Portfolio
Adventures in design and creative strategy
Service design and innovation
Defining value propositions, go-to-market strategies, cultural change and rapid hypothesis testing, as well as establishing cultures of building, measuring KPIs and learning fast
Energy
Value testing, design and go-to-market
Life sciences
Creative sprint for new venture
Professional services
Startup creative strategy
Government and 3rd sector
Culture of innovation roll-out, MENA
Culture of innovation for University, Finland
Culture of innovation for government agency, Sweden
Creative strategy for green startup venture
Service design and experience management
Researching, defining and advising on customer journeys and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for customer experience management
Consumer goods
Beverage and community strategy
Transportation
Railways consumer experience
Logistics KPIs and consumer experience
Airline venture and go-to-market
Machinery
Recruiting and employee experience
Data-driven innovation
Technology
Creative strategy and brand value
Speculative design and futures thinking
Case by case
Stories from Service Design frontlines
Scaling design & innovation
A Royal endeavor: we bridged cultures to ignite innovation, with 95% of learner's approval
Setting a foundation
In the heart of the Middle East, I took on the compelling mission to infuse a government agency with a culture of innovation. Collaboratively, we crafted tailored learning content that seamlessly blended Western methodologies with local traditions. As a trusted advisor, I guided teams, pinpointed potential leaders, and intricately designed a learning experience that not only informed, but inspired.
Design, enjoy, repeat
The culmination of our efforts was a moment of pride and accomplishment: a final presentation showcased before a discerning Royal authority, affirming our commitment to pioneering change and leading with cultural integrity. The project continues, with 95% of participants recommending it to peers.
Journey strategy
Kids will be kids: the Journey at Reima
Published! An article on the method for journeys was featured in Touchpoint, May 2022.
Taking the child into the journey
When Reima, the premier brand for children's winter outerwear, sought to enhance its customer journey, we embarked on a path less traveled. Instead of focusing solely on parents, we delved deep into the child's perspective, uncovering insights that reshaped our understanding.
Setting KPIs
Establishing robust KPIs at each journey stage, we collaboratively defined our guiding North Star: "active time" – those precious moments when the tangible benefits of Reima's outerwear are truly felt by its young wearers.
Lasting impact
Years on, the impact of our collaboration remains visible and evolving at Reima's headquarters. The journey map we crafted, with art direction by Jani Sallinen, is not just a testament to our strategic vision but a living entity, updated with seasonal insights, fresh post-its, and reminding all of the heartbeats we designed for – the adventurous kids.
Journey strategy / Customer experience
Next station: Finnish national railways
Heatbeats
For an expat in Finland, this project was a discovery in many levels. I embarked on a trailblazing mission with VR Railways. As the pioneer in mapping their customer journeys, we took an immersive approach, combining service safaris with cutting-edge biometrics, journals, and time-stamped data. This allowed us to delve into the heartbeats of passengers, capturing their moods and physiological needs throughout prolonged rail journeys. With teams equipped with GoPros and screens recording the digital realm, no stone was left unturned.
Experiences, step by step
Journey strategy / Customer experience / KPIs
Metsä Journeys: going from 100+ to a handful of purposeful, customer-centric KPIs
Measure
Navigating the intricate web of 100 KPIs, I partnered with Metsä Group to distill their Customer Experience metrics into a more coherent and customer-centric journey.
Simplify
Our mission was clear: Simplify without compromising on insight. Through careful analysis and a deep understanding of customer perspectives, we refined and combined the most vital KPIs, presenting a streamlined and logical view of the customer's journey.
Integrate
But simplification didn't stop there. Our efforts culminated in an integrated dashboard, merging both loyalty points management and program oversight within a singular interface. By creating this consolidated view, Metsä Group not only gained a clearer lens into their customer experience but also empowered their teams with an efficient and intuitive tool, setting the stage for heightened customer engagement and loyalty.
Service Design / Creative Lead
Playing with cybersecurity: executives get creative
In a room full of decision-makers, the first step is to get them to get a bit silly.
Diving into the digital maze of a Global Telecommunications Giant, we envisioned a novel approach to illuminate the fog of cybersecurity: a 16-bit vintage video game.
Close research, fun expressions
Grounded in meticulous research on the most critical cyber threats that companies grapple with, our game transformed these abstract menaces into a vibrant, virtual cityscape reminiscent of retro gaming nostalgia. We believed the game would resonate with our target audience, evoking memories of their digital youth while simultaneously imparting vital cybersecurity knowledge.
Involving stakeholders — at the top
The challenge lay not just in crafting the game, but in translating its value to the company's top-tier executives. In a room buzzing with anticipation, we unveiled the digital metropolis and its cast of characters - ranging from cunning hackers to nefarious governments and the ever-so-common weak passwords. Together with these leaders, we co-created an engaging and educational experience, making cybersecurity more than just a concept but a tangible, playful, and enlightening journey.
