15 September, 2009
Helsinki Guestbook – a digital guestbook for friends of Helsinki
The Helsinki Guestbook is a digital guestbook filled with personal greetings from visitors to Helsinki. Launched on 15 September 2009 at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport at the My City Helsinki restaurant, the Guestbook includes a touch screen and a camera that enable personalized greetings. The Helsinki Guestbook service is based on an interactive concept that will create a network of memories, experiences, stories and encounters allowing people to see familiar places from a new perspective, and introducing them to new places. The service provides new content to Helsinki’s subjective story bank, and allows people to see the city with new eyes.
The users of the service, visitors at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, leave their photos and a personal note to the guestbook, located in the My City Helsinki restaurant run by Select Service Partner Finland Oy. The guestbook concept includes a large screen projecting the greetings and pictures of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The restaurant is located in the first part of the terminal extension, which is used mainly by a growing number of long distance flights.
In the next phase, a networking option will be added to the service. The networking function will allow the persons who are adding their messages to the Guestbook to search for contacts that meet their own requirements. This concept supports the “Invitation to Helsinki” theme which is prominent in the activities and campaigns of Greater Helsinki Promotion, and symbolises the international cooperation that is just beginning to unfold. Helsinki Guestbook is a multichannel concept that utilises the Web and open space. The greetings left in it emphasize the idea of people’s Helsinki, providing glimpses into people’s personal lives, and airing their thoughts on the Helsinki metropolitan area.
”It is possible to activate the passengers waiting to board their planes with the Guestbook. This way, we can show them pictures of a Helsinki that is full of action, fun and spontaneous people. By looking at pictures of Helsinki and leaving a message, passengers can get in contact with the city, which they are visiting only briefly,” says Helena Hyvärinen, who is the contact person responsible for the Helsinki Guestbook concept at Forum Virium Helsinki. “Hopefully that will also encourage the passengers to step outside the transit zone the next time they are landing in Helsinki.”
The Helsinki Guestbook space and user interface have been implemented in cooperation with Forum Virium Helsinki, Greater Helsinki Promotion and SSP Ravintolat Oy. “Visibility at the airport provides an excellent opportunity to leave a memory trace depicting an active Helsinki full of freshness,” notes Johanna Korhonen, communications director of Greater Helsinki Promotion. “And since there’s always an extra time gap between transit flights, we hope that passengers will spend part of it communicating with Helsinki and its residents.”
For additional information, please contact:
Helena Hyvärinen
Executive Producer
Forum Virium Helsinki
Tel. +358 44 587 2077
helena.hyvarinen@forumvirium.fi
Johanna Korhonen
Communications Director
Greater Helsinki Promotion Oy
Tel. +358 400 995699
johanna.korhonen@helsinkibusinesshub.fi
Forum Virium Helsinki
Forum Virium Helsinki promotes the development of digital services. The neutral, independent cooperation cluster brings together ideas and content creators with high-growth and established companies as well as public sector organizations.
Forum Virium Helsinki leads development projects and opens contacts to international markets, in addition to playing a key part in creating Living Lab test environments in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The goal of these initiatives is to advance next-generation digital services and business models.
Forum Virium Helsinki's key member companies are Elisa, Nokia, TeliaSonera, Tieto, Veikkaus and Finnish Broadcasting Company. Partners include Destia, Digita, Itella, Logica, SOK and MTV Media. The public sector is represented by the City of Helsinki, Finnvera, SITRA (The Finnish Innovation Fund ), TEKES (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) and VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland). SME partners are Adage, ConnectedDay, Futurice and Idean. FVH's development projects also encompass a large number of high-growth companies based in the Helsinki region.
www.forumvirium.fi
Greater Helsinki Promotion Ltd
Greater Helsinki Promotion (GHP) is the international business promotion agency for the Greater Helsinki area. GHP receives its funding from public sources – from the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen as well as the Uusimaa Regional Council.
Helsinki is a dynamic hub for international business. At the heart of the Baltic Sea Region and strategically located in the crossroads of East and West, Helsinki offers businesses Europe’s most highly educated workforce supported by advanced infrastructure in a green and stable environment.
www.helsinkibusinesshub.fi