Why SWOOP Analytics is called SWOOP Analytics
Ever wondered why SWOOP Analytics is called SWOOP Analytics? And how we came up with SWOOP’s swoosh logo?
The SWOOP Analytics logo with the signature SWOOP swoosh and red colour.
In a nutshell, it’s because we swoop in, get the necessary data to report on, and then we’re out. We don’t hang around mining other organisational data.
As we prepare to celebrate SWOOP Analytics’ 10th birthday on August 27, 2024, it’s prompted us to look back on the past decade, starting with the origins of the name of our company.
When the name SWOOP Analytics was being decided upon, our three co-founders – Cai Kjaer, Marianne Kjaer and Dr Laurence Lock Lee (better known as Laurie) – were pivoting their Sydney-based consulting company Optimice into a relationship-centred analytics SaaS product, following requests from customers to do so (but that’s another story for another time!).
A much younger Cai Kjaer and Dr Laurence Lock Lee ran consulting company Optimice before expanding to online analytics with SWOOP Analytics.
The trio was nutting out a name for the new company with the help of strategic marketing consultant Sue-Ella McDowall. They were brainstorming ideas on paper in a workshop.
“Sue-Ella asked if there was an animal that could represent a company,” Marianne said.
“We talked about an owl because they are clever. Laurie mentioned that we fly in like a bird, we will ‘swoop’ in and get the data, and then we’re out of there.
“Sue-Ella latched on to that and asked; ‘What was that word?’.”
The word was “swoop”.
Laurie explains further.
“We said that we’re not a big data company that grabs all the data,” he said.
“We were looking for relationship-centred data, so we knew what we were looking for. We just swoop in and get that data and then we just report around that.”
And so, the name SWOOP Analytics was born!
(No one quite remembers why the decision was made to have SWOOP in upper case letters but perhaps it was because when you register for a business name in Australia, it defaults to capital letters.)
In the early days of SWOOP Analytics. Cai Kjaer, Marianne Kjaer, board member Marcus Dawe and Dr Laurence Lock Lee.
As they were brainstorming and answering questions in the workshop like; “What does the business do? How does it make you feel?”, the responses came back with “flying in”, or “swooping in like an owl to the get the data”, and lots of swoosh-type pen strokes appeared on the page of ideas.
After the name SWOOP Analytics was agreed upon, Cai, Marianne and Laurie had to come up with a logo. They looked to the brainstorming sheet of paper and saw the swoosh lines, which eventually formed the basis of the idea for the SWOOP Analytics logo.
The trio also had to decide upon company colours.
Cai, Marianne and Laurie did not want orange as SWOOP Analytics’ brand colour because that was the colour for their consulting company, and Sue-Ella advised them against blue. Then she suggested red.
Cai and Marianne had immigrated to Australia from Denmark in 2000, and while they’re proud Aussies, they also remain proud Danes.
Notes from the original branding workshop in 2014.
“As soon as she mentioned red, Cai and I were like; ‘Danish flag!’,” Marianne said.
Red it was!
For so many new small businesses, connections are everything, and Laurie’s daughter Erin was working in London as a graphic designer. They took their ideas to Erin, who came up with a series of possible logos.
“We gave Erin the idea that we were swooping down, and then flying out, and Erin said she’d design our logo,” Cai said.
Early SWOOP Analytics logo design concepts from 2014.
The logo has had some slight tweaks in the 10 years since 2014, mostly in the description as we expanded from analysing just enterprise social networks to today’s suite of digital workplace analytics.
And while the owl never appeared in the early days, it’s now come full circle, with SWOOP Analytics’ generative AI tool Dr SWOOP, who appears as an owl.
Dr SWOOP.
Dr SWOOP is built into the SWOOP Analytics dashboards for Viva Engage, SharePoint intranet, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams and Workplace from Meta. Just click on the Dr SWOOP icon and ask it a question. It will supply you with instant answers to just about all your digital workplace questions, and give you proven tips and ideas to boost communication and collaboration across your organisation.
Try Dr SWOOP today when you demo SWOOP Analytics.
