A large contingent of Sunlighters are heading to Austin this week for Netroots Nation, the 3rd annual gathering of Kos bloggers and others in the progressive blogosphere (that used to be called Yearly Kos). (Get ready for all of the #nn08 hashtag tweets!)

Try to connect with us if you are there. You can find us in the exhibit hall (along with folks from the Center for Responsive Politics,  National Institute on Money in State Politics and OpenCongress.org. We’ll be right up front, across from MAPLight.org’s booth, so you can’t miss us.

Sunlight colleagues are on a number of panels. Start your Friday morning off with one that is chaired by Sunlight consultant Micah Sifry, as he and his panelists discuss how the next administration can leverage the Web and the participatory transparent culture that goes along with it, to make our government work better.

That panel should inspire you to help improve our government. Join Sunlight’s John Wonderlich to find out how. He and OpenLeft blogger Matt Stoller will give you the scoop on the future of advocacy and what political influence should look like in a networked social environment. Their panel, “Lobbying Congress: Advocacy and Digital Empowerment” will be held on Saturday@ 1:30 p.m.

Right after that panel, come learn more about how to use the sites created by our ‘transparency posse’ during our workshop, “Insanely Useful Tools You Can Use to Keep Track of Congress and State Lawmakers” on Saturday @ 3pm. This will be moderated by Sunlighter, Paul Blumenthal.

While you’re in Austin, you might want to test how your political trivia smarts compare to Paul’s during a “Pub Quiz” organized by Dkos front pager AdamB to be held during Happy Hour on Friday at the local Champions Sports Bar. (Stop by our booth for more details.) Make sure to “study” beforehand by playing our new PoliQuiz game. We’ll release all of our answers in API format so they can be mashed up with relevant data. What else would you expect?!

See you in Austin!