The Finnish e-participation environmentProject brief – in English

Teemu Ropponen, project maangerTeemu.Ropponen@om.fi

The public authorities shall promote the opportunities for the individual to participate in societal activity and to influence the decisions that concern him or her.

Finnish ConstitutionChap. 2 - Basic rights and liberties. Sect. 14 - Electoral and participatory rights

”The eParticipation environment is a set of web tools ranging from ”Like”-activism to making legislative initiatives”

The following presentation is in three sections- Project overview briefly- Participatory design and development of the

whole system- Issues – especially related to access for all

The Finnish e-participation environment

Part 1: Project brief – in English

National e-participation environment (OSY)

• Enhances and enables dialog and interaction between citizens, politicians and public servants and improves e-participation possibilities – at a local and national level

• Creates new web-based tools and practices, into a ”toolbox” that is easy to take into use – by citizens, NGO’s, government agencies and municipalities

In practice: tools for, e.g.

• Planning of participatory actions• Deliberative discussions• Several kinds of online consultation

• in e.g., drafting of laws

• Questionnaires, polls, statements • Citizens’ initiatives (national & local level)• Monitoring the work of representatives

(i.e., think ”Theyworkforus.co.uk”)

Execution

• The program runs 2010-2013, led by Ministry of Justice• Part of larger national SADe eServices and eAdministration

acceleration program run by Ministry of Finance• Partners include municipalities, ministries, Parliament

• Iterative approach – first official releases in public use early 2012, with pilots starting during 2011

What’s it like?

THESE ARE DRAFTS AND WILL CHANGE!

What’s it like?THESE ARE DRAFTS AND WILL CHANGE!

Some things to note:

- Bringing interesting content to front page

- random comments, images- participation opportunties that are just about to end

- Integrating with social media- content as well as e.g. login

- Integrating with external feeds-

Key benefits for citizens and NGO’s• Smooth participation in current projects• Active doing, not just being informed • Advanced tools for web discussions, real-time online

collaboration, networking, etc.• Tools for online drafting and submission of formal

comments/statements• Note: NGO’s and citizens can also be draftsmen

11

Key benefits for public servants and administration

• Harmonized processes – increased service level, productivity, impact

• Less overlapping information systems & personnel dependency

• More transparency in public sector projects• Better decicions, more satisfied stakeholders• Better reach in inclusion activities

12

The Finnish e-participation environment

Part 2: Design and implementation – co-creation, participatory design, or what?

Engaging the future users of the services from the very beginning!

Seems we can’t separate the process of building the platform and processes, from the actual e-participation activities!

Citizens as co-developers

• Co-creation • Involvement of Citizens, activists, NGO’s etc.

a key success factor – during planning, building, testing, rollout…

• Gov 2.0 / Web 2.0 approach• Open data• Widgets and mashups

=> Reuse of data and parts of functionality in/from other services on the web

• Long-term goal: an ecosystem of services – with commercial and non-profit add-on services

Special groupsCompanies

Media

Citizens

NGO’s

Civil servants

Researchers Issues

Knowledge

Solutions

ActionsPoliticians

Forums of listening to citizens

• Citizen panel (30 people)– Citizens from around Finland, trying to get a large

variety of people and viewpoints– Meets F2F twice a year, mainly on the internet

• Developer ecosystem (~100 people and organisations)

– E-democracy activists, ICT companies, NGO’s, poltical organisations, research institutes, etc…

17

Open communication & collaborative work

• Active communications through – Facebook– Project blog– Owela web lab (discussion platform)

• Open collaboration – most documents open for commenting in development phases

– GoogleDocs

18

Concrete examples?

• Currently open discussion on the name/brand of the environment

– First, a citizen panel discussion, now a wide open discussion– http://otakantaa.fi/aihe/ehdota-nimeä-uudelle-verkko-

osallistumisympäristölle

• Help from citizens in e.g.– Defining open data interfaces– Views on usability– Views in communication

• We’re still in fairly early stages

19

Bottom-up transformation leadership

Some our transformation leaders from the citizen panel

The Finnish e-participation environment

Part 3: Challenges

Challenges of creating services for all

Thinking about ”special issues” that shouldn’t be special in the first place!

Some special groups to consider• Accessibility and special groups

– accessiblity?– multicultural?– multilingual? – Rights of non-nationals (e.g., foreign residents)

• Special cases – Digital divide– Avoiding methods and processes of exclusion

23

Some challenges • Summarising challenges under four themes

– Access– Interaction– Culture/political culture– Technical/management

• Currently, these are more about the building and processes – as we are not live yet

24

Challenges - Access• How do we break into the mediascape of people?

– Think e.g. digital natives vs. digital immigrants

• How do we allow access for all – with security, privacy, etc.

– are we excluding e.g. immigrants with technologies like web banking codes?

– Accessbility, WCAG and other standards?

• Official vs. unofficial languages– Finnish, Swedish – others?

25

How do we break into people’s mediascapes?

26

senslesss.blogspot.commeriim.blogspot.comjuliasdf.wordpress.com

Challenges - Interaction• How do we respond fast enough? And in the

right ways?• How do we talk meaningful language?

– Inclusive language for all?– Plain language to be taken seriously?

