From beggars to better customer service

It's a winning ticket in lottery to be born in Finland (and stay in Finland). No need to scrape bank accounts in order to be able to pay one's taxes nor try to find a way to pay them. You don't even have that much to declare any more.

We've been able to arrange declaring as automatic as possible for the citizen. This is possible firstly with tax card (F) with which employers and other payers withhold tax on behalf of the citizen and pay him the net amount. In the end of each year, payers file annual notification (F) on the amounts paid to and for the citizen. This information is then printed in the citizen's tax return.

My cousin filed her tax return in Great Britain at about the same time, in the beginning of May. She needed to report all the six jobs, draw them from her personal filing system and report separately to HMRC. No data available from previous years. What the service did offer, was a few intelligent questions to rule out things not relevant in this customer segment. 

In Finland tax payer morale is exemplary. Last year we received a question from a customer on poker income. "I didn't know I needed to file it, can I still make it right this year?" asked a young guy admirably.

The latest example is Helsingin Sanomat Editor-in-Chief Riikka Venäläinen asking for help in reporting (Apua arjen pahiksille, F). We need better guidance in order to make it right! she rightfully demands.

From beggars to better customer service

In Italy tax authorities still attempt to effect attitudes: if you don't pay your taxes, you're a parasite: Parassita della Società, in YouTube. In Georgia, previously a Soviet state, tax administration needed to find the tax payers and their addresses in order to fill in their customer registry. The US, on the other hand, passed a law, FATCA, that demands that worldwide financial institutions file the information on behalf of US citizens - in case they didn't.

In comparison, our tax authorities are allowed to concentrate on designing better services to ensure maximum filing (where still needed). It is our aim to automate and streamline data gathering further so that it become less and less burdensome.

In our R&D efforts we try to find the most efficient and innovative ways to take care of what little reporting obligations there still remains.

This year I for one didn't even bother to open my tax return on paper. Everything I needed was in the web: receipts in my web bank or Amazon, self-aggregated reports in Google Docs etc.

Taxation in web bank?

In taxation the outcome is more or less an invoice. It is either debit or credit: you'll be granted a refund for excessive amount of taxes withheld according to your tax card or you are due an amount equaling underpayment. And the summary presents all the details of which the outcome consists of.

In this thinking tax return is my statement on the preliminary invoice. My demands for deductions adjust the calculation of the amount due.

If I were to decide, I'd send the tax invoice straight to my web bank - no more paper invoices, thank you very much! All the details needed in evaluation or corrections already await there. The most used attachments are certificates of the interests, summaries of stock exchange sales or dividends.

Would it be possible to adjust the amounts in taxation while in web bank? At least one could enter Tax Return Online while there, right?

Close the gaps on customer journey!

Riikka Venäläinen described what happens, when customer journey is not well planned. An excellent journey offers all the things needed but only the ones needed. Who else would know better what is needed than tax authorities?

Helsingin Sanomat is already answering the call to development by opening a blog (Virka-aika, in Finnish) Firstly, they want to gather citizen's experiences on poor customer experiences in public authorities. Secondly, they search for solutions collaboratively.

Tax administration says thank you and takes part in the project.

Happy 94th Independence Day, Finland!

This Independence Day also Google wanted to congratulate us.

Today Google.fi is blue and white. Nice!

My home country..
Thousands of Lakes - Pure Nature - Nightless Nights - Snow White Snow

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