About
Electric Insights.
A small firm built around a specific idea: that measured outcomes deserve explanatory depth, and that the people using the results should be able to test the model themselves.
A firm, not a platform
Electric Insights is a single-founder firm focused on explanatory modeling and interactive simulation. It builds tools that help research teams, decision analysts, and strategic buyers understand what drives measured outcomes and how those outcomes might change under alternative conditions.
The firm works with a small number of clients at a time. Every engagement is led personally by the founder. Methodological work is not subcontracted, and engagements are not run on junior analysts reporting up to a partner. The size of the firm is a deliberate choice: it keeps the bar high on every project, and it lets the work speak for itself.
The case studies on this site — JFK Approval and the NBA 3-Point Study — are built on public data for a reason. They exist to show, concretely, what the approach produces before any client conversation begins.
The Founder
Electric Insights is led by its founder, personally, on every engagement.
George Terhanian, Ph.D.
Founder
George Terhanian is widely credited with introducing propensity scoring to the market research community. He founded Electric Insights in 2019 after more than two decades of senior methodological and operational roles in the industry, including fourteen years at Harris Interactive, where he was an original member of the small team that developed the company's internet research offering through its 1999 IPO and went on to serve as President of Global Solutions and President of Harris Interactive Europe & Global Internet Research.
He subsequently served as Group Chief Strategy & Products Officer at Toluna and as President, Analytic Solutions and Group Chief Research & Analytics Officer at The NPD Group. He has served on boards or advisory groups for the US National Academy of Sciences, the Advertising Research Foundation, and the British Polling Society, among others. His methodological work spans internet sampling, bias correction in nonprobability samples, and the translation of regression results into outcome-level terms — the last of which is the thesis underlying the Electric Insights approach.
He holds a Ph.D. with Distinction from the University of Pennsylvania and an Ed.M. from Harvard University.
Selected credentials
The tradition we come from
Electric Insights is not a reinvention. The approach builds on a long line of work in public-opinion and market research that took explanation, transparency, and non-specialist communication seriously.
The Harris tradition
Louis Harris & Associates, 1956 onward
The Harris tradition insisted that survey results were only the beginning of an analysis, not the end. Louis Harris and his team worked to explain why a number was what it was, in language that decision-makers and the general public could follow. The 1963 Harris/Newsweek survey anchoring our JFK case study is from that tradition.
The Gallup standard
Transparent methodology as a public commitment
George Gallup's long-standing commitment was that survey methodology should be disclosed, inspected, and held accountable to its own standards. That principle — that the public deserves to see how a number was produced, not only the number — shapes how we approach transparency and tool design.
Applied modeling in research
Propensity scoring, explanatory regression, decision-relevant statistics
Rigorous modeling methods have been in the market research literature for decades, but they have often stopped at the journal page. The work we do is about bringing those methods into the decision room — translating coefficients into outcome-level changes, and pairing every model with a tool that lets users test it directly.
Our own contribution
Submitted, under review
Our paper Beyond Isolated Headlines is currently under peer review at Public Opinion Quarterly. It proposes a coupled-release framework in which survey results are reported alongside explanatory models and public tools that let readers inspect the findings. The JFK case study is the paper's proof-of-concept.
How we work
The things that are consistent across every engagement, regardless of tier or domain.
Senior-led, end to end
Every engagement is led by the founder directly. No hand-off to associates, no subcontracted methodology.
Show the work
The model is documented. The code is available. The tools let users inspect the assumptions and rerun the analysis.
Plain language
Results are translated into percentage-point changes, probabilities, and rates. Coefficients are available but are not the headline.
Confidential when it should be
Client data stays client data. The case studies on this site are public because we chose public datasets for them.
Fixed-fee for fixed scope
We do not run hourly meters. Scope is agreed at the start. Changes are written down and priced separately.
Your team, not just your data
We leave every engagement with at least one session focused on helping your team use and communicate the results.
Ready to see the approach on your data?
Start with the case studies, read how we engage, or reach out directly.