• Even in the government programme

• People are expecting social media –like fast responses

27

Challenges – Culture and political culture

• Current inclusion training in many organisations minimal

• Is participation taken seriously enough?• Clashing communication cultures and

expectations• This is a transformation project, not just

technology!

28

Challenges – Technical and management

• Communicate constantly evolving processes to people properly?

• Listening to citizens without losing focus of the big picture

• Planned vs. emerging things vs. budgeting– How to feed good ideas!?

• “Eating your own dogfood” is difficult and highlights the challenges

29

So is it sounding like…

Citizen-centric,Produsage-like,Top-down & bottom up -drivenEcosystem -forming

Co-creation of government?

The public authorities shall promote the opportunities for the individual to participate in societal activity and to influence the decisions that concern him or her.

Finnish ConstitutionChap. 2 - Basic rights and liberties. Sect. 14 - Electoral and participatory rights

Contacts for the program Mikko Levämäki, program managerOili Salminen, project managerTeemu Ropponen, project managerFirstname.lastname@om.fi

Blog: www.osallistumisymparisto.fiFB: www.facebook.com/groups/osallistumisymparisto/ FB: www.facebook.com/Osallistumisymparistohanke

32

The Finnish e-participation environment

Additional slides – background, theory, etc.

Produsage?• Open Participation, Communal Evaluation• Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy• Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process• Common Property, Individual Rewards

Bruns, Axel. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond from Production to Produsage.

34

But we are online already, right? Yes, but…

Services are ”fragmented”.They’re known quite poorly.Usage and inclusion activities range.

…int’l comparisons rank us low.

1. Etelä-Korea (2.)2. Australia (5.)3. Espanja4. Uusi-Seelanti (6.)4. Iso-Britannia6. Japani (12.)6. USA (1.)8. Kanada (11.)9. Viro (8.)9. Singapore (10.)10. Bahrain

12. Malesia13. Tanska (3.)14. Saksa15. Ranska (4.)15. Alankomaat17. Belgia18. Kazakstan19. Liettua20. Slovenia21. Itävalta21. Norja

23. Kypros23. Ruotsi (9.)25. Kroatia26. Kolumbia26. Irlanti28. Kirgisia28. Mongolia30. Suomi (45.)30. Israel32. Kiina32. Meksiko (7.)… 157. Vanuatu

E-participation index (YK 2010, 2008)

Others are ahead - Iceland constitution renewal online

Our gov’t support to e-democracy?

Feb 4 , 2010 (previous) government ’decision”Finland to be among the top 10 counties in internationale-democracy benchmarks”

Is e-democracy/Gov 2.0 hype?

Model: Gartner

Note:In short term, effects of technology tend to be overrated – but on the long run, the effects are underrated.,

Oh no, more services to this bunch?

40Greg Verdino: http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/2007/07/social-media-ho.html

How do we break into people’s mediascapes?

41

senslesss.blogspot.commeriim.blogspot.comjuliasdf.wordpress.com

• Virkamiehet käyttävät työssään paljon verkkoa• Verkkoviestinnän yleistyminen on madaltanut

kansalaisten kynnystä ottaa yhteyttä virkamiehiin• Virkamiehet suhtautuvat myönteisesti yhteydenottoihin

ja kokevat, että verkko on siihen hyvä väline

• Ongelmia:» Toimintamallien puuttuminen» Keskustelukulttuurin puutteellisuus» Kanavat ja menetelmät tunnetaan huonosti» Tahtotilan puuttuminen, resursointi

Virkamiesten asenteet verkko-osallistumiseen (VTT Janne Matikainen, HY, 2008)

Suomen e-government -konsepti

Source: Finnish Ministry of Justice, SADe-Report 2009

Tänään keskustelu pääosin tällä alueella

Mikä muuttuu?

Source:OECD

Source: Nordfors et al. 2009 (eGovernment of Tomorrow Future Scenarios for 2020)

eGovernment 2020 scenarios

Päästäänkö tänne?Miten?

Towards Collaborative Government?

Participation

Participation

TransparencyTransparency

Collaboration

Sources: USA Gov/White House 2009, Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce 2009, Poikola 2009

Gov 2.0 refers to modernization of the way governments engage and collaborate with citizens and involves policy shifts in culture and empowerment of citizens, harnessing the opportunities of new technologies.

People have higher education and more free time than ever, As well as cheap computing power & networking peer production & participation phenomena, e.g., theories and concepts of:- Networked information society- Produsage- Crowdsourcing- Wisdom of the crowds

Intrinsic & extrinsic motivations for participation, think e.g., Wikipedia, social networks & media.

Possibilities & enablers of collaborative government?

Sources: E.g., Ahlqvist et. al 2008, Benkler 2006, Surowiecky 2004, Shirky 2008, Howe 2008, Bruns 2008

Roles of users => from consumers to fluid roles, switching from consumer to producer (cmp. Social media) => users & user community effectively part of the provider (value) network

However, users don’t have stated strategies or goals the same way as organizations => motivation mechanisms

”Revenue” and ”value creation” in collaborative e-government (& e-democracy) services – how to measure it!

Potential value creation outside of the services itself – e.g., through reuse of data (open API’s)

What Makes This Difficult?