8 ms·

I really like the idea. But I am skeptic - digitalisation of Germany's public services and offices in the past hasn't exactly been a success story.

gillesjacobs 4y ago
In this case, the slow digitisation had a good side-effect of allowing a open, decentralized encrypted messaging protocol to be maturely adopted. Not much consolance for the German people, who still have to deal with a lot of paper administration but a happy accident nonetheless.
- ehvatum 4y ago
  From my experiences with DMG Mori and Siemens employees servicing my equipment and managed by a 100% electronic appointment booking and part ordering systems, German society is wholly and irrevocably doomed by the move away from physical paperwork. All German productivity will end and even German language itself will be replaced by grunts and shrugs. In the end, I got rid of my DMG Mori machine with its Siemens control and replaced it with a Taiwanese machine that functions reliably.
kioleanu 4y ago
It hasn’t but it’s on the right track. I am working as a developer in one of the federal agencies and have direct contact with the efforts. It helps a lot that public agencies can now offer a so called IT Zulage of a few hundred euros to 1000 per months that brings salaries on par with the private sector. In my team, this worked wonders and we managed to get some really good people. On the other hand, the task is enormous, we were discussing last week that if we had double the man power, we would still have the same workload, because we push back on a lot of things. We have about 70 projects that we wrote and maintain and a backlog of another 12 waiting to be started. BWI has the same problem, I’ve been approached multiple times by them for this project, which from my knowledge is being intensely worked since many years.
- codethief 4y ago
  > we were discussing last week that if we had double the man power Are you looking for more people?
  - xcambar 4y ago
    This. Please point us to where things happen. Also, how fluent in German must one be?
    - kioleanu 4y ago
      Yes, see interamt.de for open positions. You have to be fluent, I’m afraid, everything is done in German and you need to understand what’s needed and relay your own thoughts properly. There are many specific terms and processes and abbreviations
      - biztos 4y ago
        I took a quick look at some positions in Munich and the pay did not look very competitive with industry. However, public service has other advantages, and if you prefer to not rent your soul to Capital like so many of us do, I think the salaries looked pretty nice compared to other government jobs. Which is pretty much the deal everywhere, right? (You can find the rate tables by doing a web search for the code listed next to “Entgelt/Besoldung.”) I got a kick out of the fact that Street Cleaner came up in my search for “IT and Telecommunication:” https://interamt.de/koop/app/stelle?1&id=894097 https://interamt.de/koop/app/stelle?1&id=894097
- victor106 4y ago
  why can't you hire consultants to do take on some of the work?
  - dewey 4y ago
    It's likely more sustainable to have people long term and not expensive consultants who come in, finish a project and leave again with no knowledge being retained in the team. I'd also guess that these projects are not very isolated but very integrated with a lot of other processes and internal projects, so it's not just about converting some specs into code in a vacuum and then leaving again.
hobofan 4y ago
The large degree of federation in the German government is something that has traditionally shown some of its ugliest sides when in comes to digitalization (e.g. every state comissioning their own underpowered solutions which are 95% identical in spec instead of pooling resources). I think that's exactly why Matrix might be a good fit, as the technical federation aligns well with the pre-existing social federation. I'm really optimistic for that project!
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Things can change. Easy to forget that Alan Turing and a certain German called Konrad Zuse both get credit for having invented the modern computer. Generally, people seem to like to give that honor to Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse does not get a lot of love. Not that it matters either way; but this is a country that co-created modern computing. Pre and post-war Germany featured a lot of rapid change and technical innovation. I'm based in Germany and I share the sentiment that things have been a bit backwards here in terms of a widespread reluctance to let go of paper based administration. This was awkward 14 years ago when I moved here and at this point it's just beyond pathetic. But things are changing. Germans are well aware that people outside of Germany are noticing how far behind they are and are shaking their heads at those silly naive German paper fetishists. So, there's a lot of domestic pressure to actually start fixing this. The covid crisis in the last few years forced a lot of Germans to do things with their phone that until then were completely unheard off in this country. Like paying for stuff or proving that they didn't have covid. That used to be a thing where paper and rubber stamps were the only acceptable solution. So, I look at this as something that can change quite rapidly after not having changed much at all for decades. The will and money are there and Germans are starting to remember that they can actually get some stuff done when they put their mind to it. We're also seeing this with the current energy crisis. That crisis has unlocked budgets all over the public sector. And "digitalization" (as it is referred to here) is part of those budgets. Germans love efficiency and people have been pointing out that they haven't been very efficient. Which is embarrassing and annoying. So, they are fixing it now. There are now countless of bureaucrats tasked with actually showing some results for the inflated budgets they've been given. We're talking hundreds of billions of euros here. It's not all going to be spend wisely but some of it will yield results.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Easy to forget that Alan Turing and a certain German called Konrad Zuse both get credit for having invented the modern computer. Nobody forgot that, just that past successes are in no way indication of future successes. Otherwise SV would have been in Germany/UK instead of California. But that hasn't happened. Same how in the late '80s to early '90s everyone was saying that Japan's tech sector and economy would completely overtake the US's and yet that hasn't happened but the reverse happened. From then on US tech sector steamrolled everything. Will that last? Maybe, maybe not.

