Let’s be responsible, let’s be digital.
What if a paperless oriented administration was the solution to make our lives easier and greener?
Well hello everyone, being the new guy around the agency I figured I should first introduce myself. My name is Xavier Oyharcabal (One comment on this blog if you’ve failed to spell it right…and be honest)!! I am a 22 years old French student from Toulouse. (You will know more about me in a future post).
I landed in Varna about a week ago to work for the next six months as an intern with my amazing colleagues at Euro RSCG 4D Bulgaria. The way I have found the agency is in itself quite interestingly “Digital”. I first contacted Euro RSCG 4D Bulgaria on Twitter, and then I used LinkedIn as my Online CV to eventually finalize the process via E-mail.
It may sound nice to you, but to be honest, it took me an incredible amount of paperwork management to make this opportunity happen. Working sixty kilometers away from Toulouse where all the administrative bodies I needed to contact were located did not make the challenge any easier. I mean, have you ever felt this terrible frustration when, somehow, you could not possibly find an important paper just THE particular day you needed it… when before it was all up in your face? Did you ever have to rush to the city hall in order to get an official document before the closing hour? And the worse would certainly be to find yourself facing a dreadful never ending line of people separating you from your grail!! Awful isn’t it? Well, what if all this could be part of the past once and for all?
If we really think about the advancement of technology today and its potential benefits to government bodies, individuals and the environment, this is definitely an attainable ideal. Some countries such as Denmark, New Zealand or South Africa have actually adopted a digital administration system and it works awesome.
In Denmark the process started around 2002 with the goal of going paperless by 2012. It did take some regulations amendments towards the electronic use of official data. But eventually the system seems to satisfy the Danish Ministry of Transport for the least.
All in all, Governments around the world have started to identify the potential benefits of switching from a paper based administration to a Digital based administration management:
- ● Making mandatory procedural forms readily available from anywhere in the world, at any given anytime.
- ● Capturing, processing, transferring, filing and storing large amount of documents without any intermediaries.
- ● Saving working space, time, mailing or shipping costs in the case of an office address move.
- ● Reduce the risk of loss or misplacement of important documents.
- ● And last but not least, reducing forest destruction.
In Bulgaria, since February 2010 the government and municipalities officially started to digitalize their administrations in a move to provide clear and transparent services for citizens and businesses that will be protected by digital signatures to avoid any falsifications. Municipalities soon embraced the trend. In October 2010 the small town of Ihtiman (14 000 inhabitants) was the 1st Bulgarian municipality to implement an electronic archive thanks to a grant from the EU project for “Improvement of Administrative Services through Development of e-Government.” We at Euro RSCG 4D salute this move towards these democratic practices as we think it could foster the implication of Bulgarian citizens in the betterment of their towns much like Paris which already involves its citizens in its developing projects so they can express their opinions.
These measures should definitely enjoy more press and television coverage as they represent potential sources of employment for the young unemployed while also reducing paper consumption in these days of environment concerns.————————————————————————————————————–
Euro RSCG 4d Bulgaria is based in Sofia, 18 Ivan Vazov street.
We are specialists in digital strategy and consultant in communication online.
Our clients are the largest companies worldwide such as Carrefour, Volkswagen, Societe generale, Edenred BACB, Eon, Solvay, etc
Our main team comprise of Nicolas Galand, Alexandre Glas, Biliana Bogdanova, Zdravko Totinov, Martin Zhelyazkov.
You can send us an email to contact@eurorscg4d.bg or find us on Twitter @4d_bulgaria
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Interesting post, I’m myself very positive with all improvement concerning e-governments. however I’m wondering what is your point of view about for 2 points fogotten in your post : 1/ “privacy”; I mean all the data will be now saved on server and we know that this can be easily hacked! Reading your post, I have the feeling that everything is great with the e-governments ; however I believe that everyone need to be educated knowing the pro & cons of this new administrative way. 2/ Is it not something that could increase the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited (digital divide). I’m asking this question as when I’m going to administration, I have already the feeling that it’s mainly people facing this terrible “digital divide” ; isn’t it!
