Читать книгу Digital Government Excellence - Siim Sikkut - Страница 92

I did not manage so well to get some politicians to understand what digitalization means and why we needed to invest in it. I wanted them to look into the future more, when factories are not the only working places, and what sort of opportunities this creates for doing work in Finland. Getting them to understand that world is changing around us.

We were told that public sector ICT was very expensive and spending too much money. We even had some ministers who did not understand that everything in the government needed ICT to work, or staff such as police officers would have to go back to using paper and pencil. This meant that money had to be put into ICT for it to work.

I think I did not find the right channels for this message. Looking back, we could have perhaps early on done more benchmarking or showcasing on how much money other countries were committing to digital government. Looking at it now, I do not blame the politicians but myself—that I was not able to provide the right material or background for them to understand what needed to be the way forward.

The thing is that I am not the person who wants to be in the public spotlight. All my predecessors had been in IT news and other professional media continuously. I told to my bosses already in our first call that this was my handicap. Perhaps a publicly more-visible leading role would have also helped to make my case with politicians, too.