With the rise of the web and big data in campaigns, I’ve been fascinated with political campaigns, their managers, and how they use (or don’t use) the latest and greatest technology. (Check out my notes from Harper’s Keynote address at Texas JavaScript.)

The goal of the Non Breaking Space Show is to seek out the best and brightest in our industry. 

Being part of a presidential campaign means that you are one of the best.

Being part of a winning one? Even more so. 

Our guest for the latest episode, Daniel Ryan, is no exception. 

A talented web builder before being tapped to help the digital efforts of the Obama re-election campaign, Daniel helped change the face of presidential campaigns. 

His team did nothing less than break campaign fundaising efforts and, oh, a side note here: got the President re-elected.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode.

Like every show we do, we first go back in time to discuss how our guest got into the web. 

Then, we talk about how one handles the management and technical difficulties of running a digital team that’s built from ground up that works around the clock for 18 months.

There’s also talk of A/B testing all those emails Obama’s campaign sent in 2012, the rise of mobile in campaigns, how the team used GitHub, the engineering of Obama’s get out the vote strategy, and how Facebook played a role in getting your friends to vote. 

Thanks to Daniel’s patience, this show is one of the longest ones we’ve done at Non Breaking Space clocking in a bit over 89 minutes.

Ironically, I felt we could have talked longer. 

Check out Non Breaking Space Show: Daniel Ryan.