One click away from Greatness

HDAA offers the services you wish you had when you started out in your IT career. Honest, trustworthy advice, training, knowledge and 100+ years of collective wisdom from our team of global experts.
Our team at HDAA is dedicated to ensuring you get ahead in your career, understand what tools and skills are needed to achieve your goals. We help by co creating value, to ensure your career outcomes are achieved.
I wrote this article to give you insight as to the pathway I walked, sometimes 4 steps backwards one step forwards, and if ONLY I had access to the services we offer back then. They didn't exist back then, but now they do, so let us show you the way forward.
Our team has helped tens of thousands of customers achieve their goals.
Are you the next global leader? We can help you be that leader.

One click of your mouse, that is the amount of effort that you need to expel to open a door to the world of opportunity. I'm not joking, you are that close, you just need to decide which link to click on and follow it through.

HDAA can show you pathways to achieve your goals, understand the journey you have to travel and what tools to use to get there.

Unlike when I was starting out in this industry. 1996 was when I started my first service desk job and I have to say it was absolute bedlam. 
Do you know why I started working in the service desk field?

Well the plumbing apprenticeship I had started, sort of stopped. 
Even though (In Australia) once you have secured an apprenticeship you were “locked in”, the circumstances that surrounded me at the time meant that the government of the time had to take extraordinary measures. Where the government saw them as extraordinary, I saw the measures as “Extra Ordinary” meaning that I was getting the raw end of the deal.

Apparently Australia was having a “Recession that Australia had to have”, Thanks for that.

So I was unemployed. I applied for many jobs, hundreds, and finally landed a job in a call centre, which was what they were called at the time. Was this fate? or just right place at the right time?
I didn't know what the job entailed, what was expected of me, what tools/methods or even the lingo that was used. This journey was one of my rites of passage. At the time I was not overly enjoying my time on the service desk, the angry customers and the ad hoc approach to dealing with spot fires and incidents (known as tickets at the time). However it helped me to get to where I am today, unfortunately with a lot of dead ends along the way, in relation to my career paths and opportunities. Wasting time, energy and causing a lot of frustration, stress and depression.

As we teeter on the edge of a similar scenario now in 2023, after the dreadful pandemic and now a potential recession (who knows), I find myself searching for answers that can assist you in solving YOUR potential problems, as i'm certain there are other people that have either chosen or note, into a similar pathway and don't have guidance (like I didn't), or have just grabbed a job so you can pay the bills. Kudos to you for doing that, and sticking in there. There are great opportunities for you if you are willing    to learn and stick to it. And once you understand the way the system works (with our guidance) it makes it sooooo much easier.

Don't worry. I've been there and done that. 

We want you to learn from our mistakes(by leapfrogging and dodging the bad bits) and try to apply what we have used over the years to be a better person, enjoy your work more, and get paid more money.

Fast forward 30 years, and here is my team and I meeting with and educating/coaching the future generations of service desk professionals and leaders like YOU. 
I don't say that lightly. You are a professional and without your hard work, effort and dedication, a lot of the services that help to glue our society together would cease to exist.
I know the pain you feel at times, the heartache and relentless wave of customers requesting, you do more and more, faster, with little to no thanks. It literally is at times a thankless task.

You know there were some times in my years at the service desk that I just wanted to throw in the towel, but a friend/mentor I was lucky to cross paths with (Diana Jemson - RIP) called me one day in 1999 and said "Do you want to do ITIL training?” I had no idea what she was on about, but trusted her perception and intelligence to know that she had the best in mind for me and my future. 

I trusted Diana. Finding a person that you can trust and know they have the best in mind for you is hard at times. 

Immediately without thinking I said “Yes, what do I need to do?”

And so the journey began…..

Immediately, I was enrolled in the ITILV2 course (Under Marcus Binnet), sat the course, and passed my exam. I remember saying to myself in the course “where was this information 5 years ago?” for topics like incident management or service desk. However there were some topics I was still not understanding why I had done it, or what I could do with them (I know, patience grasshopper…). But I had so many questions, but no one to turn to? HDAA only started in 1999 (the same time I got certified) but as I lived in Adelaide, and HDAA was in Sydney, there was no way for me to know who they were. Remember this was 1999. The internet did not function like it does today.

One thing I did know was this was my opportunity to shine. And even though Diana had given me the heads up on ITSM/ITIL it wasn't her field of expertise, she just knew it was suited to my skills. 
So I still had no one I could speak with, ask questions of, or know where this new knowledge could take my career. I was on a pathway, yet still with no guidance on which avenues I could navigate through. Here I could see this massive opportunity to shape the future of IT, drive innovation, increase productivity and stop a lot of wasted time, energy and effort on going in circles for countless IT professionals

Throughout my journey from that time to today, my focus has been how can I share the knowledge that I have learnt with as many people as possible? Thus why I became CEO of HDAA.
During my travels, I made some great friendships with other experts, in which have the same values as I do, and want to share the wealth of knowledge that we have learnt. That my dear reader, is the team that you deal with on a daily basis. Team HDAA.
This is no word of a lie. The people you deal with at HDAA are passionate about you being the best you can. We are constantly looking for ways to improve the services, knowledge transfer and “pass the baton” over to you.
When you email us for an answer, call to qualify some information, or ask us to do a consult/help desk maturity assessment, we will reply and speak with you to as best as possible find the right solution or answer.
If we don't know the answer within our team (not likely), we will then go away and research it for you, find a selection of answers that we think are best suited for you, then give that data for you.
It's all a part of the service.

The key takeaway from this article that I want you to understand is: 

Here at HDAA, we want you to be GREAT. 

We want you to exceed our capability, our skills, and we will do everything in our power to assist those who are willing, dedicated to be the best you can, achieve your goals and make your work and life the best life you can live. 
Life is too short to work your days away, with little to no return. Enjoy life, smile, be happy, have fun and be productive. That age old saying, “knowledge is power”. (Francis Bacon 1597) is as true today as it was back in the 1500’s.
It's not the power you have, it's how you go about using that power.

There are not enough people in the world with the knowledge to manage our current and future services, so that they service the needs of the global population. 

If you're up to it, we are too. Step up, click on that link.

That next email we send out, it's not to spam you, it's to offer you opportunities to be GREAT

Contact HDAA to become the next leader in Service Desk, ITSM, Cyber or security management.

What's stopping you?