The Siroker Brothers

Upcoming talks: "How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election"

Update 5/6: Invited to give a talk at Google as well!
Update 5/11: Here is the video of the talk at Stanford.
Update 5/14: Here are my slides [39.5 MB].

It is a shame that politics is a game often won by the candidate who can afford the best “strategists” and “consultants”. This creates a huge industry of people who make a buck by claiming to be better than the other guy because they have some strategy or technique no one else can execute. Sometimes it doesn't even matter whether the candidate is better or worse than the other guy because in the end they win by Karl Roveing their opponent.

Well, I'd like to do my small part in leveling the playing field by sharing the lessons we learned during the Obama campaign. I'm not one of the aforementioned strategists or consultants who make their living by coveting secrets. I'd much rather an election be won by the better candidate, not the better strategists. I happen to believe that means more democrats will win, so I don't care how many people know what I know. I'm going to give away all the lessons we learned by using data to help Obama win last November in two three upcoming talks:

1. An abridged version at the Politics Online Conference
   
   • What: Panelist for a session entitled Tinkering Your Web Strategy: Using Analytics to Understand Your Traffic and Making Adjustments
   • When: This Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 3:30pm
   • Where: Meridian D&E at the Ronald Reagan Building
   • Video: Unfortunately not recorded
2. The full version at Stanford for the Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
   • What: Speaker for a talk entitled How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election
   • When: Friday, May 8th 2009 at 12:30pm
   • Where: Gates B01 at Stanford University
   • Video: Available here
3. A Google-flavored version of the Stanford talk:
   • What: Speaker for Authors@Google talk entitled also “How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election”
   • When: Wednesday, May 13th 2009 at 12:00pm
   • Where: Google Building 42 on the second floor at Paramaribo Tech Talk (not open to the public)
   • Video: Coming soon

Here is the abstract of what I plan to speak about:

Of the 129 million people who voted in the election last November nearly 70 million voted for Barack Obama. Obama's popular vote percentage (52.9%) was the highest for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and his margin of victory was the largest ever for a non-incumbent. These are all astounding facts but they are just part of the story. A story about what went into securing those 70 million votes. A story about data.

In this talk, Dan will describe how the campaign used data to win the presidential election. He will share the lessons his team learned along the way and how you can apply them to any data-driven decision you need to make— whether you are a developer, designer, or even a marketer. If you are building a product or selling an idea, you can use data to do it better. Data can be a powerful force for good.

Let me know if you are interested in attending either of these talks and I can help get there. If you can't make the talks in person, fear not, for both will be videotaped and I'll update this entry with links when they are available online.