PETER GLOOR

Communicate, Collaborate, Innovate!

I am happily juggling different hats, studying Collaborative Innovation Networks (COIN) at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, developing the social networking and visualization software Condor with galaxyadvisors, and occasionally writing books, most recently “Swarm Leadership”, “Sociometrics”, “Coolfarming”, Coolhunting” and “Swarm Creativity”.

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About

Peter A. Gloor is a Research Scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he leads a project exploring Collaborative Innovation Networks (COIN). He is also Founder and Chief Creative Officer of software company galaxyadvisors where he puts his academic insights to practical use, helping clients to coolhunt by analyzing social networking patterns on the Internet – spot the next big thing by finding the trendsetters, and to coolfarm – increase organizational happiness, creativity and performance through workforce analytics.

In addition Peter is a Honorary Professor at University of Cologne and a Honorary Professor at Jilin University, Changchun China. He has also taught classes at University of Bamberg, Universidad Cattolica, Santiago de Chile, Aalto University Helsinki, University of Rome Tor Vergata, University of Applied Sciences Lucerne, and University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. Previously, Peter was a Partner with Deloitte Consulting, leading its e-Business practice for Europe, a Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the section leader for software engineering at UBS. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Lab for Computer Science in the Advanced Networking Architecture group, working on hypertext well before the Web emerged and creating the multimedia CD “Animated Algorithms” (published by MIT Press). He obtained a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Zurich, and a Master’s degree (diploma) in Mathematics also from the University of Zurich.

In his spare time he likes to work on bridging the digital divide, hiking and skiing in the mountains, and playing the piano.

He has written 9 books, his three newest books are Morality, Emotions, and AI (forthcoming), Swarm Leadership and the Collective Mind: Using Collaborative Innovation Networks to Build a Better Business (Emerald Publishers, 2017) and Sociometrics and Human Relationships: Analyzing Social Networks to Manage Brands, Predict Trends, and Improve Organizational Performance (Emerald Publishers, 2017), previous books include Swarm Creativity – Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks (Oxford University Press, 2005), Coolhunting – Chasing Down The Next Big Thing (with Scott Cooper) (AMACOM, 2007), and Coolfarming – Turn Your Great Idea In The Next Big Thing (AMACOM 2010).

He blogs about Swarm Creativity at swarmcreativity.blogspot.com. Contact him at pgloor@mit.edu

News & Events

January 24, 2020
MIT Japan Conference, Tokyo 

October 8-9, 2019
9th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks COINs19 in Warsaw
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 9th annual conference to be held in Warsaw, Poland 

May 13, 2019
FHNW Brugg, Switzerland,  Podium Interface Invited talk series
Von Fake News, Echokammern und «Alternative Realities»
Invited talk about social quantum physics and the mutual influence of the real and the virtual world to create “alternative realities” which lead to fake news.

March 19, 2019
ZHAW Zurich, IAP Impuls
Master oder Robot? – Digitale (Selbst-)Vermessung in der Arbeitswelt
Keynote about measuring our own communication behavior through e-mail and the happimeter smartwatch to improve wellbeing

December 11 , 2018
2018 MIT Paris Symposium
Human surrounded by technologies, or human at the center of our technologies
Keynote about “From the Madness of Crowds to the Creativity of Swarms – Leveraging AI for Collaboration and Creativity”

November 13 – 15, 2018
Masters & Robots Conference Warsaw, Poland
Keynote about “Social Quantum Physics”

September 26 – 28, 2018
8th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins18 in Suzhou
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 8th annual conference to be held in Suzhou, China 

November 17 – 19, 2017
18th International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences
Keynote on “From the Age of Emperors to the Age of Empathy” at the 18th International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand.

October 19 – 21, 2017
Freedom Games 2017 – “RE:evolution / Digital reality”
Keynote on Swarm Creativity at “Freedom Games 2017” in Lodz, Poland

September 14 – 16, 2017
7th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins17 in Detroit
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 7th annual conference to be held at Wayne State University Detroit, sponsored by Ford, September 14 – 16, 2017

May, 2017
My 2 New Books “Swarmleadership” and “Sociometrics” out
My two new books “Swarm Leadership and the Collective Mind: Using Collaborative Innovation Networks to Build a Better Business” and “Sociometrics and Human Relationships: Analyzing Social Networks to Manage Brands, Predict Trends, and Improve Organizational Performance” just appeared at Emerald Publishing Group.
Buy them at Amazon: Swarm Leadership Sociometrics

