Newt Gingrich on Second Life at Solutions Day, originally uploaded by Rob Bluey.

Last week I had an unanticipated interview with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff pop up during the week, preempting my “Five Questions” feature in favor of the blogger roundtable at DHS headquarters.

But I’m back this week with an interesting Q&A with David Kralik, who directs Internet strategy for American Solutions and manages the non-profit’s new Silicon Valley office. Kralik spent several years in Washington before heading west. I first met him when he was working on ShopFloor.org, the National Manufacturers Association blog. A few years later Kralik turned his admiration for Newt Gingrich — he ran a site called DraftNewt.org — into a job at American Solutions.

I was curious about what led him to California and what new strategies we might see from Gingrich and American Solutions in the future. (Kralik appears in the above photo at Solutions Day last September as Gingrich navigated Second Life.)

1) What prompted American Solutions to open an office in Silicon Valley?

We realized that what we want to accomplish cannot be done without embracing the latest technology and learning from the innovative people in Silicon Valley. For American Solutions to be successful and to ultimately transform government from a world that fails to a world that works, we need to reach out to all 513,000 elected officials and build a social network for them to communicate. That will definitely take major investments in technology in order to scale to that level.

2) Newt Gingrich has been a pioneer when it comes to embracing technology. How active will he be personally in the work you’re doing in Silicon Valley?

Yes, Newt has been a pioneer in embracing technology. Many people don’t remember that one of his first acts as Speaker was to make the House accessible to everyone online through the Thomas system. In that same spirit, he will definitely be involved in the overall vision and strategy of our Silicon Valley office. He realizes the importance of, and is personally very interested in, learning about new technologies that will enable us to communicate and organize more effectively online. Newt is also planning several visits to Silicon Valley in the coming year.

3) Why is it advantageous to be in the heart of the high-tech sector, and do you know of anyone else in the policy world who has taken this leap?

There’s a definite advantage to being 20 minutes away from Apple and 15 minutes away from Google. It really does help to build relationships by meeting face-to-face. When you read about all the cool new start-ups, it’s great that you don’t have to spend hours flying from the East Coast; you’re right in their backyard and can meet at anytime.

Some of the presidential campaigns have an office out here, but I suspect that it is more for fundraising and GOTV efforts. There are also a few policy groups located in the Silicon Valley area, but none that I know of are focused on learning about technology from the private sector. Being in Silicon Valley really does provide a perspective that often gets lost in the chatter and 24-hour news cycle that engulfs Washington, D.C.

It’s been a great decision to open an office out here and I hope more organizations from both all political persuasions will follow suit. There is a lot to learn out here.

4) What cool things can we expect from Newt Gingrich and American Solutions in the coming weeks and months?

We are going to continue to improve and enhance our core product, the Solutions Lab, in the coming months based on the feedback we’ve heard from other people. We’re also working on some new ways to socially network and engage people online. Finally, we are going to build an online learning platform that we’re calling the “Solutions Academy,” a place we hope becomes the central hub for learning about the principles of transforming government.

5) From your vantage point, what are some trends that policy organizations in Washington and the states should be paying attention to in 2008?

That’s a big question and I would like to address it by breaking it down into both trends and policy issues.

On the issues, as you know, Silicon Valley isn‚Äôt exactly a hotbed of center-right thinking, but interestingly enough there are issues that unite the Valley — issues that are either not being talked about in Washington or not getting solved. For example, on the technology policy front, we need to raise the limits of the H-1B Visas. Patent reform and having a permanent R&D Credit are also big issues. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are also very much in favor of school choice and charter schools as a means to maintaining our competitive edge with other countries. These are the kind of issues, issues that bring people together, that American Solutions wants to play an active advocacy role. I hope Washington and the states start paying attention to them.

In terms of trends, I think there are four big ideas.

First, it‚Äôs going to be very interesting to see whether Web 2.0 clashes with emerging Web 3.0 concepts. Eric Schmidt has noted that Web 3.0 has much to do with ‚Äúbuilding applications that are pieced together‚Äù (mashup technology). Jerry Yang talked about Web 3.0 as a concept where the ‚Äúdistinction between professional, semi-professional and consumers will get blurred.‚Äù Broadly speaking, if Web 2.0 was all about putting the user in the driver‚Äôs seat, how might that clash with laws on intellectual property when it comes to mashups? Or data and identity portability and social networking? Does Facebook really own your social network that you built using Facebook? If you suddenly decide you don’t like Facebook, could you easily move it to MySpace and so on?

Second, I think there is a lot to be explored with 3D Internet, both as a social networking vehicle and how laws in the physical world apply to laws in the virtual world. IBM has more than 400 clients actively looking at virtual worlds as a means to foster greater collaboration. 3D Internet really is the next big thing. So, how do the laws apply to them? Second Life had to close down its banking operations for fear of money laundering violations.

Third, search continues to be one of the most important innovations of the web. I‚Äôm still waiting for somebody to come along and invent technology to Google my car keys. In the book, “The Google Story,” Sergey Brin and Larry Page were interviewed and noted that on an innovation level, Google is probably a ‚Äú2‚Äù out of ‚Äú10.‚Äù New search engines are being created every day and new ways of extracting data (i.e. video facial recognition searching) from an ever growing web are going to be invented. Also, search as it relates to the semantic web is something that is just beginning to be explored. We‚Äôll soon be able to Google the entire Library of Congress and even your own DNA. That is some really powerful stuff, but these also have huge implications for copyright and privacy issues, respectively. Google has a lot of tough policy fights ahead of it if it wishes to maintain its market position.

Finally, I think there is a lot to look at about what more Silicon Valley, particularly Sand Hill Road, can do to invest and develop green technology. Jeff Immelt has noted that, ‚ÄòGreen is Green.‚Äô There is a lot of money to be made in Green technology to reduce one’s carbon footprint. This comes in the form of new communication technologies (virtual worlds, video conferencing) that lessen the need for travel but provide just the same level of trust that in-person meetings offer. Also clean power generation and devices that use less energy but provide more output.