Big news for campaign news tech: NGPVAN buys NationalField, good news for Lib Dems

As e.politics reports:

Big news on the Democratic data-driven field organizing front: NGPVAN, long a provider of political data-management/manipulation tools, has bought NationalField, which builds tools for managing field staff and volunteers. From the press release:

NGP VAN, the global leader in technology for Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations, today announced its acquisition of NationalField, the startup launched out of the 2008 Obama campaign that provides online organizing networks and powerful data dashboards to campaigns and organizations fighting for change.

Here’s why they wanted it:

With a beautiful Facebook-like interface, NationalField allows managers to see real-time data dashboards of key metrics and progress towards goals for everyone in the organization. Organizers can quickly and easily track their own performance, share best practices with peers, and provide front-line feedback to managers up the organization’s hierarchy. Taken together, the features of NationalField amplify and optimize the efforts of organizers.

Implications? For candidates who use NGPVAN and/or NationalField, better integration of the technologies and (we can assume) even more efficiency in grassroots management and outreach — the kind of work which quite likely put Terry McAuliffe on his way to the Virginia governor’s mansion.

And the implication for the UK? Good news for the Liberal Democrats as NGPVAN, under the name of Connect, powers the Liberal Democrat electoral database.