ICRI
Overview, Information, Hierarchy
In everyday work, information takes on an unprecedented importance. Having the right information quickly available makes work easier, better and faster. And: It has never been easier than today to share information, findings, experiences and knowledge with colleagues, partners or citizens in a fraction of a second. Digital communication and the internet have made it possible for everyone, regardless of their social status, to actively participate in global communication.
This communication can take place in very different ways and achieve different degrees of effectiveness. It can take place in a protected or unprotected communication system. It can be unidirectional to multidirectional. Finally, communication is a complex system consisting mainly of protocolspecific, technical and human components.
In the public service in particular, an efficient, smart and secure communication tool is of essential importance in the course of ever-advancing digitization, which does not stop at public authorities.
Costs in particular often play a major role in the public sector. The tools to be designed should therefore be as cheap as possible to purchase and maintain, but they must offer a maximum degree of usability, security and protection of personal data. In particular, within public administrations, personal data is collected and processed private and confidential data. The citizen must be sure that the data will not be passed on to third parties and that he retains sovereignty over his data.
Self-determination must be enforceable, and data protection and data security must be implemented to a large extent “by design”. It is also of great importance to make official processes and workflows digitally mappable, as this leads to a reduction in processing times, for example. Customers and authorities benefit from this. For employees in the public sector, the communication tool must be intuitive to use and it must make their everyday work more effective so that it is accepted and used effectively.
Why is communication also of such essential importance for the public service? As explained above, communication is a process that serves the purpose of exchanging information that is intended to make work easier. specialist an Managers spend most of their working time communicating. The efficiency of this communication is based on the communication structure and the individual skills of the person concerned.
The communication can also be classified, e.g. into official or free, purely internal or cross organizational, formal or informal, individual or mass communication. Modern chat-based communication is ideal for all of these forms. This means that individual requirements can be served and sometimes even combined. By introducing a chat system in which all authorities are connected equally, hierarchies can be flattened to some extent, so that all participants in a communication system are on the same communication level and the boundaries of the hierarchy are blurred. Work is becoming more flexible in terms of location, time, structure and form of cooperation, which increases the degree of effectiveness within a public body.
The communication relationship thus changes from vertical hierarchical levels to a horizontal one in which communication takes place effectively at the same level. However, the vertical hierarchical structure can also be mapped in the communication system for approvals or binding processes. It is even possible and sensible to implement nonrepudiation in a modern communication system or to make legally binding proof possible.
In addition to all the technical and entrepreneurial advantages that result from such a modern communication tool, the communication platform can also be understood as a social tool. Managers spend most of their working time communicating. The efficiency of this communication is based on the communication structure and the individual skills of the person concerned. The communication can also be classified, e.g. into official or free, purely internal or cross organizational, formal or informal, individual or mass communication.
Modern chat-based communication is ideal for all of these forms. This means that individual requirements can be served and sometimes even combined. However, this is not the communication platform per se, but the communication platform must offer options and functions for contacting other people via channels to be defined. This also makes it easy to implement collaborative work in a next step. Interactions can be brought about that enable feedback for self-organization and allow “incentives”. These communication channels can be defined as open, transparent and networked, i.e. a understand a digitized administrative apparatus.
“IT security by design” is the keyword here and must be taken into account when planning a modern and progressive communication platform. This does not only apply to the transport routes of the data. The server components and the client side must have IT security built in right from the start. End-to-end encryption creates the necessary trust and completely excludes third parties, identity verification and authentication of all users guarantee the authenticity and credibility of a counterpart, and long-term archiving of certain messages enables traceability of processes.
From a technical point of view, the e-mail system, which is now a well-established communication tool, is comparatively insecure. Manipulating all night Addressing or forging the sender no longer poses a technical challenge. Options for encrypting entire messages have existed for more than 20 years, but cannot be used “out-of-the-box”.
Due to their complexity and lack of user friendliness, the solutions are not very popular with users and IT managers.
In the current information age, not only is the importance of information growing, so is its quantity. Hours often go by before the end of the flood of e-mails to be processed can be seen. understand a digitized administrative apparatus. The individual e-mails contain a great many formalities, such as the personal salutation of the colleague who has been known for decades anyway, the often repeated greetings, right through to the cumbersome signature. As a result, it is all the more important, in addition to the properties already mentioned, to increase the efficiency of the transmission of the actual information. Today's employees spend a lot of time recognizing the actual content of an e-mail.