Journey strategy / Customer Experience
Journeys and destinations: a customer-centric Finnish postal service
Close research, fun expressions
Data points, pain points
This wasn't just data; it was another way of seeing customers and journeys. Our calculations not only reshaped the company's KPIs but also initiated a paradigm shift. The organization was then able to view customers through the lens of satisfaction tiers, linking each tier directly to potential revenue implications.
Grounds for a new model
With strong support from design leadership and the opportunity for a new model, the organization didn't just aim to alleviate customer pains but endeavored to turn them into growth and enhanced satisfaction. More than a tool, the Journeys were designed as a way to democratize information, break silos and get the company towards their new brand journey.
Futures thinking / Speculative design / Branding / Publishing
The Geist project: synthetic cultures for a speculative, strategic and creative design experiment
An experiment in human and artificial imaginations
Geist is a non-profit publishing house that specializes in creating speculative fiction, uniquely informed by aggregated global data from multiple countries. Utilizing a hybrid of artificial intelligence and human imagination, Geist crafts narratives that delve into undiscovered possibilities, cultural amalgamations, and complex futures.
Seeing the Unseen
One of the standout features of Geist is its focus on "seeing the unseen." Through its innovative approach, the publishing house generates content that sheds light on what is often overlooked or unimagined. This artistic endeavor extends beyond mere storytelling to present a layered understanding of how technology impacts society, culture, and individual lives.
Synthetic Cultures
By utilizing advanced algorithms, the project captures and analyzes a wealth of data to generate these new cultural landscapes, offering a unique amalgamation that doesn't exist but is rooted in real-world statistics and behaviors. These synthetic cultures serve as a sandbox for exploring complex questions about technology, society, and human interaction, allowing for a nuanced investigation into the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in an increasingly interconnected and digitalized world.
Scaling design & innovation
Making machine data user-centric at Finning, Canada
Data with a purpose
At the core of Finning Caterpillar in Canada, colossal machines presented an untapped reservoir of data. Our mission was to harness this data, transforming it into actionable insights for a pioneering venture by the company. We identified pressing concerns and immediate necessities of machine operators, site managers, and corporate decision-makers. Our approach hinged on utilizing latent data, channeling it into intuitive interfaces to meet these specific needs.
User-centric research
Our rigorous process saw us engaging in comprehensive documentation reviews, crucial meetings with key stakeholders like Mike and Amir, and setting the strategic pulse in the 'war room'. Venturing beyond the corporate walls, we interacted directly with those on the ground – the construction workers, comprehensively mapping out their daily needs and user journeys. Discussions with industry experts enriched our perspective.
Empowered
Our meticulous research culminated in the identification of pivotal data-related roles, understanding the metrics of assessment, and pairing this data seamlessly with worker tasks — ensuring that Finning Caterpillar was not just equipped with data but empowered by it.
Service Design Lead
Pixelated Preservation: Gaming for Nordic Forests
A grant for saving forests
When Montel Intergalactic offered an environmental grant, frog/Idean was called upon to support in designing a game to champion the conservation of Nordic forests. Guiding the collaboration, I facilitated a workshop to hone in on a value proposition that would align with environmental imperatives, resonate with user desires, and navigate the waters of viability and feasibility.
Trees for pixels
Our brainchild? A real-life "million pixel panel" game. Envision a virtual map of an island, where every pixel purchased by a player corresponds to a tangible tree on an actual island. But we didn't stop there. To augment this immersive experience, we integrated local sensors, live camera feeds, and an interactive feature allowing players to connect with their neighboring 'tree villagers'.
Service Design / Journey Ops / Employee Experience
United in spirits: how a distillery united people, bars and distributers
For a renowned Finnish distillery, tradition meets innovation as we embarked on redefining the essence of loyalty. The visionary goal: to craft a strategy where the distillery serves not just as a producer, but as a nexus, seamlessly binding distributors, consumers, and local bars in a dance of mutual benefit.
Triumvirate of the spirits
Imagine a dynamic ecosystem where every purchase at a participating bar bolsters loyalty points not just for consumers, but for the bars themselves. Distributors, in turn, are incentivized to stock more from the distillery, based on the buzzing activity and demand from these partnered bars.
Community building
The consumer? They're not just sipping a drink, but partaking in a community experience, where loyalty means exclusive events, tastings, or even behind-the-scenes tours.
By placing the distillery at the heart of this intricate web, we didn't just envision a loyalty program; we fostered a thriving community, all united by the spirit of one exceptional distillery.
Service Design / Innovation / Value Proposition
Powering Spain's energy decisions
In Spain, a consumer energy startup aimed to change the way people approached their energy contracts. The brainchild: an intuitive app, designed to effortlessly shift consumers to the most cost-effective energy deals, with a modest service fee as the only catch. But, how would it resonate with the market?
