Since early 2008, Mary Lou Tierney has been working with MITRE’s $70M internal R&D program to improve business processes, knowledge management, and employee engagement during an annual five-month research proposal competition. Mary Lou oversaw the evaluation, customization, and deployment of one of MITRE’s first externally-hosted Web 2.0 applications, an innovation management platform. MITRE is now in its second cycle of using the platform: whereas the first cycle harnessed Knowledge Management of the R&D program successfully, the second cycle is focused on achieving measurable benefits from leveraging social media and collaboration within a Web 2.0 environment in order to improve R&D outcomes. Mary Lou is trained as an industrial designer, which gives her a unique ability to look holistically at socially-enabling business processes within the enterprise. In addition to insight about the mechanics of using an innovation management platform, Mary Lou’s blogs will highlight stories, trials, and tribulations around organizational culture and business process change management. Her former life as a professional tennis umpire and current hobby as an endurance athlete (Ironman triathlete and open-water swimmer) provides invaluable experience in fulfilling the multi-faceted role of Community Manager. Mary Lou holds B.S., M.S. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology in Industrial Design Recent speaking engagements: • Gartner: Emerging Technologies, Best Practices Councils/Enterprise IT Leaders, Austin, TX, Nov. 11, 2009 • Gilbane: focused on the business impact of content solutions, Dec. 2-4 , 2009, Boston, MA • TRACK: Fostering and Supporting Innovation, Socially Enabling a Business Process (Dec.3 2009 )