Extending MITRE's Reach: Business networking for and beyond the enterprise

Taking a somewhat unique approach, MITRE decided to deploy a "business networking" research platform on our DMZ to allow us to network and collaborate both within our enterprise and across sponsor and partner organizations. We are making enterprise customizations to an open source social networking platform (Elgg) to address security, information sharing policy, external user management strategies, organizational scaling, relationship management, and business functional requirements. We are also assessing the business value and new business models it affords.

Dr. Donna Cuomo is currently the Chief Information Architect in MITRE's Center for Information and Technology.  In this position, she is responsible for the enterprise advancement of social, collaboration and knowledge systems and enterprise information architecture. She is currently working on MITRE's social networking/social media strategy, is deploying social media tools for the enterprise and assessing their business value. She received her Masters and PhD degrees in Industrial Engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo, where she majored in Human Factors Engineering/Human-Computer Interaction.

The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered to work in the public interest. As a national resource, we apply our expertise in systems engineering, information technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to address our sponsors' critical needs.

MITRE manages four Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs): one for the Department of Defense (known as the DoD Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence FFRDC), one for the Federal Aviation Administration (the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development), one for the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the Center for Enterprise Modernization), and one for the Department of Homeland Security (the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute). MITRE also has its own independent research and development program that explores new technologies and new uses of technologies to solve our sponsors' problems in the near-term and in the future.

Laurie E. Damianos is a Lead Artificial Intelligence Engineer in Multimedia and Collaboration at the MITRE Corporation. Her interests lie in user centered design,  evaluation methodologies, and collaborative technology. She received degrees in biology, computer science, and mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University. Her recent efforts include deploying enterprise prototypes for social bookmarking and business networking.