Addressing or forging the sender no longer poses a technical challenge. Options for encrypting entire messages have existed for more than 20 years, but cannot be used “outof-the-box”. The actually relevant information can often be found somewhere in between.
This is exactly where chat-based communication comes in. The example of the chat applications used on smartphones, which can now also be connected and synchronized with the associated desktop application, shows the possible increase in efficiency in the transmission of information. Formalities rarely find their way into such a chat and questions are often answered symbolically.
In this way, the flood of information can be reduced and optimized as far as possible, particularly in the case of internal communication between public authorities.
This problem, as well as the attack vectors already shown, can be eliminated with an innovative communication platform.
In addition to IT security, which has been considered from the outset, and the optimization of communication behavior, user-friendliness is the third pillar of the Foundations of our innovative and modern communication platform. To protect trusted communication and to protect privacy, an integrated, robust, standards-based encryption system that only comes into contact with the user at a few interfaces is key - in the spirit of userfriendliness, which is still used today by many other IT security products is neglected and users are massively restricted and prevented from using security solutions. The prime example of inadequate user friendliness is e-mail encryption, which only becomes an option with the use of additional software.
In addition to the e-mail client used, programs and add-ons often have to be installed and configured, and keys have to be generated and exchanged in a complicated manner. Without advanced knowledge in the areas of computer software and key management, the necessary steps can hardly be carried out by laypersons.
In addition to all the aspects and requirements already described, the development of features and new ideas is of course also essential for the success of a modern communication system. Chat communication is a basic function of a Communication platform. In order to adapt to the individuality, flexibility and size of public authorities, significantly more innovations must be implemented in the chat application. For example, if a clerk wants to request approval for a process, they now have to send e-mails or fill out forms. This costs time and resources that could actually be put to better use. The communication platform could offer a “handshake” function that can digitally map such release processes. The request for approval is sent to the appropriate manager, who can make a binary decision: "Approve" and "Reject".
It is technically and cryptographically ensured that this decision is stored, and in the event of a dispute, such a release can be decrypted according to the multiple-eyes principle and thus an agreement cannot be denied if a device cannot be found or has been exchanged. Furthermore, it is desirable to make the current "Status" function, which is known from other chat systems, more prominent and to expand it with useful functions. For example, with a status that can be set temporarily, such as “on break”, to let all contacts in an authority know that accessibility is currently severely restricted. After the defined duration has expired, the status is automatically reset to the previous permanent status.
Another function that is typical for social networks can be established with the representation of competences, namely channel. Within a channel, any user can ask a question on a specific topic. This can then be discussed and resolved in the form of an open forum. An advantage that arises from this feature is that the authority can publish individual discussions in the course of a transparent, open company and thus lets the customer get closer to the development work.
Another advantage implied by channels is that employees can conserve their knowledge and answer questions outside of their normal day-to-day business to make it a bit more variable.
Communication in the public sector is an essential part of productivity and citizen satisfaction. Only agencies that communicate efficiently will be able to present themselves successfully in the course of the innovative power of digitization and offer real added value for citizens, for example through shorter processing times. Employees in public authorities have the opportunity to communicate internally quickly, flexibly and without stress and to gain more time and peace for the citizens' discussions. As a result, coordination talks and approvals are only a means to an end and the valuable time can be used efficiently. There is a general reorganization of work.
Younger generations in particular can quickly adapt and efficiently use the innovative concept, which is based on the instant messaging function.
It is of great importance for the public service to keep up with the cultural change in the digitalized world. Core factors for public administrations are the optimization and digitization of processes and workflows.
If everything around us is immediately and always available, but a passport application at the Citizens' Registration Office takes 6 weeks, this will cause increasing polarization among the citizens and will probably cause discomfort in the long term. In general, it can be stated that human resources work, the most important component of which is communication, is experiencing a cultural change as a result of digitization. There is no way around strengthening technical and social innovations, not even in the public sector.
This communication platform lays an essential foundation, which represents a digital infrastructure for uniform communication between authorities and authorities, but also between authorities and farmers.The direct connection of the authority communication platform and the farmer platform gives the opportunity to collect information of any kind, evaluate it and react accordingly. For example, subsidies can be worked out that are specific to various properties, such as "dry areas, rainy areas, or certain soil conditions". Individual users can communicate directly with their local authorities via the feedback system.
This is now able to process statistics given on the basis of the feedback and then forward them to the next higher authority.
Due to the connection between the two platforms, authority and farmer, the path of individual help is simplified and thus shortened. Implemented modules can be improved or removed from the system, as well as new promising projects converted to modules and implemented.
