Discover Sisu
Neste x Ponsse
Watch the case film
Helping Finns rediscover their inner strength with the help of AI amid a pandemic
Sisu pushed us through the pandemic and its ever-changing restrictions. Until the fatigue kicked in. The sisu persistent mentality was burning us out. Finnish companies Neste and Ponsse decided it was time for a new, healthier sisu mindset.
But how to modernise something even Wikipedia cannot define?
We used the help of an AI to discover what sisu means to us in the 21. century.
In a survey* targeted at young Finnish entrepreneurs, 47.5% of the respondents felt that their entrepreneurial spirit had increased during the pandemic, and as many as 96.7% of the respondents felt that attitude played at least a moderate role in withstanding the coronavirus crisis.
Ponsse and Neste, two global success stories rooted in Finland, observed that the ever-changing situation during the pandemic was posing a strong mental challenge for Finns. They wanted to motivate and inspire Finns to avoid burning out amidst the pandemic.
*The survey of the members of Young Entrepreneurs of Finland was carried out in September-October 2021, with 61 respondents. Young Entrepreneurs of Finland operates under Suomen Yrittäjät, the national umbrella organization for entrepreneurs in Finland, and is intended for entrepreneurs under age 36.
Challenge
Finnish people are widely known as determined and with a strong inner power. We call that inner power ‘sisu’ - the Finnish national character of never giving up. We realised that this very mindset was driving people to the edge of burnout during the pandemic. People were trying to power through the crisis using the mentality of their forefathers, while living in a totally different world. It was time for a new ‘sisu’ that fit the modern struggles of the 21st century.
Insight
Since sisu is an intangible term that even Wikipedia cannot define, we needed the help of AI to understand how sisu has changed and what the modern sisu should be like.
We fed 1,2 million articles to AI, found 20k sisu-related topics in the texts, generated 2k Sisu-related keywords, and in the end defined four different sisu types.
Through an online voice-generated test curated with the help of a psychologist, people can find out their Sisu type and get psychological advice on how to for example avoid burnout, but also learn about their strengths and weaknesses.
Our biggest finding?
Sometimes it takes sisu to give up and put yourself first.
Solution
“We found that one of the main pillars of sisu is passion. Passion does not mean that you should push through every challenge, but also means that sometimes you should just give up – it is beneficial in the big picture. And that is the 21. century sisu.
Heidi Peltonen
Neste
Neste x Ponsse
Neste and Ponsse, as long-term partners, wanted to define what is sisu in the 21st century and inspire all Finns to find their own inner force.
Both companies have risen to the top of their industry with exceptional sisu. How likely is it that a company from Finland will become the world's largest producer of renewable fuels? And how likely is it to start the journey from Vieremä to become the world's best forest machine manufacturer? Sisu has always been part of the history of both Neste and Ponsse and has influenced the DNA of both throughout the ages. In addition, both believe it will be a driving force in building a more sustainable future.
DISCOVER SISU
DISCOVER SISU
Discover Sisu is a project dedicated for the general wellbeing of Finns. It’s aim is to guide, motivate and inspire them during turbulent times.
Results
1,4K people
received psychological advice
people from
89 countries
found their inner superpower and learned about sisu
10 MLN reach
that’s twice the population of Finland
The Sisu AI went through…
699,000
YLE articles
500,000
speeches & quotes
5,000
TED talks
+ an extensive research about Sisu
by Emilia Lahti
And identified…
20,000
sisu topics
1,700
keywords
4
sisu types
How does it work?
How does it work?
FIRST
Use our voice-generated test to talk to the Sisu AI to find out your unique Sisu type.
SECOND
Read about your unique Sisu type and discover ways to handle your Sisu character
THIRD
Find your famous Sisu twin
HOW WE DID IT?
HOW WE DID IT?
We collected large amounts of data and trained a model based on the transformers architecture – the transformer is a deep learning architecture that has achieved state-of-the-art results in many language tasks – to produce representations of words in a way that takes into account the surrounding context of the words. This type of contextual representation of natural language more accurately reflects how language is used in the real world and is better able to capture nuances in everyday speech.
The four sisu types were based on DISC analysis, combined with the cornerstone theories of personality psychology: the Big Five, Types A & B, and approach/avoidance motivation. These theories’ elements came together intuitively to form the four sisu types: Roihu, Kuura, Perkele, and Vaisto. Next, trait keywords were allocated for each sisu type in both Finnish and English to be able to train the NLP model on the differences of the sisu types.
Finally, we fed a person’s answer to the trained model to produce a vector representation (that is, a set of numbers) indicating a point in a very high-dimensional space (we humans are limited in our ability to visualise spaces beyond three dimensions but imagine a space with 1000 dimensions). We also did the same for the four sisu types. We matched the person’s answer to the sisu type closest to it in this high-dimensional space.
Lines of code for the BERT language model
Lines of code for the BERT language model
Vector representation of the four sisu types and corresponding answers
The campaign launched with the help of relevant influencers.
Leading an airline company when the industry faces the biggest crisis of its lifetime takes much sisu and, therefore, the CEO of Finnair, Topi Manner is representing one of the faces of sisu.
Fighting for a social cause requires a vast amount of sisu, making Kamilla Sultanova a perfect influencer for the campaign. Her passion is to make inclusion tangible and valuable through public speaking, mentoring, and community building.
Lasse Viren's most notable and sisu-related accomplishment in his career was seen in the Olympic games of Munich in 1972, when he fell after colliding with another competitor but instead of giving up, he kept on going and ended up winning the race.
Beata, better known on the internet as Paqpa, is one of the most followed gamers in Finland. Female gamers still receive much negative feedback, even sexual harassment. Even though these problems still exist, she hasn't given up her passion. Beata is determined to continue her mission to get girls to game and bring equality to the gaming community.
Overall, 23 interviews were conducted (9 young entrepreneurs and 14 public figures). Four of the 14 influencers we interviewed were chosen as the face of sisu for the campaign. These influencers have different backgrounds and success stories and, therefore, show how sisu takes form in various ways.
We also shared the modern sisu findings all around the country in an Outdoor campaign to motivate people during the darkest times of the year.
Sisuunnu. Next train will always come.
The spring will come, eventually.
Together we will make it.
Find your sisu.
We solved the mystery of sisu.
