Further Insights on Finland’s Citizens Rights to Internet

I’ve been interviewed by Dario Salvelli for Wired Magazine about Finland and the recent announcement (1st of July 2010) of the legal right for every Finnish citizen to have access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.

The article was published on Wired Italia but since it offers some interesting stats and insights I thought to share an English version here on my blog:

Enjoy it and as usual feel free to share your thoughts with comments or via twitter @vascellari! (please remember to link back to this post so it will be easier to track and aggregate the conversation, thanks).

Andrea

Italy, 2010. Families with no PC were reduced by only 2% in the last 8 years, yet new families subscriptions of users that are willing to pay a surcharge on fees just to have a connection to 100 Megabit grew of 40% and about 78% of households with broadband access has at least one child under 18 years old. An incentive to implement the NGN (next-generation high-speed network) in Italy and not wait for the 2015 deadline set by AGCOM to assign broadband services to reduce the digital divide.

In this context, is it possible to imagine a law that includes the Internet as a fundamental right for Italian citizens? Other European countries are heading in this direction. On July 1, Finland became the first nation in the world in which every citizen has the right to access the Internet with a minimum of 1Mbps connection. This law will serve about 4000 Finnish families that still suffer from digital divide and will force providers to install cables out in Finnish rural areas where 5.3 million people live.

The village of Karvia this year will already have a 100MB connection. The plan of the Finnish Government is in fact broader and plans on providing access to 100 Mbps in 99% of the territory available by 2015 by using fiber optic and agreements between mobile operators who already use UMTS900 technology to build and expand the NGN.

What Finland has achieved is unique not only in terms of technology but especially socially – says Andrea Vascellari, the CEO of itive.net, a digital strategy agency with offices in Finland and New York – This step also represents a turning point for strategy and communications for business, government, education systems and public institutions. In an era where the Internet is no longer an option but a core part of our daily lives we just have to hope that this decision made by a small country in Northern Europe like Finland will inspire others to move in the same direction.

Anne-Mari Leppinen is Finnish and works for Suupohjan Seutuverkko [disclosure, Suupohjan Seutuverkko is itive‘s client], a company owned by six local municipalities (an area of 3700 km2 for a total of 30 000 persons) which aims at building an open fiber optic network that is already among the fastest in Europe. The purpose of this company is to build the network and use it but not to offer services: all the service providers have the same opportunities to provide services to clients on fiber and users can freely choose who to trust.

The network built in the city and region of Kauhajoki can already replace all the data traffic such as broadband, cable, satellite, digital TV and phone connection. In addition to this in Kauhajoki the fiber is used to improve the efficiency in real estate surveillance, remote control of industrial production and it also enhances the quality of life of the elderly people that live at home.

At first I thought this law wasn’t a big deal because I thought the minimum speed of market regulation should be more than 1Mbps – writes via email Anne-Mari – This is because here everyone already has a connection with access of 1Mbps or higher, our clients already have some 10 Mbps and some 100Mbps symmetrical connection. When I read that Finland was the first country in the world, I immediately changed my mind. I hope that the next step is to implement an open access fiber optic network because it is the only way to get a qualitative competitive network and reach people who live outside the cities: in fact the problem is that the network operators want to invest (i.e. in fiber) only in the 20 biggest cities in Finland to receive higher revenues from the investment. This is understandable but what about all the other people? In rural areas people have no choice and are blocked by a monopoly that makes the total price and quality of connections far from reasonable. I hope the situation will change after this new law.

We were among the first to create an open access fiber optic network and many others are now following our path. The Finnish government has promised that by 2015 all the citizens will be able to access 100Mpbs but can only guarantee that the fiber optic will not be more than 2km away from all homes. This last section to get the fiber at home will be expensive for families (from 500 to 1000 euros) and I think the Government should give grants or support for these miles if you want people to really connect on fiber optic. The other problem is that so far the Government has not specified whether the network will be an open access network: this could potentially re-create monopolies that build closed networks with public money. This year, for example, on about 8 fiber optic projects that have public support ours, Suupohjan Seutuverkko, is the only non-commercial and open access one.

Finland is not the only European nation that looks at the Internet as a civil right of citizens: In France, the Supreme Court has ruled that Internet access is a right, while Spain and the United Kingdom have similar laws in the pipeline that should be approved respectively in 2011 and 2012.

