Date Published July 18, 2017 - Last Updated December 6, 2017
In January 2017, HDI presented the Top 25 Thought Leaders in Technical Support and Service Management. To help you get to know them better and learn what it means to be a community leader, we’ve interviewed each of our thought leaders. Today, we hear from Brandon Caudle.
Tell us about your day job and also how you are involved in the community.
Over the last two decades, I consider myself fortunate to have worked with a number of organizations that span the technical service and customer support industry. My roles have ranged from ITSM practitioner to vendor and consultant, allowing me to experience a wide swath of the technical service and support environment. In my current role, I am proud to call First American Financial my home, where my badge lists IT (Service Desk) Manager, and I wear multiple hats across the IT service desk leadership continuum. In addition, for the last 15 years, I have been actively engaged in local, regional, and international leadership within HDI, the world’s largest technical service and support community.
What motivates you to be active in the community?
As the viral Internet story goes, everything I need to know, I learned from HDI. Many years ago, as I transitioned from the military back into the civilian workforce, I became acutely aware of the knowledge gap in many organizations around IT processes and best practices. HDI provided not only the content, through training and documentation, but also the peer network of technical support leaders. Every major metropolitan area has a local chapter, providing a welcoming community where we can learn, share, and grow. As I have volunteered across local chapters and on a national level, I have gained much more than I have given, and the relationships that have formed continue to drive my personal and career growth.
What suggestions do you have for tech support professionals interested in getting more involved in the community?
Find your local chapter and volunteer for their local leadership council. If you don’t have a local chapter, join the virtual chapter and volunteer for their leadership council. Reach out to HDI’s Top 25 Thought Leaders and make a connection, have a conversation, build a relationship. Find something you are passionate about, and use that passion to build the tech community. If you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, contact me. I would be happy to listen, and together we can figure out how you can get involved and make a difference.
How do you see the service desk evolving and changing over the next few years?
Thriving organizations will completely overhaul their service desks, empowering their customers (both internal and external) to self-serve with App Store quickness, improving software quality and end user acceptance to the level of “near zero defects” and transforming the service desk analysts of today into the customer change agents of 2020. It’s already happening within companies across the globe, and I am excited to be part of this movement.
Organizations will overhaul their service desks, empowering their customers to self-serve.
Amy Eisenberg is the editor for HDI where she works with industry experts and practitioners to create content for technical support professionals. She has worked in B2B media and scholarly publishing for more than 20 years, developing content for print and digital magazines, print and email newsletters, websites, conferences, and technical seminars. Follow Amy on Twitter @eisenbergamy, and connect with her on LinkedIn.