Ben Self
A founding partner of BSD, Ben Self brings a wealth of experience to many of our clients, based on his background in technology and experience in internet strategy. Focusing on expanding and diversifying BSD domestically and internationally, Ben works with new clients to take BSD's strategic experience and apply it in new and different ways.
During the 2008 election cycle, Ben also served as the DNC Technology Director, where, as a key member of the DNC's senior staff, he supervised the technology projects of the national party - focusing specifically on the website, computer infrastructure, compliance software, and national voter file database. In this role, Ben led projects that entirely revamped the technology of the DNC, including a complete replacement of the website and the Democratic Party's national voter file (VoteBuilder).
During his career, Ben has garnered extensive experience in new media technologies, statistical data analysis, data warehousing, database architecture and administration, system design, and system development. He helped build the FEC's system for gathering and reporting on campaign finance data, and architected the largest distributed Geographic Information Systems database ever deployed for the USDA. He has created data warehouses for a variety of industries, including health care, telecommunications, finance, and insurance. In these industries, he has worked at all levels of system development -- from designing and writing the software itself to managing large teams responsible for developing systems to be used by tens of thousands of users. In addition to this work, Ben has performed extensive research and written a thesis on object-oriented design.
Ben has both a bachelor's and a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Blog posts by Ben Self:
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Client Spotlight
Speed Matters
For the Communications Workers of America (CWA), BSD developed and implemented "Speed Matters", a comprehensive constituency-building media campaign around the issue of telecommunications equity. In a matter of months, BSD's program generated an email list of almost 100,000, and built CWA into a thought leader on this issue, enhancing the organization's credibility with legislators, opinion leaders, and the press. Full Case Study »
Client Feedback
“We had a website, but no real organizing tools. I called Blue State Digital and within days, hundreds of screening parties were being created. Our film, The Ground Truth, continues to be screened in homes and community centers across the country. Blue State Digital provides the tools that activists need.”