Election Night Shakeup: Here Come The New 'Exit' Polls

Trent Buskirk looks the part of a data wonk's data wonk. He stepped to the microphone and wanted to lighten the mood.

So he told a joke.

Have you heard the one about the three people from a company who went out to lunch? One is the marketing director, the other the head of operations and the third, the survey researcher.

They decide to take a car. The marketing director has his foot on the gas, the ops guy has his foot on the brake, and the survey researcher is looking out the back window telling them where to go.

That drew awkward laughter. After all, the message was being delivered from a survey researcher to a room of about 1,000 of America's top pollsters and social science researchers at their biggest conference of the year.

The future of polling — and how to look out the front window instead of the back — was