New media tools and online organizing have proved to be the future of political campaigning, but what of governance? Now that the election's over, many are asking: What's next?

Join Netroots Nation, the Internet Advocacy Roundtable, and Think Progress for a panel discussion on the role of the Netroots and technology in the next four years. The panel is free to the public. A networking hour and book signing with Mike Lux will follow.

Panelists: Sam Graham-Felsen, Michael Lux, Ari Melber, Amanda Terkel
Moderated by Cheryl Contee

How will the new administration use technology and online organizing to keep grassroots activists interested in day-to-day governance? Will the the thousands of people who were inspired to volunteer during the campaign remain engaged now that the ballots have been counted? And how will Netroots activists-—who've spent years rallying for change through electoral politics—-pivot to focus on governance?

On which issues should we will partner with the Obama administration, and on which issues must we rally support to pressure the administration and hold officials accountable? As activists, what benchmarks and timetables should we be setting for the issues we feel are most important?

This panel will focus on how the Netroots and the new administration might use the momentum from the past year to move toward building a more progressive America.

PANELISTS
Cheryl Contee is a partner at the social media consultancy Fission Strategy. Prior to starting Fission, she was a Vice President at Fleishman-Hillard San Francisco, where she acted as lead digital strategist for the West Coast specializing in helping Fortune 500 companies, major non-profit organizations and leading trade associations manage their brands and their campaigns online. Contee is a pioneer in the field of Web 2.0, social media, mobile and blogger relations with extensive online outreach, branding, communications, advocacy and fundraising experience. She also writes as Jill Tubman for the popular black political blog JackAndJillPolitics.com, which she founded in 2006. Contee received her B.A. from Yale University with a major in ethics, politics and economics and has an international executive M.B.A. from Georgetown University.

Sam Graham-Felsen is currently serving as Content Director for Blue State Digital. He was the Director of Blogging and Blog Outreach for Obama for America, where he also helped to produce online videos for the campaign. Prior to the Obama campaign, Sam covered youth politics for The Nation and was a video producer for Current TV. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in 2004.

Michael Lux was named to the Obama-Biden Transition Team in November of 2008. In that role, he serves as an advisor to the Office of Public Liaison on working with the progressive community, and will help shape the White House Office of Public Liaison based on his past experience in that field during the Clinton-Gore Transition, as well as in the White House. Lux is the co-founder and President of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C., a political consulting firm founded in 1999 that is focused on strategic political consulting for non-profits, labor unions, PACs and progressive donors. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), and the PFAW Foundation, and he served at the White House from January 1993 to mid-1995 as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. While at Progressive Strategies, Lux has founded and currently chairs a number of new organizations and projects, including American Family Voices and the Progressive Donor Network, and he also serves on the board of the Arca Foundation. In July 2007, Lux launched the popular progressive blog OpenLeft.com with bloggers Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers. He released his first book, "The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be," in bookstores and online nationwide on January 19.

Ari Melber is the Net movement correspondent for The Nation magazine, the oldest political weekly in America, and is a writer for The Nation's blog. He is also a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at the Personal Democracy Forum, a nonpartisan website covering technology's impact on democracy. Melber served as a Legislative Aide in the U.S. Senate and was a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. Melber spoke at Netroots Nation 2008, YearlyKos 2007 and YearlyKos 2006 and served on the Advisory Committee to the YearlyKos Leadership Forum for the leading Democratic presidential candidates in 2007. He has also been a featured speaker at forums sponsored by the Harvard Law School, Yale Political Science Department, TimeWarner Summit, Campaign for America's Future, Young Democrats of America, Democracy for America and New York's Blogging Liberally. As a commentator on public affairs, he has appeared on national radio and television, including CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, FOX and MSNBC.

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Managing Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress. Terkel also served as the Center’s Special Assistant for Strategic Planning. Her past positions have been with the Office of Senator Charles E. Schumer, the Office of the New York State Attorney General, the 2004 presidential campaign of Senator Joseph Lieberman, and the Office of the Inspector General in the Office of Personnel Management. Terkel graduated from Colgate University. Her writing has been in The New York Times, Politico, Salon, the Guardian’s Comment is Free, American Prospect Online, and InTheseTimes.com, and she has appeared as a guest on various television and radio shows, including MSNBC, BBC, Voice of America and Al Jazeera.