Digital Agenda for Finland: ”Boring stuff” left out

As we saw in the blog post Digital Agenda for Finland: glossy or original? the colour brochure in Finnish and English differs from the original report from the government to Parliament in Finnish and Swedish.

After a preface and an introduction the brochure heads straight for the results in the somewhat rose-tinted Vision for 2020 on pages 10 to 11. Thus, the publication does not burden the reader with the ”unsexy” situation analysis as well as past and present administrative developments, which actually form the most solid and informative part of the original government report (for politicians and officials).

In short, ”boring stuff” was left out to make the brochure more readable.

Part 1 of the publication, Challenges, continues by tackling the objectives and the necessary actions, one area at a time: improving productivity in services, seeing an ageing population as a resource, becoming a world leader in sustainable development and creating growth through the (digital) single market (pages 12-27).

Later sections on the productive use of information, service users knowing their needs, improving skills and access, and reforming management and coordination of ICT policies, have been sorted into Part 2 Preconditions (pages 28-43). Here, too, the objective(s) are followed by the necessary actions in each field.

The annexes contain information not contained in the official government report, namely about future trends, the new pardigm of user orientation, as well as the collaborative process to create the Digital Agenda and a list of the members of the Advisory Board (pages 46-49).

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The Digital Agenda for Finland was published late in the parliamentary term. Waiting for a new government to be formed and to start resolving administrative issues and future development work may have contributed to the somewhat fluffy contents of the recommendations.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Dear Readers, I am still interested in Digital Agendas (language versions), as well as information society plans and ICT actions in the member states of the European Union. If you know something, you can use the comment section or email me.