One of our fabulous RAs Alissa Dill suggested that I should follow in the steps of the Forrester Marketing Blog and do a "Five things you don’t know about me" post. What you probably already know is that I’m a researcher on the security and risk management team focusing on privacy, server operating system security, RFID security and web application firewalls.

I’d also like to mention some of my upcoming traveling.I will be at the RSA conference next week in San Fran if you’d like to meet, and I also plan to attend the IAPP Privacy conference in DC in the first week of March. Feel free to drop me a line jmulligan@forrester.com.

On to the five things you don’t know about me:

1) My first ‘real’ job was in an ice cream store. I worked 8 hours most days usually from 3pm-11pm. I had one co-worker that whenever I worked with her, somehow the police were involved. On at least two occasions the fire department was called. One of them was because a fan in the back of the warehouse suddenly started sparking and burst into flames. We had to hurry everyone out and pretty much sat their looking sheepish as the firemen arrived. We tried to offer them ice cream but they wouldn’t take any. I don’t think we were scheduled to work the same shifts many times after that. First business lesson learned: Know which customers to serve better. Dad’s with kids tip much better than anyone else especially when you increase the portion size.

2) I am easily addicted to video games. OK not as bad as some of this South Korean guy. I’ve found the only remedy really is abstaining. So I can’t play games like the SIMs or my original favorite MUD (multi-user dungeon, the really early versions of MMG’s massively multi-player games) or else I start ignoring other parts of my life. Business lesson #2: It’s really easy to get pulled off track because something is fun, but not important. I played the SIMS when it first came out for two days in college at all times I was not sleeping nor in class, until I uninstalled it from the computer after realizing I hadn’t even noticed any of the people around me.

3) I foster homeless cats. Over the years I have taken care of many different kitties, from pregnant cats giving birth to 9, to mom-less kittens to adults that were dumped. They are adorable and fun and full of love. That’s why you should forgive the fact that I’ve got cat fur stuck to me constantly. Business Lesson #3: Everything has a market that goes up and down, even cats. The Boston cat market is currently very bad.

4) I was a cheerleader in high school. I won’t embarrass myself by posting a picture, but our squad did pretty well in competition and had a lot of fun. I was very good at catching people as they fell and had fun at preventing many girls from smacking into the floor. I did it for three years, until senior year when I got an after school job programming. Business Lesson #4: Let down your team and they’ll throw you in the mud. One Thanksgiving we were at a football game and our half-time routine required sitting with both legs flat on the ground. It had been raining all day, but not enough to cancel the game (football is supposed to be muddy anyway!). Our coach threatened violence if we didn’t all hit the ground, so I sucked it up and like everyone but one girl on the team landed full force in the mud. And it was obvious to everyone, because she was the only one not covered in mud. Great way to get herself ostracized from the team.

5) My first memory in my life, is sitting a computer with my mother. Both of my parents are computer programmers and so I’ve pretty much been destined for the computer industry. My first memory is of me sitting next to my mother, and writing down the values in registers as my mother debugged her project. At first she told me which ones to write down, and then as there wasn’t enough for me to write, I started to volunteer to write down others. I clearly thought I was doing a great job, my mother upon reflection was clearly humoring me. Business lesson #5: If you have someone on the team who can’t help, at least give them something to do to keep themselves busy! Thankfully I must say with my team here at Forrester this is not a problem at all, as they’re all the best people ever :).

Well now that I’ve shared perhaps Alissa will share a bit about herself as well. Or you?