May 30, 2017
Sektor 3.0 Conference Warsaw Poland
Keynote on “Reading and Influencing the Collective Mind” at the Sektor 3.0 Conference in Warsaw, May 30, 2017

March 6, 2017
MIT Agoria Conference Brussels
Keynote on swarm leadership and the collective mind at the MIT Agoria Conference in Brussels, March 6, 2017

 

January 23, 2017
Statistisch Volkswirtschaftliche Gesellschaft Basel
Evening keynote at University of Basel about “Why Donald Trump won the US Elections – from the wisdom of the swarm to the madness of the crowd”, January 23, 2017

 

News & Events prior to 2017

June 8 – 11, 2016
6th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins16 in Rome
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 6th annual conference to be held at University Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, June 8 – 11, 2016

May 15 – 17, 2016
European City of Culture, Wroclaw Poland
Panel on Collaborative Innovation Networks at the Expanded ECO City: interfaces, codes, symbols event as part of a yearlong event celebrating Wroclaw (Breslau) Poland as European capital of culture, Wroclaw, Poland, May 15 – 17, 2016

May 9 – 13, 2016
Beyond Creative: Workshop for the Creative Economy, Lisbon
2 workshops on coolhunting and coolfarming, organized by the University of Lisbon and the American Corner, Lisbon, Portugal, May 9 – 13, 2016

January 20, 2016
Managing Innovation in Rapidly Changing Times – IVA Executive Forum
Keynote on “The Stupidity of the Crowd and the Wisdom of the Swarm” at an IVA Executive Forum organized b IVA, Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), Technology Academy Finland (TAF) & The MIT Industrial Liaison Program at IVA Conference Center, Grev Turegatan 16, Stockholm

December 9 – 12, 2015
SocInfo15 7th International Conference on Social Informatics, Beijing
Keynote on “The Stupidity of the Crowd and the Wisdom of the Swarm” at SocInfo15, Beijing, to be held at the Academy of Mathematics & Systems Science Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

March 24, 2015
Crossroad 2015, MIT, Cambridge MA
Keynote on the power of collaborative innovation at the 2015 Corssroads Supply Chain Conference of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (includes video of the talk ).

March 12 – 14, 2015
5th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins15 in Tokyo
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 5th annual conference to be held at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, March 12 – 14, 2015

Jan 4 – 9, 2015
Workshop on Frontiers Mathematical Problems in Network Science and Data Geometry
Keynote on Measuring and visualizing signals of collective intelligence at large organizations through network science, Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum, Hainan, China

Oct 22/23, 2014
6th Congresso Internacional de Inovacao
Keynote on use of big data, communication, and innovation in enterprises at the 6th international congress on innovation and megatrends, Porto Alegre, Brazil.

July 7-18, 2014
Web Science and the Mind
Seminar on Collaborative Innovation at the Summer Institute on Web Science and the Mind in Montreal July 7-18 2014 at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences (ICS) at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQaM).

May 8/9, 2014
Entscheidende Daten: Die Vermessung der Gesellschaft
Science forum Constance: how does the constant availability of data impact our lives? Keynote “Trust and Transparency: Why Wikipedians are good for society” (in German). download brochure

April 2, 2014
Neue Arbeitswelten für Innovation und Effizienz ++ ETH Symposium 2014
Keynote “Vom Bienenstock zur Facebook-Welt. Wie Schwarmkreativität Innovation und Effizienz unserer Arbeitswelt steigert” (in German). download brochure

March 19, 2014
SOCNET 2014, Bamberg
International Workshop on Modeling, Analysis and Management of Social Networks and their Applications. Keynote on “Coolhunting for “Honest Signals of Innovation” in Social Media” abstract

Nov 19, 2013
Top Innovation durch Kooperation
Keynote on Collaborative Innovation Networks at Technical University Vienna, in cooperation with Chamber of Commerce, Vienna.

Oct 10, 2013
INKOP 2013, Split
Opening keynote on Collaborative Innovation Networks at 17th INKOP German CIO User group in Split, Kroatia, on Collaborative Innovation Networks.

