GALAXYADVISORS are premier providers of original social network analysis solutions and consultation, built upon decades of cutting edge academic research at the Center for Collective Intelligence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, Wayne State University in Detroit, and the University of Cologne in Germany. Their clientele include some of the world’s most reputable corporations, such as Ford Motor Company, Pfizer, Bayer, Migros, Hitachi, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, and UBS. At the heart of their approach is an innovative theoretical framework for understanding creative behavior within social structures, applied through a series of ground-breaking algorithms and powerful web applications. GALAXYADVISORS offer a diagnostic perspective into the very engine that drives society forward: the creativity swarm. Actually, to say this is cutting edge is an understatement.

During the winter quarter of 2010, a graduate level course – Design Innovation Development and Marketing Strategies, directed by Dr. Christine Miller – kicked off a 10-week project to study GALAXYADVISORS’ current business model and identify strategic opportunities for innovation and growth. Several of us from the 2009-2010 COINs global virtual projects were preparing our final research reports, and had become quite familiar with both the theory and practice of social network analysis.

Defining the Business Idea

Prior to our involvement, GALAXYADVISORS’ primary strategy was to offer premium research and analysis for select clients using proprietary software called Condor, now Condor Core. Condor Core is a web-based toolkit for trolling and analyzing select content from the ocean of information that makes up the web as we know it, and features an API for easy extension and customization to specific project requirements. Two examples of this extension are CoolTrend and CoolPeople, powerful web apps offered by GALAXYADVISORS as part of a subscription-based service. Also, as mentioned before, the GALAXYADVISORS team are all actively engaged in full time academic pursuits, including an annual global virtual research collaborative, dubbed “COINs” (Collaborative Innovation Networks) for short. It quickly became apparent that between managing client consultations, developing software, and overseeing dozens of student projects, the team was reaching a limit on the amount of time that could be invested in new ventures.

Once we understood how GALAXYADVSIORS’ saw themselves, we set out to interview several of their past clients, to get an outside-in perspective of the nature and value of their offerings. Our questions were primarily focused on understanding how the client relationship was formed, what the greatest value GALAXYADVSIORS provided, and if there were any recurring obstacles to project approval or implementation. We learned that most of the projects were established through prior acquaintances or professional relationships. The complex nature of GALAXYADVSIORS’ services created some initial challenges, to be sure, but they did an excellent job of translating – cutting through the complexity to make the data meaningful and actionable. Almost all of our interviewees expressed that it was nice to have the GALAXYADVSIORS available at any time to answer questions or troubleshoot issues. They appreciated that the team was friendly and approachable. However, it was also clear that this constant dependency on so few individuals could not scale, especially if team members were occupied with conferences or travel.

Finally, we considered who GALAXYADVISORS are not. The market is still relatively underdeveloped, but there already several concepts in motion that are built on similar principles of social network analysis and swarming. A few of the companies we identified operate in the consulting domain, specifically focusing on marketing strategies and consumer trends. During our conversations with the GALAXYADVISORS team we learned that they have strong aspirations to be “solutions providers” for companies just like the ones we were finding. It’s not about battling for market share with specific applications, but creating infrastructure that new companies could be built upon.

Identifying an Opportunity Space

Most people don’t get too excited about research, but it’s really an amazing time. A torrent of concepts, observations, clues – fragments of structure – rushing into an open mind collide with a waiting pool of past experiences, ideas, shapes, mental models, catalyzed through conversation between teammates into a stream of original “what ifs.” We started catching those insights by having an open discussion about who GALAXYADVISORS are, what they do, and how they do it. Our goal was to identify the exact words that best tell the story. We arrived at “State of the Art, Contextual, and Discovery,” and in the days after that conversation more words began popping up, sparking new ideas and new foci to the challenges we had previously identified.

An interesting consequence of being pioneers in an emerging profession is that it becomes nearly impossible to scale without cloning your core team several times over — and we all know how expensive that can be. It will take several years before there is a sufficient pool of available, employable talent in the social network analysis profession. Interestingly, though, it will more than likely be comprised of past students and enthusiasts who are, or will be, academically engaged with members of the GALAXYADVISORS team. Could GALAXYADVISORS formalize this community?

Every year dozens of students self-assemble from around the world to collaborate on projects, and in doing so become very familiar with both the theory and practice of the profession. Perhaps the top performers of these teams could be kept around a little longer? Maybe they would be interested in doing projects on the side, after they graduate from studies and move on into their chosen disciplines. Managing these projects would be much less time consuming than doing them themselves, which might even let them take on more work than they could otherwise handle. The idea of “Galaxy Labs” was introduced; a community of hand-picked researchers and developers that could self-assemble to tackle projects and develop cool new applications built on Condor Core. Galaxy Labs would be a launch pad for entire new business ventures.

Let’s Make it Happen!

Our next step, which had actually been happening iteratively throughout the entire project, was to communicate the new message and reinforce core attributes through visual communication. We explored and refined concepts until we arrived at a sharp, strong revision of the previous logo that communicated “authoritative, yet approachable.” We extended the style into series of logos to cover the entire line of products and services offered by GALAXYADVISORS, and developed a brand style guide that would help promote consistency after our involvement concluded.

The final phase of our project was a complete website redesign to set the company on a strong path towards transformation. The previous site was admittedly out of date, and after a series of design audits and surveys we were able to confirm that site visitors were having trouble identifying GALAXYADVISORS’ core offerings. Members of the team had already created vast stores of content explaining their processes, but these artifacts were scattered across a number of different websites. After auditing these sources we discovered that a majority of the content we needed was already available in some form or another, and was consolidated into a new architecture. The result is a rich, unified knowledge base for prospective clients while focusing on communicating the quality of relationships that exist with current and past clients. The site’s design is simple and refined, reinforcing the GALAXYADVISORS’ brand image as authoritative yet approachable. Clean lines and sharp typeface selections to create an easy-to-follow and scan hierarchy of content. The site was built on SixApart’s open source version of Movable Type, a premium-grade publishing platform that allows for easy content creation and maintenance, search engine optimization and fast page-loading. The added scope of a web redesign was ambitious, but we felt it was absolutely critical, and have since heard great feedback from GALAXYADVISORS and their clients.

Looking Forward

The project was a great success, and GALAXYADVISORS were quite pleased with our contributions. Galaxy Labs exists conceptually, but it will take some thoughtful consideration of how to best formalize the young community. The partnership between SCAD Design Management and GALAXYADVISORS has only just begun, so keep an eye out for more exciting developments from this dynamic duo!

More on GALAXYADVISORS and SCAD

SCAD Design Management partnered with Peter Gloor, research scientist at MIT’s Center for Collective Intellgience –as well as Chief Creative Officer and Founder of GALAXYADVISORS– in the fall of 2008 as part of an annual global virtual research collaborative (COINs). The following year, SCAD hosted the first-ever COINs Conference in Savannah, Georgia, and COINs 2010 a year later. As of this post, COINs2011 will be hosted by HyperWerk in Basel, Switzerland!