2 ms·

Wow, this particular excerpt from the article is stretching things a bit too thin: "Clearly there are problems with the government’s IT procurement processes,

Wow, this particular excerpt from the article is stretching things a bit too thin: "Clearly there are problems with the government’s IT procurement processes, but if the same level of dysfunction had been present in the software behind Obama’s political campaign (as it was, apparently, behind Romney’s) the President would have never been reelected." Really? I doubt the campaign websites were the deciding factor. Anyway, a lot of speculation in this article...not very insightful or informative.

ebiester 13y ago
The software in question was the software used to determine the best media buys, the volunteer organization software, and similar that was known to be part of his advantage.
nightpool 13y ago
See http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-to-win-deep-inside-obamas-campaign-tech/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-... and http://awsofa.info/ http://awsofa.info/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368) as well as http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864) for comparison.
nightpool 13y ago
See http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-to-win-deep-inside-obamas-campaign-tech/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-... and http://awsofa.info/ http://awsofa.info/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368) as well as http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864) for comparison.
skwirl 13y ago
They aren't talking about the campaign websites. Both campaigns had complex internal software systems to help target field worker campaign activities, get out the vote efforts, monitor and respond to turnout data on election day, etc. According to various reports, the Obama campaign was hugely successful in this endeavor [1] while the Romney campaign's election day voter turnout system was a disaster [2]. [1] http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-development-in-the-obama-campai/240146307 http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-deve... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-project-orca-disaster-2012-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-project-orca-disaster-...
- twistedpair 13y ago
  But that is a very agile, very incentive aligned project. You don't need to negotiate compromises and tip toe around various laws to run some stats for your media predictive analytics. Your vendors want you to continue in the campaign, so they still have contracts. Everyone is running for the same goal line. Health care and insurance entitlement programs are clearly orders of magnitude more quadmired before a single line of code is written.

ebiester 13y ago

The software in question was the software used to determine the best media buys, the volunteer organization software, and similar that was known to be part of his advantage.

nightpool 13y ago

See http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-to-win-deep-inside-obamas-campaign-tech/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-... and http://awsofa.info/ http://awsofa.info/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5542368) as well as http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4764864) for comparison.

nightpool 13y ago

skwirl 13y ago

They aren't talking about the campaign websites. Both campaigns had complex internal software systems to help target field worker campaign activities, get out the vote efforts, monitor and respond to turnout data on election day, etc. According to various reports, the Obama campaign was hugely successful in this endeavor [1] while the Romney campaign's election day voter turnout system was a disaster [2]. [1] http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-development-in-the-obama-campai/240146307 http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-deve... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-project-orca-disaster-2012-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-project-orca-disaster-...

twistedpair 13y ago
But that is a very agile, very incentive aligned project. You don't need to negotiate compromises and tip toe around various laws to run some stats for your media predictive analytics. Your vendors want you to continue in the campaign, so they still have contracts. Everyone is running for the same goal line. Health care and insurance entitlement programs are clearly orders of magnitude more quadmired before a single line of code is written.