August 11-13, 2013
4th International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins13
The Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) Conference invites you to submit papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 4th annual conference to be held in Santiago de Chile, hosted by Universidad Cattolica, August 11-13, 2013

June 13, 2013
Korean Association of Data Science
Keynote at first user conference “Social Media and Swarm Creativity” in Seoul link to translated Web site

June 4, 2013
8. Swiss Information Management Forum 2013
The Swiss Information Management Forum is the platform for IT decision makers in Switzerland. Peter’s keynote will talk about social media, big data, and new challenges of the mobile Web. download brochure

May 23, 2013
MIT Europe Conference, Vienna
Keynote on Collaborative Innovation Networks

May 17, 2013
Copenhagen Business School
Invited Talk on “Analyzing Big Data to Discover Honest Signals of Innovation”. The talk describes a series of ongoing projects at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence with the goal of analyzing the new idea creation process through tracking human interaction patterns on three levels.

January 9 to 11, 2013 (3-6pm)
Short Course at MIT “Coolhunting and Coolfarming through Swarm Creativity”
As part of MIT’s IAP (independent activities period), Discover what’s going to be cool— before everyone else.. In this course you will find out how to: – discover cool trends through finding the trendsetters: tap into the collective intelligence of the Web, Blogs, and online social networks (Coolhunting) – develop the new trends through self-organizing teams (Coolfarming) – obtain a “virtual mirror” of your own communication behavior by analyzing your own e-mail network – learn about our Condor software for coolhunting on the Web, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook and to do dynamic social network analysis
Read more…

December 5, 2012 (5-7.30pm)
How New Things Are Being Created
Public talk in Lecture Series on Creative Swarms – the wisdom of many at the University of Applied Sciences Lucerne
Lucerne, Switzerland

March 10, 2012
SWSX Session “Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media”
On Saturday, March 10 2012, at the InterContinental Stephen F Austin, do not miss “Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media”. Peter Gloor of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence and supporting panel will answer questions like: Is ‘cool farming’ the cold fusion of marketing and advertisements? What factors and metrics determine viral-ness or cool-ness?
Read more…

Oct 13, 2011
Austrian Innovation Forum
Keynote on Creative Swarms – the wisdom of many (watch video)
Vienna, Austria

Sept 8-11, 2011
3rd International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks coins11
Conference Co-organizer
Basel, Switzerland

May 12, 2011
Swiss Cyberstorm
Keynote on Collective Prediction in Digital Social Networks Through Discovery of Collaborative Innovation Networks (watch video)
Munich, Germany

Feb 1&2, 2011
German CRM Forum
Keynote on Coolhunting and Coolfarming
Munich, Germany

Dec 9, 2010
Webinar on Coolhunting&Coolfarming
Special Webinar on Coolhunting&Coolfarming organized by Eduhub on December 9th, 5pm Swiss/11am Boston more details

Nov 23&24, 2010
Trendforum 2010
Keynote on Coolhunting through Swarm Creativity – Trend Prediction by Reading the Collective Mind
Munich, Germany

Oct 28, 2010
Swiss Forum For Educational Media SFEM
Keynote on Using Social Networks to Identify latest trends in education
Basel, Switzerland

Sept 1-3, 2010
Keynote at I-KNOW Conference, Graz
Coolfarming: Turn Your Great Idea into the Next Big Thing
Graz, Austria

June 24th, 2010
Keynote at Swiss CRM Forum
Coolhunting und Coolfarming durch Schwarmkreativität
Zurich, Switzerland

May 21st, 2010
Keynote at University of Amsterdam Business School
Collaborative Innovation Networks: Coolhunting through Swarmcreativity
Amsterdam, Netherlands

April 13th, 2010
Keynote at Swiss e-Learning Conference
Foerderung kollaborativer Innovationsnetzwerke durch Schwarmkreativitaet
Zurich, Switzerland

Nov 19th, 2009
Keynote at SFEM Swiss Forum for Educational Media
Kollaboration in Innovationsnetzwerken durch Schwarmkreativitaet
Berne, Switzerland

Nov 19th, 2009
Keynote at SFEM Swiss Forum for Educational Media
Kollaboration in Innovationsnetzwerken durch Schwarmkreativitaet
Berne, Switzerland

Oct 19th, 2009
Featured Talk at Innovation Immersion
Crowd-Sourcing, Cool Hunting & Cool Farming: Leveraging Swarm Creativity to Bring New Trends Over the Tipping Point
La Jolla, CA

Sept 29th, 2009
Keynote at Internet Summit Austria
Coolhunting durch Schwarmkreativität:Frühzeitiges Erkennen von Trends durch Soziale Netzwerkanalyse auf dem Web
Vienna, Austria

Aug 28th, 2009
Workshop at European Forum Alpbach
Part of the Technology Forum: Working Group 07: Creative industries vs. old economy: where is the economy headed? more…
Alpbach, Austria

