When working as a welfare coordinator on municipal sector, promotion of welfare and health plays a key role. Knowlegde management is an important tool in effective welfare work, where addition to narrowing the health differences, one of the major aims is to improve citizens, municipalities, regions and the whole societys welbeing. Therefor seeking and analyzing information is a significant part of the job description. In addition to these elements, preliminary impact assessment also belongs essentially in the health promotion work and in the decision making process. Depending on the nature of the issue dealt with at a time, preliminary impact assessment can be done in various ways and in different kinds of compositions formed by variable experts, occupants, desicion-makers and representatives that have a share in the phenomenon, service or process.

Eventhough live interaction is highly valued and has it´s own advantages, especially when meeting e.g. the residents of the munipality, virtual gatherings form a big part of today´s work culture. Digital solutions which enable meetings without the need to travel are important, especially when people cooperating are located around the country or even around the world.

Accordingly laptop, email and different kinds of virtual platforms are important tools in my work. During my work day i mainly use email, what´s up and teams. Depending on the nature of the matter, i choose the way how to contact people. Significant aspects to notice when choosing the way to comminucate are for example the confidentiality oblication and formality. What´s up is a handy way to disguss with others smoothly, especially in groups, when dealing e.g. daily routines or small scale things but when more thorough conversations and reflections are needed, you may favor rather meetings arranged by teams or equivalent application.

When reporting and adverting different kinds of things in my home municipality to the residents, different solutions from municipalitys websites and social media to papery releases can be used. Municipalitys newsletter, “Kuntakaiku” is distributed digitally every month, but it appears also in a papery format. Alongside the digital releases, the papery versions are important when reaching for example elderly persons and people who might not be able or willing to use digital solutions. Therefor digital solutions cannot fully replace the traditional ways to communicate.

Social Media and digital platforms together with more traditional ways of communication in my expertise

I use different kinds of digital and social media platforms in my work daily in local council, but i am aware that it is also a development target to utilize digital platforms and tools even more and in various ways. Especially reaching diverse age groups is a matter that should be evaluated critically.

In small places the possible lack of local media sets it´s own challenges when publishing information and news. On the other hand the large selection of various digital and social media solutions divides citizens in many different target groups. Handling all the communication channels is impossible, especially in small municipals administration, where usually aren´t any separate communication departments. Practically this means that e.g. different administrative branches publish information alongside with their other assignments. Often authorities and employees don´t have enough time neither sufficient competence to produce high quality information in various channels often enough.

Based on my experiences, accessibility is also an aspect that can unfortunately suffer in these kind of situations, and as a result all the citizens are not in equal position. On the other hand visibilty and appeal of the parish are vital aspects when talking about the existence of small and often secluded, rural localitys where birth rate is descending and urbanization dominates the populations removal. Therefor it would be essentially important that municipal sectors employees and office holders could have enough time to orientate in the expertise of public communication.

New useful tools in data processing and communication

When contrasting new social media and digital platforms that i could use in my work, i noticed that there indeed exists a large amount of possibilities that i am not even aware of. When choosing five primary tools for this assignement i had to use thorough consideration. How ever, when i reflected the different solutions based on the biggest needs in my expertise and on the other hand the needs and characteristics of our municipals citizens, it eventually was easy to find the best alternatives.

From the point of view of accessibilty i also attached weigt to the versatility of the chosen tools, because it offers more selection to people who have disabilities or challenges in communication, for instance hearing or visual impairment. One shadow side concerning social media can be the decrease of two-way live contacts between people. On the other hand social media can be, as the name itself suggests, social: people can comment and debate also virtually eventhough the threshold to bad behaviour can be lower when interacting online than in live connections. However, people who have fears or limitations towards human relations and live connections, might feel safer when communicating virtually. Naturally different kinds of hazards of the digital wolrd is a serious matter and should be always taken into consideration: cons and fakeprofiles on social media are today´s phenomenon.

In my opinion succesful use of social media and digital tools is based on certainty, safety and fluency. The use of different kinds of virtual possibilities can as its best bring additional seasoning to the work of experts and offer various ways to reach diverse set of people on more diverse ways.

TikTok

TikTok is a tool that i am interested in especially when reaching out young audience. I understand that also wider visibility beyond our home municipality would be more easily achieved by using TikTok.

Instagram

Instagram is familiar to me and i use it in my spare time through my personal account but at work surroundings in our local council i haven´t utilized it yet. There are some administrative branches that use Instgarm at our office, but all sectors are not using it on regular bases. Instagram would expand the number of the audience we reach in our own parish, but also beyond the municipal boundaries.

YouTube

YouTube could be an interesting addition to communication. It could offer many possibilities in narrating our municipal culture and spirit. This is an importan aspect especially in terms of our municipal strategy, where the positive stories are one of the topics. Via YouTube different kinds of audiences would also be reached.

Blogger

Blogger could be suitable tool for me personally, because writing is one of my strenghts. When e.g. all the administrative branches would take terms in writing blogpost, it could point out the variety of the work that is done by the employees and office holders working in municipal sector. Blogger could also be a good tool for knowledge management.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT was a new acquitance for me before this course. I consider myself more as a traditional user of information and i have been searhing data throughout computer “by myself” so far. Now, thanks to this experience, i have noticed that using AI is a great and handy way to save some time in the process of data seeking. Nevertheless, when using AI, you have to remember that evaluating the informations reliability is always your own resbonsibility. The sources where the material is gathered from, has to be critically viewed and also mentioned herewith the output you create.

Self evaluation

Throughout this assignement i found various ways to develope my commucational tool bar in my work of expertise. I had a great chance to orientate new solutions that could enrich my daily way of working. Many solutions could also ease working and bring new dimensions and additions in place of many old habits.

When evaluating this course as a whole, i gained lots of new infomation and received lots of tools to develope my skills in the digital world. Although i have always considered myself as a rational and prudent operator in the virtual surroundings, i feel that i am much more competent, confident and effective digi-citizen now.