Harper Reed : using social media to promote Barack Obama's bid for the US Presidency

Reed was in South Africa last week to speak at The Digital Edge, a technology conference. His topic, How Blending Technology and Marketing won the US Presidency, has netted him speaking engagements around the world...

Reed believes that the success of the campaign "would be a pretty good case study" for large brands venturing into the world of data and social media...

Asked what advice he would offer to our local political parties entering an election year, Reed is unambiguous: "Technology can't actually help you if your candidate sucks."

Given the right candidate, though, Reed believes our high mobile penetration rate lends itself to grassroots organising by cellphone. Click this link for the full article in the Mail & Guardian