Rapid testing, rapid building
To gauge its pulse, we employed a comprehensive testing regimen, leveraging hundreds of Google and Facebook ads and gauging purchase intent through a full-fledged MVP website. The outcome was a triad of compelling value propositions, each tailored for a distinct customer segment.
The good, the green and the stingy
For the eco-warrior, the allure lay in green energy, ensuring their carbon footprint was minimal. The wary consumer, often jaded by bureaucratic hassles, gravitated towards the promise of hassle-free contracts. And then, there was the quintessential budget-watcher, for whom the siren call was the guarantee of the lowest price.
With these insights, the startup wasn't just poised to launch; it was ready to cater to a mosaic of energy consumers, each with their own unique motivations.
Service Design / Innovation / Value Proposition
A digital bridge from unemployment to employment
A live event for immersive (re)thinking
In an enlightening and transformative event at Arbetsförmedlingen, the Swedish unemployment agency, we embarked on a journey to redefine the digital touchpoints of the unemployment to employment process. We trained individuals in managing and establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to navigate through this critical journey. With a clear goal to minimize returning users, our objective was straightforward - assist users in transitioning out of the system by securing a job through both direct and indirect actions.
Formulating success outcomes
We plunged into a focused exploration of establishing and managing digital goals by instilling expertise in crafting testable hypotheses for digital assets and understanding how to navigate through a journey funnel. We emphasized the importance of setting up tangible goals, objectives, and KPIs and ensuring these metrics were not just measurable but also insightful, offering an understanding into leading and lagging indicators - those predicting and those measuring success.
Journey Strategy / Service Design
Future-proof and paradoxical KPIs for University of Helsinki
Embracing a distinctive approach to the digital student journey at Helsinki University meant delving into a seemingly paradoxical KPI: reducing time spent on the site while enhancing course enrollments.
Creating a digital-to-Academic correlation
By envisioning a future where website interactions could be co-related with actual academic success and higher grades, the strategy sought to ensure that the digital touchpoints were not merely transactional stops but transformational waypoints in the student’s academic journey. This forward-looking approach saw the website as an active participant in a student’s academic narrative, ensuring every digital interaction was both impactful and intentional in guiding academic pathways.
Beyond transactional touchpoints
The task didn’t stop at optimizing the website or merely improving digital interactions. The Helsinki University case was about ensuring that the digital space became an active contributor to a student’s academic journey, intertwining digital strategy seamlessly with educational success.
Service Design / Journey Ops / Employee Experience
Promising young women: taking a startup towards to early adopters
Value proposition work
For a budding app melding coaching and recruitment, the challenge was clear: elevate their website and crystallize a resonating value proposition. Diving into the field, we engaged with a myriad of job seekers, uncovering a tapestry of motivations and concerns. Among the mosaic of insights, a recurring theme emerged—long-time employees grappled with newfound anxieties when venturing back into the job market.
Testing value, diving into data
Embracing an agile approach, we subjected a spectrum of 15 value propositions to rapid testing. The outcome was both enlightening and unexpected. The most resonant message found its home among an often-overlooked segment: young females, aged 18-23. These were ambitious university students and early-career professionals, sneaking in vocational tests during lunch breaks amidst the rigors of academia or their initial forays into the corporate world.
Fine tuning value propositions with UX
With this revelation, we fine-tuned the startup's digital strategy, ensuring that their platform became the go-to haven for these determined young women charting their career paths.
Service Design / Journey Ops / Employee Experience
Igniting passion: reimagining recruitment operators worldwide
In a sector dominated by colossal machines, we endeavored to focus on the equally significant human gears that keep the industry turning. Our quest for enhanced employee experience in a leading heavy machinery company commenced with AI-driven research, swiftly identifying preliminary pain points and interests, laying the groundwork for our investigative hypotheses.
Six markets, a few spotlights
Journeying across six markets, we listened to the voices of employees, managers, and recruiters, plunging into their communities, shared spaces, and unique passions. A striking revelation emerged: the company's current ecosystem failed to kindle the inherent passion of its workforce.
Managers in trouble
Furthermore, our research spotlighted managers grappling with an overload of challenges, primarily stemming from antiquated systems. On the brighter side, a plethora of modern technological tools beckoned, promising efficiency in remote interviews and skill assessments.
Our findings weren't just a mirror to the company's present but a compass pointing towards a more engaged, efficient, and passionate future.
Service Design / Journey Ops / Innovation
Conceptualizing and testing an airline's door-to-door vision
For a Nordic airline, the aspiration soared beyond the realms of mere air travel. We embarked on an ambitious journey to redefine the airline experience from mere flight-centric to an encompassing door-to-door service. The mission: to seamlessly intertwine the stages before, during, and after the flight, crafting a continuous, cohesive travel narrative.