gillesjacobs 4y ago

In this case, the slow digitisation had a good side-effect of allowing a open, decentralized encrypted messaging protocol to be maturely adopted. Not much consolance for the German people, who still have to deal with a lot of paper administration but a happy accident nonetheless.

ehvatum 4y ago
From my experiences with DMG Mori and Siemens employees servicing my equipment and managed by a 100% electronic appointment booking and part ordering systems, German society is wholly and irrevocably doomed by the move away from physical paperwork. All German productivity will end and even German language itself will be replaced by grunts and shrugs. In the end, I got rid of my DMG Mori machine with its Siemens control and replaced it with a Taiwanese machine that functions reliably.

kioleanu 4y ago

It hasn’t but it’s on the right track. I am working as a developer in one of the federal agencies and have direct contact with the efforts. It helps a lot that public agencies can now offer a so called IT Zulage of a few hundred euros to 1000 per months that brings salaries on par with the private sector. In my team, this worked wonders and we managed to get some really good people. On the other hand, the task is enormous, we were discussing last week that if we had double the man power, we would still have the same workload, because we push back on a lot of things. We have about 70 projects that we wrote and maintain and a backlog of another 12 waiting to be started. BWI has the same problem, I’ve been approached multiple times by them for this project, which from my knowledge is being intensely worked since many years.

codethief 4y ago
> we were discussing last week that if we had double the man power Are you looking for more people?
- xcambar 4y ago
  This. Please point us to where things happen. Also, how fluent in German must one be?
  - kioleanu 4y ago
    Yes, see interamt.de for open positions. You have to be fluent, I’m afraid, everything is done in German and you need to understand what’s needed and relay your own thoughts properly. There are many specific terms and processes and abbreviations
    - biztos 4y ago
      I took a quick look at some positions in Munich and the pay did not look very competitive with industry. However, public service has other advantages, and if you prefer to not rent your soul to Capital like so many of us do, I think the salaries looked pretty nice compared to other government jobs. Which is pretty much the deal everywhere, right? (You can find the rate tables by doing a web search for the code listed next to “Entgelt/Besoldung.”) I got a kick out of the fact that Street Cleaner came up in my search for “IT and Telecommunication:” https://interamt.de/koop/app/stelle?1&id=894097 https://interamt.de/koop/app/stelle?1&id=894097
victor106 4y ago
why can't you hire consultants to do take on some of the work?
- dewey 4y ago
  It's likely more sustainable to have people long term and not expensive consultants who come in, finish a project and leave again with no knowledge being retained in the team. I'd also guess that these projects are not very isolated but very integrated with a lot of other processes and internal projects, so it's not just about converting some specs into code in a vacuum and then leaving again.

hobofan 4y ago

The large degree of federation in the German government is something that has traditionally shown some of its ugliest sides when in comes to digitalization (e.g. every state comissioning their own underpowered solutions which are 95% identical in spec instead of pooling resources). I think that's exactly why Matrix might be a good fit, as the technical federation aligns well with the pre-existing social federation. I'm really optimistic for that project!

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Things can change. Easy to forget that Alan Turing and a certain German called Konrad Zuse both get credit for having invented the modern computer. Generally, people seem to like to give that honor to Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse does not get a lot of love. Not that it matters either way; but this is a country that co-created modern computing. Pre and post-war Germany featured a lot of rapid change and technical innovation. I'm based in Germany and I share the sentiment that things have been a bit backwards here in terms of a widespread reluctance to let go of paper based administration. This was awkward 14 years ago when I moved here and at this point it's just beyond pathetic. But things are changing. Germans are well aware that people outside of Germany are noticing how far behind they are and are shaking their heads at those silly naive German paper fetishists. So, there's a lot of domestic pressure to actually start fixing this. The covid crisis in the last few years forced a lot of Germans to do things with their phone that until then were completely unheard off in this country. Like paying for stuff or proving that they didn't have covid. That used to be a thing where paper and rubber stamps were the only acceptable solution. So, I look at this as something that can change quite rapidly after not having changed much at all for decades. The will and money are there and Germans are starting to remember that they can actually get some stuff done when they put their mind to it. We're also seeing this with the current energy crisis. That crisis has unlocked budgets all over the public sector. And "digitalization" (as it is referred to here) is part of those budgets. Germans love efficiency and people have been pointing out that they haven't been very efficient. Which is embarrassing and annoying. So, they are fixing it now. There are now countless of bureaucrats tasked with actually showing some results for the inflated budgets they've been given. We're talking hundreds of billions of euros here. It's not all going to be spend wisely but some of it will yield results.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Easy to forget that Alan Turing and a certain German called Konrad Zuse both get credit for having invented the modern computer. Nobody forgot that, just that past successes are in no way indication of future successes. Otherwise SV would have been in Germany/UK instead of California. But that hasn't happened. Same how in the late '80s to early '90s everyone was saying that Japan's tech sector and economy would completely overtake the US's and yet that hasn't happened but the reverse happened. From then on US tech sector steamrolled everything. Will that last? Maybe, maybe not.