Digging deep to win

This week’s Economist has a fascinating article on the secretive work of the analysis team within the Obama 2012 re-election campaign.

Headed by chief scientist Rayid Ghani, the former analytics research lead at Accenture Labs, the paper says that the team will attempt to mine a “torrent” of data – commercially available consumer data, voter rolls and information gleaned from door-to-door canvassing and phone banks.

The aim of all that is to “predict voting patterns, allowing the Obama campaign to target its spending more accurately and cost-effectively”.

Click here to read the article in full.