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Mary Lou Song

Adjunct Lecturer

Mary Lou Song (BSJ91) is an adjunct lecturer at Medill. The best advice Song ever got was at the Medill cherub program, when the program director quoted Confucius and said, “Do what you love.” She follows that career advice faithfully, especially as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Mary Lou joined eBay in 1996 as the company’s third employee because she loved  shopping and the Internet. Later she joined social networking startup Friendster. And her love of writing and the news prompted her to launch Tokoni, a story-sharing site, and Ongo, an aggregated news service.

Currently, she is president of Ignite Video, where she is on a mission to help customers make videos about their businesses and to encourage them to do what they love.

Mary Lou holds a BS in Journalism from Medill at Northwestern University and a master's degree in media studies from Stanford University.  Song was the Founder and VP of Community of Tokoni Inc., a social media company that helps people share their first-hand stories and connect through shared experiences.

Song also holds a master’s degree in media studies from Stanford University.