Questions/Answers

The Chamber of Commerce of Cosenza is undergoing a structural change through its project “#OpenCameraCosenza.” The aim of the project is that of rebuilding the relationship between the Administration and its stakeholders. The concept of OpenCamera insists on “openness”: an administration ready to encounter and listen to its stakeholders. The final goal of #OpenCameraCosenza is to reach the majority of stakeholders with useful and fresh information through informal channels (social networks, apps, etc.). In this way, the Chamber of Commerce of Cosenza wants to renovate its image, becoming closer to users' needs, involving them in a virtuous circle of improvement of both services and functions of the administration. Thus, requiring fundamental changes both in the organizational and communication structures. Organizational restructuring was necessary to foster change in units’ daily work, to accommodate units’ priorities, initiating new programs, enhancing organizational effectiveness, and addressing budget reductions. To achieve the objectives of OpenCameraCosenza, the communication team, together with the legal representative, used different tools: Facebook pages, Facebook advertising, Twitter, Instagram, Aurasma app, Qr-codes and of course the website.

The Chamber felt the urgency of getting in contact with the millennials -future entrepreneurs, and current stakeholders – using tools and messages to capture their attention. Students, in fact, are a new category of stakeholders.Initiatives as The Corporate Social Responsibility Think Thank and the Parliament of Enterprises transform the chamber in an agora in which firms and institutions can meet each other and discuss of relevant themes. A participatory process in which employees were involved in a bottom-up decision-making process made up the majority of the initiatives of OpenCameraCosenza, OpenCameraCosenza was developed to make the cultural heritage of the Chamber of Commerce of Cosenza accessible.

#OpenCameraCosenza is relevant to Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. In particular the Chamber of Commerce of Cosenza aims to broaden and strengthen the participation of stakeholders in the institution governance. Moreover aims to ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.

To sustain the enterprises of the territory, the Chamber published numerous calls for proposal throughout 2016 and 2017. It reformed the attribution system of financial incentives to cope with objectives of transparency and accountability in the attribution process. In 2017 the Chamber of Commerce realized a Corporate Social Responsibility Think Tank following the purpose of openness of #OpenCameraCosenza. During the CSR meetings, the Chamber sits together with other institutions, entrepreneurs, and professionals, to address issues that can be of social impact in the territory of Cosenza. Pursuing the objective of Transparency and Openness, the Chamber produced its first Social Balance Sheet in 2016. A panel of experts asseverate the SBS, and the Chamber’ staff promoted it through Social Networks and Qr-codes. Moreover, the Chamber of Cosenza has published open dataset. Finally, the reorganization made possible to entrust to some of the staff the communication office. entirely by the management and the employees themselves. To make the change happen the Chamber’ staff undertook training and the management revised the Performance Measurement. The staff in charge of communication developed the plan to raise the engagement of the stakeholders using social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Yelp), Augmented Reality and QR-Codes

Even though each part of OpenCameraCosenza is not innovative per se, the overall project is basically new for the province in which the Chamber operates. The reorganization involved the 50% of Chamber’s employees, the most of which is now dedicated to real services towards the stakeholders. The reorganization has envisaged the end of the hierarchical system. For each event (call for proposal, training opportunity for employees and stakeholders, discussion forum, etc.) the Chamber has been listening to the opinion of both stakeholders and employees. The reporting activity helped to shape the new organization chart. Since the implementation of Opencameracosenza the chamber signed almost 30 memoranda of understanding with different local institutions.

Some initiatives are an adaptation to other context, for istance, the Parliament fo Enterprices is an initiativeorganized by Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, once every two years. AGEF platform is developed by Infocamere, a partner of Italian Chamber of Commerce. It guarantees the proper conduct of both the Institution and the applicant in the evalution procesess of call of proporals, through an automatic tracking system. Open.ImpreseCosenza is a simple open dataset that gives access to the public a set of data from Cosenza and Italy.

No, it hasn't.

OpenCameraCosenza has been conducted at zero costs. The contribution of the employees of this Public Administration was fundamental to the realization of OpenCameraCosenza. Thanks to the job rotation they felt the urgency to deploy their interest and use their knowledge to enhance the image and the services of the Chamber. The Communiation team is made up of employes that have an interest in social media and new tecnologies, thus erasing costs for external communication personell.

Thanks to the innovations brought by internet, transparency tasks are easily fulfilled. Staff’ training is fundamental to realign competences to a role, this is why in 2016, 100% of employees followed at least 30 h of classes. Still, in 2017 the staff underwent 2179 h of training. Each Office was able to propose subjects for its courses. Furthermore, the management encourages the employees to submit new ideas on products and services for the growth of both the Chamber itself and the satisfaction of the stakeholders. The networking activity of the Chamber of Commerce won over skepticism from other institutions and stakeholders. Addressing this problem, the staff studied a way to engage users through mobile, offering information via QR code (ex. registration procedures or 2015 Social Balance Sheet), presenting its Public Service Charter through the Augmented Reality app Aurasma. In 2018 the Chamber stared using a web-based free platform to keep track of staff proposals, new performance measurement, and anticorruption plan. The use of tecnologies reduced the impact of printed material.

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For each event (call for proposal, training opportunity for employees and stakeholders, discussion forum, etc.) the Chamber has been listening to the opinion of both stakeholders and employees.

The Chamber conducted two audits: Internal audit of 2017 of the organizational wellness (a sense of belonging, sharing of information, evalutation of management) Internal audit of 2017 of Customer Satisfaction (satisfaction for services offered, for initiatives, sharing of information)

Organizational wellness (evaluation 1 out fo 6) Employees of the institution are proud to work for their institution (5 out of 6) Employees highlight that the strategic objectives of the Chamber are shared and made known to staff (4.97 out of 6) the evaluation of employees towards their managers regarding the recognition of the work performed is positive (5.20 out of 6) the employees evaluation on the professional skills of their managers is high (5.20 out of 6) Customer Satisfaction Interviews on site revel high level of satisfaction (89% of positive judgements = 39% Very good + 50% Excellent) Interviews online: 45% express a “very good” or “excellent”ha espresso giudizi tra “molto buono” e “ottimo”. Over 75% of all people interviewed come to know about OpenCameraCosenza initiatives from Chamber’s DEM, Social Network or website. 91% of attendees of OpenCameraCosenza initiaves are satisfied about the event they attended.

OpenCameraCosenza is based on inclusion of stakeholders in the decision making process. For instance the Chamber of Commerce established the “Parliament of Enterprises”. During the Parliament meeting, firms - with a speech of maximum 3 minutes - can directly represent their issues to the chamber administration. For each meeting the Chamber choose a theme that is spread though stakeholders with Facebook, emails, and on the website. Firms can ask to intervene. Since now the Parliament sat 3 times, the last seat was at the presence of the former Italian Prime minister Giuliano Amato.

Management and organizational capacities to sustain change efforts within the administration were fundamental for the success of OpenCameraCosenza, as well as the high value of human capital of this Public administration. A Public Administation open to the territory in which lives, its institutions and stakeholders can take a great advantage from them. Job rotation and reorganization based on an increase in accountability produces more engaged employees. New technologies should be considered a solid partner for public administration.