I have taken to the streets of D.C. to ask important people about important things that interest Washington insiders.

Today I am with Gregg Hartley, COO of lobbying powerhouse Cassidy and Associates. Gregg is not what you would expect from a big time D.C. lobbyist. He speaks with a folksy Missouri accent and exudes a charm more reminiscent of a university president then someone who merely “peddles influence” throughout the Halls of Power. Like most people in town, he is a creature of D.C. but not an inhabitant of it; each day he commutes from his home near Annapolis where he takes his coffee each morning and stares out at the water to clear his head.

As an avid Twitter user (he is even following me!), Gregg keeps up with D.C.’s social media pulse. We sat in his office on 13th discussing the rise of technology in public affairs. “I wouldn’t say that lobbying has caught up with political campaigns or the public affairs world,” he told me. “A lot of lobbying is relationship-oriented. But it is also sharing of information in a timely manner. The lobbying community over the last six to eight years has begun to fulfill that information-sharing role through e-mail, gravitating from the laptop to BlackBerry. Someone on the Hill can get inundated with lots of different e-mails, but how they sort one they can rely on from one they can’t is based on the credible name attached to it.”

Like me, Gregg sees a lot of snake oil salesmanship in the marketing of social media expertise among D.C. firms. “It appears to me that a lot of the firms are saying, ‘We are now doing social media.’ They are really heavy on helping companies become adopters of technology, but that’s not really engagement. What do you do with it? They are taking the same stuff from the media relations bucket and dumping it into a new channel. If you are just thinking the same old stuff and trying to shove it into another shoebox, then I think a lot of clients are going to be dissatisfied.” I couldn’t agree more.

I asked him what he would do with $500,000 of client money to put toward advocacy: Washington Post print ads or social media campaign? “I would not put it into a Washington Post print ad,” he said. “There are so many other things I could do with that money that, if done correctly, can be really effective.”

“Here’s what I think people miss about the Internet world in terms of managing reputation or getting a message across. It’s not just transmittal of information. It is a combination of getting the right viewers who are motivated to do something.”

Gregg still sees a next step when lobbying harnesses technology to attain a deeper level of advocacy. “We are probably on the brink of it,” he said.

“How have you coped with the proliferation of information in your personal life?” I asked. Gregg told me he took a 90-day BlackBerry sabbatical in 2007 to see if he could function successfully without it. “I turned it completely off and didn’t use it. Eventually I had to put it back on because of business demands. But, I did learn a few things from that 90-day sabbatical. You need to set some limits,” he said. “Now, I NEVER check it during a meal with my wife.”

Eric Bovim, is Co-founder and CEO of Gibraltar Associates, one of the nation’s top communications firms. Connect with him @Bovim.