Aug 8th, 2009
Workshop at the 2009 Academy of Management Annual Meeting
Reality Mining: Using Sociometric Badges for Automated Behavioral Data Collection. with Ben Waber, Lynn Wu, Sandy Pentland, Sinan Aral, David Lazer, and Erik Brynjolfsson more…
Chicago, Illinois

June 28th, 2009
Improving Health Care Delivery: The Role of Collaborative Social Networks
Panel presentation at AcademyHealth, Chicago. more…

June 24/25th, 2009
What is the Innovation Quotient of you and your team and how can you change it
An examination of how communication patterns, connectivity and sharing determine the innovation quotient of individuals and organisations, with examples in Financial Services and lessons in star-gazing, galactic journeys and a spot of waggle-dancing
Amplify, Sydney, Australia

June 17th, 2009
Dynamic Social Network Analysis with Condor
How to optimize the flow of knowledge in organizations through dynamic social network analysis
Swiss IT Leadership Forum, Cannes

June 9th, 2009
Von Hypermedia zu Collective Intelligence
RINGVORLESUNG “HAPPY FRONT END” #5: Peter Gloors Vortrag schlägt einen Bogen von den Anfängen des Webs bis hin zu “Predictive User Interfaces”, die auf sozialer Netzwerkanalyse basieren…
Merz Akademie, Stuttgart

May 28th, 2009
Online Lecture at University of Amsterdam
Coolhunting and Coolfarming through Swarm Creativity. Video and synchronized slides of a 90 minutes virtual talk at University of Amsterdam

May 4th, 2009
Coolhunting and Coolfarming through Swarm Creativity
Keynote at the 5th EduMedia Conference 2009: Creativity and Innovation Competencies in the Web “e-creativity and e-innovation”, Salzburg, Austria

April 6th, 2009
Coolhunting und Coolfarming durch Dynamische Soziale Netzwerkanalyse mit Condor
Comptuer Science Seminar, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, Hochschule für Technik

April 3rd, 2009
Coolhunting – Chasing down the next big thing
Closing Plenary on Coolhunting – Ueber das Aufspueren von Collaborativen Innovationsnetzwerken, an der CRM 2009: 10. Jahrestagung Customer Relationship Management, Balance Resort Stegersbach, Austria

March 31th, 2009 11.50am
Transfer Transparent: Coolhunting durch Schwarmkreativität
Coolhunting bezeichnet systematisches Aufspüren von kommenden Trends und Trendsettern mittels sozialer Netzwerkanalyse. Mit Hilfe des am MIT entwickelten und nun an der FHNW/Technopark Aargau zur Produktreife gefuehrten webbasierten Tools „Condor“ können kollaborative Innovationsnetzwerke im Web, in Blogs und in online Foren erkannt und visualisiert werden…..(mit Jonas Krauss und Stefan Nann, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Brugg)

February, 2009
Nature article on “Secret Signals”
Mark Buchanan talks about Sandy Pentland’s work on sociometric badges, and also profiles my work on patterns of creative individuals and teams.

January 26th, 2009 6pm
Visualizing Social Networks to Discover Trends and Trendsetters
Indiana University, Bloomington: Network and Complex Systems Talk
This talk introduces Condor, a tool for dynamic semantic social network analysis, which has been developed for the last six years…

January 13th to 15th, 2009 (3-6pm)
Short Course at MIT “Coolhunting and Coolfarming through Swarm Creativity”
As part of MIT’s IAP (independent activities period), discover what’s going to be cool—before everyone else. In this course you will find out how to:
– discover cool trends for your field through Social Network Analysis by tapping into the collective intelligence of your potential customers (coolhunting)
– find the trendsetters who convert an innovation into a trend
– take the new trends you find and develop their business value (coolfarming)
Read more…

November 4th, 2008
Election Night at Swiss Residence in Lexington, MA
Organized in partnership with L’Hebdo (a Swiss weekly newspaper), the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, and the Forum of 100 outstanding personalities from the French part of Switzerland, the election night at the newly decorated Swiss residence in Lexington gathered around 100 people. Using a social networking tool analyzing blogs and sentiment on the web, Swiss scientist Peter Gloor presented in realtime what people think about Obama and McCain in the blogosphere. Read more…

November 2nd, 2008
USC Annenberg “Collaborative innovation networks: Coolhunting through swarmcreativity”
Join students and faculty for a presentation by Peter A. Gloor, Visiting Scholar and Research Scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Read more…