Hi Nikolai, thanks for commenting (I see you’ve failed pronouncing my name)!! Good because I’m more than happy to answer the two concerns that you’ve very well pinpointed. First I do think that our laws will need to be adapted to protect the citizens. When I was mentioning that “It did take some regulations amendment towards the electronic use of official data” I was referring to the fact that the Danish government had taken preliminary measures to respond this controversial issue back in 2002-2003. Then when they have designed their “E-GOVERNMENT STRATEGY 2007-2010″, officials state (p.14) that “Information & services must be accessible and securely protected, in order for everyone to have confidence in the material being correct, reliable and subject to the requisite confidentiality”.
Yet it is true that people say what they want to say! If for instance secret services want to find info on individuals, they will find a way towards that info. But let’s be honest, it has always been and will forever be this way. And to finish with your 1st point, I think people will be more prone to provide authorities with their private information if the tendency leads to the prosecution of crimes and frauds. Secondly I do not see the “digital divide” as a problem but as an opportunity. What I mean by that is that today the Internet is a paid service, however the inceptor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee originally meant it to be a free accessible resource. As the broadband gets better and better while getting less expensive, we might as well find ways to provide people with limited access to the web with a free minimum internet access. Concerning the digital education of generations, I have the intention to cover it in another post as we could actually create employment for young digitally savvy people to teach older & younger generations how to be more digitally efficient. In that sense schools like Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock (Scotland)have bought iPads instead of books to their pupils in order to prepare them for the future. Of course it will only be top elitists schools. But we might see governments subsidize their education system to fight for a race to digital education similar to that race for space in the 60′s which has led to the economical domination of the United States at the end of the twentieth century. Or do you think that will have a negative impact for?
I discovered that blog 30 mins ago and I find it really interesting. ( I did not find it difficult with the pronciation, because I suppose It’s kind of French name but I speak it)
On the one,as a part from the Bulgarian community, I believe that using an digital system will ease the citizens and will also resolve one of the biggest problem in Bulgaria in terms of the administration-THE RED TAPE. Everyone appreciates the idea of digital data base which is all right, but on the other hand according to one of the recent surveys, Bulgarian engineers produce a big percentage from the world most dangerous computer viruses(such as worms etc.)
So, it arises the question how safe it is.
The bright side of that kind of organization of documents decreases the levels of using pappers, so the majority of the population will apreciate the idea,because it has utterly eco-friendly behaviour towards the nature.
Hope it have been realized in Bulgarian by at least 2012
Thanks for commenting Miro. You are totally right. Although Digital data storage is fairly eco-friendly safety remains the major issue.
But I guess everything has its downturns. In the end it all comes down to how one handles the known risks. Technology as well as hackers are doomed to evolve. If hackers did not exist we would never try to work for the betterment of anti-virus softwares and the security of Internet networks. The important lesson here is mostly to make the effort to see, think and act forward rather being comfortable with the acquired knowledge. Complacency leads to obsolescence this is why it is important to keep thinking anew and create over and over again. Hopefully law institutions will also update as society follows the rhythm of technology advancements in order to make sure citizens are protected.
Have you seen the film ‘The Net’ starring Sandra Bullock, it is not a new release (1995 maybe) but it’s a good one because it desribes the future situation in details. All of her friends(secret,private conversations) were in the net( Facebook, My Space, Twitter, Skype) her money was in the net ( e-pay, different kind of e-based bank accounts), I think she had an virtual boyfriend. Did i mention she was a software engineer as well (her work as in the Net) ?! And one day ‘boooof’ someone pressed ‘DELETE’ instead of her.
In my oppinion its better,firstly, to built a safe virtual space, protected by hackers and viruses after that to think about that kind of digital sytem which is the best(or the beast).
It’s depends on how we use it and which side of the thing we look on.
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