Today, I’m attending an event on “Using Social Networking Tools” in D.C. One of the speakers at the event is Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook. I will be streaming the entire event on my new Social Times site. Here are more details about the event:

Politics always has been about social networking, whether it was a union worker getting his family to a rally, or a ward boss getting his neighbors to the polls. The new wave of social networking websites and related tools just supercharge an individual’s ability to do this and make a political impact.

Come to a lunch event where the New Politics Institute explores how to do politics in this new social networking environment. Social networking is one of the least mature of the new media tools transforming politics, so figuring out effective strategies is more difficult than with tools that have been around longer like blogs. That’s why we are ending our fall roll-out of the 2007 New Tools Campaign of eight tools with a whole event devoted to social networking.

We will be bringing together four experts who know the technology and the best new strategies, and can clearly explain what works. They are:

Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook, one of the big two social networking sites where an explosion of politicking is going on. Chris has written a memo for NPI that will be released that day on all the ways social networking is being used in politics.

John Hlinko, President and CEO, Grassroots Enterprise, a DC Communications firm helping politicos use new media and tactics.

Cheryl Contee, Vice President, Fleishman-Hillard has worked with progressive organizations like U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Amnesty International and ACLU to get their messages out through social networks and engage their supporters.

Ben Rattray, Founder and CEO, Change.org, an up-and-coming smaller social networking website dedicated exclusively to serving social and political groups.

The event is open to the public and is free to all. Feel free to spread this to anyone in a progressive organization who might benefit.