Ruskavahti. When creative enthusiasts and in-depth technology experts brainstormed together, a popular service innovation was born
Visit Finland’s Ruskavahti is a digital service powered by artificial intelligence that tells you when and where autumn is most beautiful in Finland in the form of a map view. What does it take to create a service innovation that utilises technology creatively?
The new AI innovation Ruskavahti was born as a collaboration between Dagmar’s creative conceptualizers, data scientists, digital experts and Visit Finland’s brand team in 2021. Building a completely new service included inspiring courage, several workshops with different experts, creativity in both content and technology planning, as well as strong leadership and determined implementation.
Finnish nature is one of the most important attraction factors for tourism. Winter, snow and northern lights are already a bit more well known, but there is still plenty of potential in Finland’s magnificent autumn weather. The development of autumn tourism also supports year-round tourism, which is one of the cornerstones of sustainable tourism.
Minna Myyrinmaa, Digital Marketing Specialist, Visit FinlandThe three most crucial factors for the success of service innovation:
- Creative designers and tech experts speak the same language silo-free
When Creative gets an idea that requires algorithms, cloud technology, data mining, and ETL pipelines from a Data Scientist keyboard, for example, it’s imperative that everyone on the team communicates clearly toward the same goal. The best in-depth experts in technology and data are able to emerge from their tech jargon silos and open up their know-how so that everyone understands – and a content designer who has developed extensive skills is able to take technological needs into account in their creative plans.
- Psychological safety
When doing something new, the best platform is psychological safety. Big egos don’t fit in. Everyone must have the courage to openly show their insecurities, ask questions and challenge. A team needs people who draw strength from lifting others. People for whom the flight of an idea is more important than their own union. Skillful overall management helps create a safe environment.
- Courage and enthusiasm
The last factor is familiar from speeches, but always just as important. Without Visit Finland’s courage and enthusiasm, Ruskavahti would not exist. Courage is needed, for example, to invest in resources when there is no absolute certainty about how a creative service innovation will be received. Enthusiasm helps to implement the idea in your own organization and find time for it past the agenda.
These three factors were in order in the design of the Ruskavahti – that’s why it got off to a great start. Ruskavahti was born in autumn 2022 to serve, bring help and joy to people’s lives. The new service has already attracted great interest and well-deserved visibility in various media and channels.
In Ruskavahti, a creative idea comes to life wonderfully with the help of artificial intelligence. Utilising data to identify autumn also requires creativity from a technological point of view. The weather data behind the algorithm and the hundreds of thousands of processed images force us to approach the problem strongly from a performance perspective, in which case the use of robust neural network algorithms alone would have been too slow. Here, too, simplicity is beautiful.
Ilari Vähä-Pietilä, Senior Data Scientist, Dagmar
In autumn 2022, Ruskavahti has been widely featured in various media:
Yle
Iltalehti
Turun Sanomat
Maaseudun Tulevaisuus
Seura
Caravan-lehti
Kotilappi
Ruskavahti was awarded an honourable mention in the Most Innovative Technology category of the Grand One 2023 competition.
Working team:
Client: Visit Finland
Dagmar: Creative concept and idea, social media implementation plan and project coordination
Dagmar: Ruska prediction algorithm &; artificial intelligence predictions, scalable data and image processing, back-end design and processing, ETL process &; Algorithm performance monitoring and optimization
Accenture: Digital design, visual design, front & backend development, digital implementation and optimization of the service
Dagmar: Media planning
Visit Finland, Dagmar, Accenture: Content planning
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