Our first year of operations was a successful one. Warm thanks to all of you wise and visionary people that have worked [...]]]> Dear friends and partners,

Firstly, we’d like to offer warm new year greetings from us at Avaja Open! Hopefully this year will be even better than the previous one for all of us.

Our first year of operations was a successful one. Warm thanks to all of you wise and visionary people that have worked with us to a greater or lesser extent over the last 12 months. We’ve learned a lot together!

Over the past year we’ve often been asked what exactly it is that we do. When we were first starting out it was really hard to answer – we hadn’t really done anything yet! But now have a better idea. You can read a little of what we’ve been up to here.

You could briefly describe it like this: we have helped public and third sector organisations and companies to make their communication more open, more interactive and more effective.

We have developed a model of communications called Action Reporting, in which communication is a part of everything an organisation does from start to finish. We believe that the model is functional, radical and at the same time intuitive – we’ve often wondered why things haven’t always been done like this!

We have also taken part in some technological innovation. Avaja Open and the BOTH design agency have together developed a service that will see the light of day in the early part of 2012. It is a web-based tool for collaborative working, that be called a kind of ‘open intranet’. It allows people to solve each others’ problems and fulfil each others’ dreams in partnership with the third sector, the government and businesses.

Underlying this is a simple ethos: people have valuable ideas and they do great things. That’s why the internet could be an even better tool in the collaborative development and realisation of good ideas. We already have our first customer for the new tool, and we hope to be able to tell more about them, and many more in the coming months.

We are also helping Sitra, to arrange a seminar in March that will focus on exactly that. Sitra is collecting ideas on how to promote more active participation in society and democracy here. Feel free to pass the link on if you or your network has any ideas about how to develop democracy in Finland!

Finally, over the next year we aim to continue working as before: to do our work as well as we possibly can, deepen our capabilities and find more ways to help as many people as possible fulfil their potential!

Have a great start to the year,

Taneli and Riku

Taustalla oli kysymys, johon olen törmännyt viime kuukausina erilaisissa digitaalisen osallistumisen hankkeissa: entä he, jotka ovat sosiaalisen median ulkopuolella? He, jotka eivät joko halua tai pysty käyttämään sosiaalista mediaa, [...]]]> Entä jos joku ei ole Facebookissa?

Vitsailin kaverin kanssa, että pitäisi perustaa nettipalvelu, joka toimittaisi halukkaille perinteisellä postilla paperikoosteita sosiaalisen median keskusteluista.

Taustalla oli kysymys, johon olen törmännyt viime kuukausina erilaisissa digitaalisen osallistumisen hankkeissa: entä he, jotka ovat sosiaalisen median ulkopuolella? He, jotka eivät joko halua tai pysty käyttämään sosiaalista mediaa, syystä tai toisesta?

Nettipalveluajatuksemme on vitsi – jos ajatellaan että halukkaille koostettaisiin esimerkiksi Niitä näitä -facebook-päivityksiä. Mutta vitsissä oli totta toinen puoli. Digitaalisissa kohtaamisissa ja keskusteluissa syntyy myös ihan hyviä oivalluksia, jopa kognitiivista ylijäämää. Miksei levittää sitä laajemmalle joukolle?

Ja toisaalta: miten saada heidän osaamisensa ja ideansa kuuluviin sähköiseen maailmaan?

Astetta tärkeämmäksi nämä kysymykset muodostuvat silloin, kun hallinto käyttää digitaalisia työkaluja ja pyytää esimerkiksi tietyn yhteisön jäseniä osallistumaan jonkun yhteisen hankkeen kehittämiseen. Tapauksesta riippuen mahdollisimman monen kuuleminen on vähintäänkin hyödyllistä tai jopa pakollista.

Mutta sama kysymys nousee silloinkin, kun mikä tahansa yhteisö alkaa käyttää erilaisia ryhmätyökaluja: vaikkapa Facebookia pääasiallisena viestintäkanavanaan. Entä he, jotka haluaisivat käyttää Diasporaa? Facebookiin liittyminen ei kai ole vielä kansalaisvelvollisuus.

Sosiaalisen median aktiivikäyttäjät ja -kehittäjät pitävät näitä kysymyksiä joskus hyökkäyksenä: miksi ei saisi kehittää jotain uutta, vaikka kaikki eivät ole siinä mukana? Eihän järjestötoimintakaan sovi kaikille.

Mutta ei siitä ole kysymys. Tämä ei ole nollasummapeliä. Olen ehdottomasti sitä mieltä, että digitaalista osallistumista kannattaa kehittää. Se mahdollistaa yhä paremmin kansalaisten kaikenlaisen osaamisen kohdistamista myös yhteiseen hyvään. Jos 70 prosenttia ihmisistä käyttää sosiaalista mediaa, niin siinä on jo paljon joukkovoimaa.

