data only once at the source and sharing those data pools between government agencies. Some of that thinking you may read in my recent post.

The principle of open data (F) adds to transparency of government and optimizes the use of common data. Nowadays there are many government agencies whose funding is arranged solely on the revenues from distributing data. On government budgeting this means blurring image of the entity and complicated finances.

In practice, government agency A has budget means to buy data from B, also a government agency. B, however, is granted government funding for only part of its functions, so it needs to budget on revenue basis. This all results in a financial cobweb, sometimes impossible to audit trail.

In order to make things more reasonable and transparent, the core function of supplying the original data will be funded by the government. Distribution of that data between government agencies would become free of charge, or be done at cost pricing at the most.

We Finns do handle many areas already quite effectively. But I wonder how many brilliant solutions there are in many other areas, just waiting for us to find.

Disclaimer
These thoughts are mine and do not represent views of my employer, Finnish Tax Administration or the Finnish public sector, either.

Productivity: quantity or entity?

In some public sector strategies the aim is to improve the productivity but there is also anticipation of a new leadership.

In public sector offices instructions used to be signed by one man and then all the public and personnel obeyed. Budgeting was supposed to take these offices to a more business-like supervision.

Certain problems still prevailed. There seemed to be little or no connection between the annual actions and their budgeting; change management and project-like financing arose a problem time and time again. One thing is common in both private and public sector: sub-optimization.

Productivity is haute couture in the Aging Europe

Anja Alasilta blogged about result-based rewarding in emergency call centers (F). Quantities and rewarding seem to be an equation with few solutions in all public sector.

Productivity states that its measure should be, say, phone calls per call center worker. That rate will thus get improved only if "You just talk faster to the customer"?!

Tax Administration took the customer in the focus by early 2000's. Niche experts needed to broaden their horizons, and all of a sudden there was no point in counting bits and pieces. The real issue was to track the whole customer process. What happens to the quality of a tax return if our guidance is A, B or C?

We began to talk about the impact of our actions. Instead of viewing our own doings alone, we now search impressiveness in customer's process.

We talk about the new leadership as something that is insightful and participative for our personnel. We are looking for ways to support innovations and their dissemination. How do you do that?

What kind of organization would best support innovation?