November 2008
Internet Trend Research
Wer wird US-Präsident? Wie entwickeln sich die Aktienkurse? Welcher Film gewinnt einen Oscar? Ein Schweizer Informatiker gibt die Antwort – dank einer Software, mit der er die Kommunikationsströme im Internet analysiert. Read more…

October 2008
Wisdom of Crowds
Jeder möchte wissen, was die Zukunft bringt. “Wir wissen es”, verspricht Peter Gloor. Denn seine Software für die Analyse sozialer Netzwerke sagte schon politische Wahlen und Oscar-Preisträger voraus. Jetzt ist der Unternehmer und Forscher, der sich seit 15 Jahren am MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston mit der Visualisierung von unstrukturiertem Wissen befasst und jetzt auch an der Helsinki University of Technology unterrichtet, mit seiner Jungfirma galaxyadvisors.com in den Technopark Aarau eingezogen. Read more…

April 2008
Is collaboration the future of invention?
Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) are online communities of like-minded people working together to create innovations. Author and scientist Peter Gloor originated the term. He describes it as a “cyberteam of self-motivated people with a collective vision.” Read more…

Spring 2008
Coolhunting through Swarm Creativity
Was haben iPod, Facebook und YouTube gemeinsam? Sie sind innovativ, frisch und “cool”. Jedes Unternehmen träumt davon solche Trends vorherzusagen, bevor sie in der Breite wirksam werden. Genau das leistet jetzt eine MIT-Software zur Analyse sozialer Netzwerke. Ihr Entwickler, Peter A. Gloor, zeigt, wie man damit Innovationen jagt. Read more…

February 7th, 2008
Web tool predicts election results and stock prices
Tools such as Google Trends and Blogpulse track what people are talking or thinking about by recording the frequency with which words are entered into search engines and appear on blog sites. Now Peter Gloor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is going a step further, and using the web to make specific predictions. His software, called Condor, has predicted the results of an Italian political party’s internal election and successfully forecast stock market fluctuations. Read more…

 

Videos 

Make Art…Feel Better

Creative Collaboration with Peter Gloor, 2011

Austrian Innovation Forum Keynote

“Creative Swarms: On the Wisdom of Many,” 2011

Swiss Cyber Storm (SCS3)

“Collective Prediction in Digital Social Networks,” 2011

Jump UC Greeting

Chile, 2011

Google Author Talk

“Coolhunting: Chasing the Next Big Thing”, 2007

Projects

Swarmcreativity through COINs (Collaborative Innovation Networks)

The goal of this research project is to help organizations to increase knowledge worker productivity and innovation, by creating “Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs)”. COINs allow for building organizations that are more creative, productive, and efficient by applying principles of creative collaboration, knowledge sharing, and social networking.

Combining Prediction Markets & Web Sentiment

The goal of this project is to combine prediction markets with swarm prediction through Web mining. Does the swarm (i.e. the combination of Web/ blogs/online forums) know more than the individuals participating in a prediction market?

Sensible Organizations

The goal of this project is to analyze and come up with interventions for optimizing individual and organizational creativity through microscopic social network analysis using sociometers.

Happimeter

The goal of the project is to measure human emotions through the sensors of a smartwatch. By applying latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence we are able to predict happiness of the wearer of our system with an accuracy of over 90{be7c69d0dd1766318263e3228d8108fdc7c2d3d2deca85f5f6760051b0a05740}.

Wikimaps

Wikimaps – is mapping the world’s knowledge of different cultures and knowledge domains through the lens of wikipedians. It consists of an interactive animation that allows visitors to visually track the changes in Wikipedia articles over a given time period.

Condor Software

Condor computes and visualizes the structure of social communication networks by automatically generating interactive movies of communication flows. Examples of Condor applications can be seen here.

Videos 

Make Art…Feel Better

Creative Collaboration with Peter Gloor, 2011

Austrian Innovation Forum Keynote

“Creative Swarms: On the Wisdom of Many,” 2011

Swiss Cyber Storm (SCS3)

“Collective Prediction in Digital Social Networks,” 2011

Jump UC Greeting

Chile, 2011

Google Author Talk

“Coolhunting: Chasing the Next Big Thing”, 2007

Publications

Books

Papers

Updated listing at www.ickn.org

Papers

Contact

Peter A. Gloor


MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
245 First Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

phone +1 (617) 253-7018
pgloor@mit.edu