SXSW 2012

Despite the advent of new media, campaigns for President still measure the electorate in pretty much the same way they did 40 years ago, through traditional polls to landline phones. That could all change this year. The hottest job in today’s Presidential campaigns is the Data Mining Scientist -- whose job it is to sort through terabytes of data and billions of behaviors tracked in voter files, consumer databases, and site logs. They’ll use the numbers to uncover hidden patterns that predict how you’ll vote, if you’ll pony up with a donation, and if you’ll influence your friends to support a candidate. This panel will delve deep into the world of real-time data on Presidential campaigns, showing how it’ll be used to make decisions on everything from the layout of a signup form to where to spend millions of advertising dollars in the closing days of a campaign. Forget about which candidate has the most likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter -- and learn why 2012 will be the year of Big Data in American politics.