Hearty congratulations are in order for Julie Barko Germany, who has just been officially named the new director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at George Washington University. Julie has been deputy director of IPDI since 2003 and acting director since its longtime leader Carol Darr stepped down last summer.

IPDI sponsors the annual Politics Online conference in DC, which is taking place March 4-5 this year. I've been watching the conference come together and it looks like Julie and her team are pulling together a really stimulating mix of speakers and panels. Topics include: "Pervasive Politics: How Ubiquitous Technology will Change Politics & Government," "Long Tail Politics: How the Niche is Revolutionizing Politics," "User-Generated Content: Threat or Opportunity," and "How Web Video Changes the Political Conversation." Sounds a bit like a Personal Democracy Forum conference? Cool!

Speaking of which, we at PdF are pleased to be working with Julie and IPDI, and we'll be hosting a panel on "Political Organizing on Social Networks," with Ben Rattray of Change.org, Joe Green of Project Agape and Facebook Causes, and Allison Fine, author of Momentum.

And while we're on the topic of upcoming conferences--stay tuned for a big announcement about Personal Democracy Forum 2008!