Safe, practical or affordable?
But an idea, no matter how grand, is only as good as its reception. Embracing this ethos, we rapidly tested the concept using targeted online ads. Through meticulous analytics and feedback, we differentiated the relative value of our two primary audience segments: business travelers and tourists.
Building a business case with fresh data
The results were enlightening. With definitive data, we honed in on the cohort that presented the highest potential lifetime value, complete with robust business cases and revenue projections.
With this renewed clarity, the airline was not just poised to redefine air travel but to pioneer a holistic approach, encompassing every nuance of a traveler's journey.
Service Design / Innovation
The data-structured doctor from Rome, with love
Within the historic precincts of Rome, we teamed up with a leading global pharmaceutical company, undertaking a week-long ideation sprint. The challenge? Combat the rise of "Dr. Google" and its labyrinth of misinformation, while also maximizing the quality of time patients spend with their doctors.
Quality time at the doctor's office
Our mission extended beyond just countering misleading online narratives; it was about forging a stronger, trust-driven bond between patients and physicians. The result was a visionary concept that transformed the traditional doctor's office into a dynamic data hub.
Expedite booking and structured data gathering
This space became a sanctuary where patient data, gathered from genuine sources, was structured and protected through a proprietary interface.
With this innovation, we could elevate the patient-doctor interaction and build consistent trust. Now, patients could be assured that their health data was not just secure but also being interpreted by trusted medical professionals, rather than an unreliable web search.
Service Design / Strategy / Innovation
Advising on the future of edge technology
Edge computing is making waves in the tech industry today. But when a leading Nordic telecommunication company approached us to determine the strategic direction of their data centers, edge computing was an obscure term, barely on the horizon of innovation.
Methodical madness
With 75+ ideas spanning across IoT, 5G, data centers, and the budding concept of edge computing, our first challenge was to distil these into a singular, potent direction. Through a mix of benchmark research across seven markets, capability assessments, revenue potential evaluations, and partnership viability studies, we began to see a pattern emerge.
Crafting a pricing strategy from scratch
With no market precedent, I delved into constructing a pricing model based on raw calculations - estimating data loads for industrial enterprises, processing, electricity costs, and more. Each scenario was constructed with precision, assiduously corroborated with one of Europe’s top three edge computing specialists. Our remote collaboration epitomized the project's gravity when he remarked, "Sérgio, I'm three minutes late because I'm speaking with the Ministry of Technology of France."
Setting a road ahead
The project with the Nordic telecommunication player wasn’t just about recommending edge computing. It was about foreseeing the emerging tech, meticulously crafting a path towards it, and laying the foundation for what promises to be the next big thing in the world of technology.
Service Design / Journey Strategy / Innovation
Crafting a Memetic Master Narrative for a €100M+ Tech Product
In the world of IT consultancy, the launch of a new, innovative product is akin to introducing a new language. Often, these products are intricate and face intense competition from equally competent global firms. In this piece, I'll take you through a journey of how we worked with a leading technology consultancy to demystify their €50M+ product for high-tier executives and ensure it stood out in the market.
Understanding the titans
Before diving into the narrative creation, it was crucial to understand the mindset of the decision-makers. These are CMOs, CTOs, and COOs who are swamped with pitches daily. By understanding their decision-making journeys, we could tailor our narrative to resonate with their specific needs, pains, and desires.
Aha!
We distilled the product's essence into a captivating story that encapsulated its value proposition. The aim was to help potential customers quickly grasp the product's unique selling points and experience that eureka moment. Drawing from the master narrative, we developed a new visual identity for the product. The visuals were not just about aesthetics but served as an additional layer of storytelling, enhancing the product's appeal and making it more memorable.
Service Design / AB Testing / Customer Experience
Must love pets: boosting revenue for pet ecommerce
A/B tests at scale for immediate new revenue
In the expanse of the Nordics, a premier pet e-commerce platform sought to refine its digital pawprint. Our mission was precise: meticulously review and rejuvenate the website, bolstering user experience and driving tangible growth.
Raising the numbers
Through rigorous A/B testing, we zeroed in on a set of intuitive changes. Amplifying the search bar resulted in a notable 3.89% uptick in search rate, eventually raising the value per session from a modest €1.39 to an impressive €1.45.
By simplifying the checkout process, removing potential distractions and paring down options, we witnessed a substantial 7% spike in in-site search, translating to an added revenue of a whopping €187,455.39 annually.
How to pet shop
Our strategy was about guiding decisions. Post-purchase, our tailored suggestions on 'how to shop' and subsequent steps kept users engaged and invested. The journey transformed not just a website, but a great deal of the shopping experience for pet lovers across the Nordics.