The Finnish ICT Minister Suvi Linden recently declared to the BBC:  “We considered the role of the Internet in Finns’ everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment

Cognitive Surplus as Innovation Key

Several of the projects we work on with our team at itive.net imply change. The real difficulty is when we have to deal with systems and organizations that are often trapped by rules, both contractual or cultural that don’t leave space for innovation or paradoxically force innovation to adapt to old paths and 20th century structures. I’m not here to whine about it, in the end this is often a reality that consultants, including myself, are used to dealing with. What I would actually like to do is drive your attention to this TED video by Clay Shirky on how cognitive surplus could change the world.

Have a look at the video and check the notes I shared below…

Here are some of the points that I found interesting:

– Cognitive surplus = free time & talents (motivation/generosity) + consumer & share (tools/tech)
What happens with cognitive surplus? Human motivation and modern tools allowing that motivation to be joined up in large scale efforts.
– Social vs contractual motivation. In the 20th century we thought that the lack of contract would let people operate without any constraints… unfortunately this is not true. They operate with social constraints instead of contractual ones.
The advantage of social constraints is that they construct a culture that is more generous than the contractual constraints do. On the other hand what’s broken by contractual constraints stays broken, and this condition can persist over long time periods.
– So the trick is in understanding where we are laying on the economic side and where on the social side.
– Communal vs Civic value
Communal value: created by the participants for each other. We find it everywhere we have large amounts of public data available online (photos on flickr, videos on youtube, etc.).
Civic value: created by the participants but enjoyed by the society. Goals are not just set up to make life better for the participants, but to make life better for everyone in the society in which the system is operating. This is not just a side effect of opening up to human motivation, it’s going to be a side effect of what we collectively make of the concept.
– Long story short: people have a lot of free time, and they can do better when not trapped by contractual constraints. So organizations designed around the culture of generosity will be able to achieve incredible effects without an enormous amount of contractual overhead.
– The key: Support people who are trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. By doing that we’ll be able to change society.

Thoughts? Share them here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari.

Andrea

[Communications Report] for June 28th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

  • 5 Tools to Track Twitter Trends – On any given day there are over 600 tweets per second on Twitter for a total of over 50 million tweets per day. With an overload of tweets daily it can be difficult to grasp what is really trending at any given moment. Use the tools below to quickly find current Twitter trends and trending conversations.
  • Social Media Measurement Should Focus on Outcomes, Not Output – It’s not about simply looking for opportunities to drop messaging into ordinary conversation, but about finding shared interests, shared benefits and shared rewards for others in the communities where your brand interacts.
  • 8 Steps to Creating a Brand Persona – In social networks, the brand and how it’s perceived, is open to public interpretation and potential misconception now more than ever. Without a deliberate separation between the brand voice and personality and that of the person representing it, we are instantly at odds with our goals, purpose, and potential stature.
  • Top 10 Clever Google Voice Tricks – The phone management app is great, but even cooler hacks exist just under the hood.
  • How I Use Gmail Multiple-Inboxes Lab Feature to Manage E-mail Overload – Useful productivity tips.
  • 15 more awesome social media infographics – Infographics that demonstrate a mixture of both hard data and strategy practices. Hopefully, they’ll also provide some inspiration or can be useful in helping you with presentations or pitches. As before, links to the actual graphics are in the headline titles.
  • 6 ways to find value in Twitter’s noise – A great example that shows how we can get insights from analyzing Twitter data.
  • Social Media is the 3rd Era of the Web [graph] – A search that compares the world wide search volume on Google for new media, web 2.0, and social media. What the graph shows is that we’re at an inflection point in the language we use to describe the macro trends of innovation on the web…it’s the indicator that we’re in the 3rd Era of the Web and it’s The Era of Social Media.
  • How The World Spends Its Time Online [infographic] – Millions of people across the world are constantly connected by the internet. Here’s a look at what everybody’s doing when they’re in front of their computer screen.
  • Is Social a Source for B2B Leads? – Terrific insights about B2B site visitors referred from social media.
  • Diesel Cam – Interactive installation at Diesel Stores in Spain, being the first store that allows users to share the moment of buying and trying garments on their Facebook profiles from the store. Consumers are able to make pictures, publish them and boast their new acquisitions with their Facebook friends.
  • The Fun Theory – A great Volkswagen initiative. #engagement
  • Teens and Their Mobile Phones / Flowtown – Have you ever wondered what teens were really using their mobile phones for? A recent study released by Pew Internet Research has shed light on average mobile
  • Public Media Joins Forces for One Big Platform – The country’s five silos of public radio and television are spilling into each other with a joint program that will allow them – and eventually the public itself — to build apps, stations, websites and other media services combining audio, text and video content from every public radio and television outlet in the country.

