AranduCorp

In Alberta’s last General Election, only a few expected the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta to win in the way they did. At least, that is what the traditional media told us. However, when harnessing the collective intelligence represented by blog posts, it is clear that the Ed Stelmach and the PC Association had a clear edge. When we analyze the number of blog posts for the leading two candidates (Ed Stelmach and Kevin Taft), we have that during the campaign (from February 4^th, 2008 to March 2^nd, 2008) there were a total of 1,647 blog posts that mentioned either Ed or Kevin¹. From those posts, 70% (1,160 posts) were associated with Ed Stelmach while 30% (487 posts) were associated with Kevin Taft. When we analyze the number of votes received by each candidate, we have that the Liberals and the PC s received a combined number of votes equal to 751,890. From those votes, 67% (501,028) were for the PC while 33% (250,862) were for the Liberals. Based on these results, we can hypothesize that number of blog posts create a trusted source of awareness of a brand (in this case the Liberals and the PCs). We will be testing this hypothesis by making predictions for some of the upcoming US Democratic primaries. Please, stay tuned.

¹Recovered using Google Blog Search on March 19, 2008

Ed Stelmach’s picture by Chuck Szmurlo

Kevin Taft’s picture by Alberta Liberal Caucus

Key points to take home

1. There was a low interest in the election. 1,647 blog posts from more than 3 million Albertans suggest that the parties did a poor job creating awareness, interest, and action for the election
2. Awareness is key in an election. Contrary to what some believed (including me), the Liberals did not create enough buzz using Web 2.0 technologies

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 1:57 pm by Lino Ramirez and is filed under Alberta, Stelmach, Taft, General Election 2008, Collective Intelligence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.