Last month, I wrote that the Obama campaign would need technological innovation to be successful in 2012. It appears I won’t be disappointed. The campaign already has over a dozen software engineers working for it, building new political tools from the ground up:

The Obama team is taking technology development in-house.

“In 2008 we were very adept users of technology,” said Michael Slaby, the campaign’s chief integration and innovation officer. “We are much more ambitious about what we’re capable of building on our own.”

Data analysis at an incredible level of detail will revolutionize the way the Obama campaign is run. I’m absolutely in awe of the sort of insights that are being gleaned from the campaign’s sophisticated analysis:

[Software Engineer Will] St. Clair and his team are creating tools to connect with people properly. For example, disenchanted voters are wooed, not hit up for money. They call it microlistening….

If a supporter tells the campaign that a neighbor who voted for Obama in 2008, lost his job, is frustrated with the president’s handling of the economy and is now undecided, the most important distillation of that information may be that sending someone out to ask for a donation could cost Obama that vote.

That’s mindblowing, and it’s going to be a big deal. It’s going to mean the Obama campaign is more effective at just about everything it does. And I mean everything:

Beyond targeting, they’re finding ways to boost efficiency at all levels of the organization — even the online store.

These innovations don’t take the place of a great candidate and political strategy. But in a tight election, they may mean the difference between victory and defeat.