Check out the man behind Obama’s online campaign live in South Africa

It’s no secret that US president Barack Obama’s campaigns have used online and social media pretty damn well. And now South Africa will have a chance to watch Harper Reed, the man behind the 2012 Obama for America online campaign live in person.

Reed will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Nedbank Digital Edge Live brought to you by NATIVE, in Johannesburg on 3 October 2013.

“Harper Reed is a unique draw card. As Chief Technology Officer of the highly successful Obama for America online campaign, he engineered perhaps the most sophisticated political campaign of all time. He is a crowd-sourcing and social media pioneer as well as an expert on the future of big data. We have no doubt he will bring something inspiring and original to the event,” says Ben Wagner, Chief Marketing Warrior of NATIVE.

In addition to his work on the Obama campaign, Reed was the CTO of clothing company Threadless from 2005 to 2009.

The Digital Edge Live, now in its fifth year, is a thought leadership event and claims to be a ‘must attend’ forum for marketing, advertising and communications professionals.

One of South Africa’s largest banks Nedbank, says it has actively moved into the digital marketing arena, and apparently views its partnership with the event as an opportunity to showcase its thought-leadership support. The theme of this year’s event is ICE – Intuitive Customer Experiences. According Musa Kalenga, Head: Group Digital Marketing at Nedbank Integrated Marketing, the focus will be on “amplifying the global trend of showcasing how marketing and IT need to work in tandem to co-design intuitive customer experiences”.

The speaker lineup includes Chris Gotz (Ogilvy CT), Pepe Marais (Joe Public), Jason Xenopoulos (NATIVE), Fran Luckin (Quirk), Pete Case (Gloo), Alistair Fairweather (Mail & Guardian), Heidi Brauer (Hollard), and Fred Baumhardt (Microsoft).

Kalenga continues, “One of the biggest barriers to creating a truly customer-centred offering is the lack of integration between marketing and IT. Most CMO’s today understand the challenges involved in winning business in a consumer-led marketplace. Unfortunately, the IT systems and processes that govern their customers’ paths-to-purchase are often unable to facilitate the growing demands of the empowered consumer.”

“We will be bringing insights from forward thinking brands and agencies that have identified this problem and who are starting to break down the silos that exist within their businesses – particularly in the areas of marketing and IT,” he says.

Image: Joi Ito (via Flickr).