[Communications Report] for June 12th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

The Best of PR, Marketing and Social Media – NEXT 2010

Episode: VMC #224 The Best of PR, Marketing and Social Media – NEXT 2010

This year I was invited again to NEXT, but this time instead of keeping you informed with the classic video updates from the venue, I wanted to try something different. So once I got the go from the great Martin Recke (Head of Conference Management) I got the juice out of the best keynotes on PR, marketing, social media and I condensed it into this video. Then if you are interested (and you have enough time) you can have a look at the entire presentations on sevenload.

Why this video? The reason is simple, people have no time. So I thought to share the best communications content ‘in pills’.

It took me a while to create this video but it’s finally done and I really hope you’ll find it valuable. Also, let me know what you think about this new video format directly here on my blog or via twitter @vascellari (just remember to link back to this post so we can track the feedback and conversation, thanks!).

Andrea

Subscribe to AndreaVascellari.com on YouTube!

Show Notes & Credits: Next Conference, Martin ReckeBrian Solis, Stefana Broadbant, Stowe Boyd, Andrew Keen, Matthias Lüfkens, Steve Rubel.

+200 Social Media Lists for PR & Marketing

Everybody loves lists…well, this is a ‘mega list of lists’! During the last 3 years I’ve put together a collection of links that lists PR and marketing content related to the social media universe.

2010-05-22_1323

I will keep adding new items to the list and if you are a regular subscriber of my blog you’ll find all these updates in my reports. In this post I mentioned only ‘lists’ but in my reports I include other valuable content too like stats, case studies, ebooks, white papers, info-graphics, etc. so if you didn’t subscribe yet to my blog but you think it would be a good idea, grab the rss feed and stay tuned! 😉

Enjoy it!

Andrea

[Communications Report] for May 18th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Age Of Conversation 3 – From Theory to Social Media Practice

Age Of Conversation 3

Age Of Conversation 3 (AOC3), the book that I co-authored with an amazing group of marketing pros, is finally out and you can get it on amazon! It’s available in:

(the proceeds will be donated to an international children’s charity of our authors’ choosing – stay tuned for more updates). Once again a special thanks goes to Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan for inviting me to join this great project.

What’s the book about?

Age of Conversation 3 captures the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. Although the book covers more than just social media, the topic is ubiquitous among the book’s 10 sections: At the Coalface; Identities; Friends and Trusted Strangers; Conversational Branding; Measurement; Corporate Conversations; In the Boardroom; Innovation and Execution; Influence; Getting to Work; and Pitching Social Media.

Enjoy it and let me know what you think about it here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari!

Andrea

What’s NEXT in the Booming App Economy

2010-05-08_1248

What’s NEXT in the Booming App Economy? We’ll find out next week…

May 11 & 12 I’ll be in Berlin (Germany) for the 2010 edition of the NEXT. Once again I’ve been invited as an official blogger so stay tuned on this blog by subscribing via RSS to get all the juice straight from the event and follow me on twitter (@vascellari) for all the live updates from the venue. I’ll arrive in town the 10th and I will leave the 13th, so if you want to meetup let me know!

What?

We discuss how the currently exploding mobile app store ecosytem (App Economy) affects the digital strategies of companies. The question of how companies will meet their consumers on mobile devices will affect the business models faster than PCs and the Internet did in the past. Therefore the 2010 edition of NEXT presents the most interesting Game Changers and examines with and amazing speakers lineup the booming App Economy.

Who?

The organizers are expecting a hundred international speakers and up to 1.500 participants. Amongst them will be decision makers of the media, technology and advertising sector, agencies and service providers, investors and start-ups. It is the only conference that unites the Internet community with brands and leading companies.

Where?

The NEXT conference will take place at the STATION-Berlin, Luckenwalder Straße 4-6, 10963 Berlin.

What else?

Andrea