Mr. Dan Evans of Storm King Analytics talked about his firm to IWP on February 7th. He regards social networking analysis as an integral supplement to using big data to evaluate political risk. He describes his method as a “smart” data approach. There are powerful sub-systems of influencers, he argued, within or away from conventional state authority that shape issues on the ground with higher exactness than what big data’s abstract base rates and probability calculations can suggest. Mr. Evans suggested that the payoff ratio of his approach is greater than traditional forms of examination. Mr. Evans is the Managing Director of Storm King Analytics.