SXSW Interactive: Big Data & the Presidency

First things first: big data will not choose the next president. The electorate will. Or the mob. Or whoever gets their butts to the voting stations and actually, y’know, votes.

Keegan Goudiss, Molly Schweickert, Jamie Bowers, and JC Medici (photos by John Anderson)

Sunday’s SXSWi panel, which included a cross-section of the multiplatform digital gurus currently shaping the next 20-odd years for the U.S.: Revolution Messaging and Bernie Sander’s master planner Keegan Goudiss had his hands full with right-leaning VP Jamie Bowers of Digital Advertising for National Media Research Planning and Placement, Rocket Fuel’s director of political strategy JC Medici, and Molly Schweikert, director of digital at Cambridge Digital.

”I would imagine to some degree, no matter how much data you have, that you also have to have a good candidate,” Medici initiated, “so how much does that play to when you’re planning out a campaign. Are you leveraging data in certain ways as opposed to promoting your candidate? We saw the Trump campaign go negative against Rubio for instance.”

“Data cannot make a candidate,” noted Schweikert, “but it can amplify their best parts.”

Although intrinsically important, deep-mined data is just another tool for campaign managers. Ultimately it’s the candidates – stupid, smart, bully and braggart, presumed friend or despised foe, black or white, male or female – that will move the masses and make the history. Taking what you can from Big Data only counts for so much.

Molly Schweickert

Big Data Will Choose the Next US President