Itse ajattelen silti, että analogisen ja digitaalisen joukkoistamisen ja yhdessä tekemisen voi yhdistää, ja usein se kannattaa. Se voi olla jopa bisnesvaltti: on paljon organisaatioita, jotka eivät pysty suoraan heittäytymään “täysdigitaaliseen” kommunikaatioon.

Mutta miten? Valmiita vastauksia ei ole, mutta yritämme kehitellä kokeiluja omissa Avaja Openin projekteissamme.

Perusjutut usein toki jo osataan vanhastaan esimerkiksi hallinnossa: asukkaita kuullaan oikean maailman työpajoissa ja palautetta voi jättää myös puhelimella. Mutta silloin monessa tapauksessa menetetään vuorovaikutteisen median hienous: jatkuva keskustelu ja eteenpäin kehittäminen.

Miten siis saada digitaalinen ja analoginen kommunikointi keskustelemaan keskenään? Hyvistä käytännöistä ja muista huomioista olisi hauska kuulla!

Riku Siivonen

We would like to do more. We cannot do everything ourselves, and we are not the best people to do everything. So [...]]]> At Avaja Open we believe in a networked working world. Work in the future will demand agility, which will come from working with different small businesses and suppliers in varying degrees of alliance.

We would like to do more. We cannot do everything ourselves, and we are not the best people to do everything. So we are looking for new people and businesses that are interested in the same things as us. For example:

- digital co-operation tools

- “government 2.0”, or government interactivity, also from a business perspective

- social media as a “marketing channel”

Our company undertakes varied and interesting work. Interactive communication, which we design and realise, is common to almost all of it. Our customers have been large and small government agencies.

There is nothing secret about our work: we consider how social media can be useful. We recommend different digital co-operation tools, selecting the most appropriate in each case. In the most simple cases, that could be a Facebook group. We support continuous communication in which feedback can still be received for as long as it can influence the final result. We do not underestimate traditional media communication, but we also value blogs and Twitter.

But we are looking for people who understand that co-operation tools can be something more than Facebook. We are seeking out new means to work remotely and co-operate, and we are also developing these tools ourselves.

Our desire to open up society is always in the background of what we do. Wisdom does not just reside among small groups of decision-makers. Judgements should not be handed down from on high, people must be involved. Open communication is one way to support all of these developments. At the same time we hope – and hope to prove now – that this kind of work can provide us with a means to earn a living.

We are not the only ones to have this outlook, so we would like to get in touch with others who hold similar views and values, to consider possible co-operation. We are open to everyone and everything, except onions – because of our allergies, our company does not provide catering.

You can contact us via taneli.heikka@gmail.com or riku.siivonen@gmail.com.

I’m enclosing the updated slides we prepared for that session. I’d [...]]]> We had a great discussion of the internet and politics at Hub Helsinki on Tuesday. Riku and I spoke of the topic “From True Finns to Helsinki Spring and beyond. How social media is changing politics in Finland and what should be done next?”

I’m enclosing the updated slides we prepared for that session. I’d also like share a couple of concluding thoughts.

Riku and I think the Internet is a great thing in the service of democracy. But the tools and platforms we now have don’t seem to encourage negotiation and deliberation between extremes.

Director Jarmo Eskelinen of Forum Virium Helsinki addressed this at MindTrek last week: “Forced Communities: Why the Public Sector Fails to Gather Crowds Online”. He brought up the example of the government run debate forum www.otakantaa.fi where, at best, ministry-led debates gather a few dozen comments. Talk about viral effect.

I think the government fails because of a very fundamental reason. It’s not the constitutional role of the government to start debates.

Dont get me wrong. I’m an advocate of open communication of civil servants. Finland’s constitution, at least, expects a far greater level of openness from them than what they now are able to deliver.

But the real agenda setting role for political debate should be with the political parties. With the people. They give the ideas, they pitch the initiatives, they are the innovators, they ask the questions – not the state. It is the civil society, the parties, the third sector and  companies that should also provide the answers to the questions and act accordingly, with or without the government.

What, then, is the government’s role? It is to provide platforms for all this. It gives physical and technological frameworks for people to address and solve their own problems.

This is, actually, what the state has always done. In democracy 1.0, this framework was the Parliament. The Parliament is a building and an institution provided by the state, but filled with ideological battle and practical problem solving of the civil society – the parties. The parties, then, give orders to the ministries to assist the people in implementing their vision.

In the digital world, this clean-cut constitutional division of roles has been twisted.  The state has started to act like a civil society player. That is why www.otakantaa.fi and other government-led debate forums seldom work. In democracies, governments are not meant to lead debates. The civil society is.

In the following slides we present two Finnish political movements that grow from the civil society, using Web2.0 tools in very different ways and for very different purposes: The Wing and The Spring.