HDI 2004 – Where the Sun Never Sets on Service

Celebrate… Excellence · Our Profession · Your Team Learning & Knowledge Innovation · The Past, Present & Future of the Support Industry

 HDI’s 15 Anniversary

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Sunday, April 18th
After a full day of pre-conference sessions, including three classrooms totaling more than 150 people training for HDI Help Desk Manager (HDM) Certification, the HDI Annual Conference celebration officially started in the general session theatre.

Cinda Daly, the HDI Annual Conference program director, kicked off the HDI 2004 event by briefly recounting the history of the support profession and then introduced Ron Muns, the founder and CEO of HDI and—arguably—the founder of the entire support industry.

This introduction was followed by Forrest Gump (aka Kirk Weisler) as a “help desk professional” joining Ron Muns onstage. “Being a help desk professional is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes you get the chewy ones—they chew you out—sometimes you get the nutty ones…” said “Gump.”

Ron Muns welcomed the nearly 1,500 attendees and introduced Brenda Iniguez, chair of the member advisory board, who introduced the HDI Local Chapter awards:

Overall Excellence: Northcoast Local Chapter
Programs Excellence: San Francisco Local Chapter
Membership Excellence: Capital Area Local Chapter
Special Events Excellence: Delaware Valley Local Chapter
Newsletter Excellence: Capital Area Local Chapter
Website Excellence: Calgary Local Chapter

With a ball drop teambuilding activity, fun, music and surprises—the opening session was all designed to celebrate excellence, the support industry, profession, community, excellence, and 15 years of HDI.

Frank Miles then delivered a funny, irreverent, surprising presentation that included card tricks, unicycle riding, juggling and a lot of humor. After juggling knives, Miles used his trick as a metaphor to discuss fear—fear of people, commitment, life and the power of perspective. “Every fear has a handle,” said Miles. “Focus on the handle and let the other end take care of itself by giving it a little trust and a little faith. You are right there at the handle, you’re out there making a difference by serving others.”

“Fear is the source of all of our limitations—and it all boils down to fear of the unknown. Keep in mind that there are things that you haven’t even dreamed of yet. If you really want the sun to never set on service, you need to focus on service and change, and that may mean facing things that are a little scary.”

The keynote session was followed by another celebration—a welcome reception in the bustling expo hall and three new product announcements on The Launch Pad—two from HDI and one from Microsoft.

Monday, April 19th
The morning got started with the Cantastics who started the general session with a bang in a Stomp-style performance using garbage cans, incredible rhythms and even a little audience participation.

Ron Muns then greeted the attendees and noted that we are part of a growing community that now includes more than 2 million support and IT people in the US. “Our jobs are getting more interesting,” said Muns. “Our jobs used to be fairly simple…but increasingly the minority of the people in support are going to be on the phones. Today we’re more about engineering, knowledge sharing, and thinking about global issues…so we need to think differently about our profession, but we need to keep thinking about service and our customers despite the automation. The organizations that are least strategic and not thinking about their customers are the ones that are going to be most impacted by the changes.”

The first ever Help Desk Analyst of the Year Award was presented to Micheal Rodgers, who thanked his help desk manager—“the greatest boss I’ve ever had.”

Nido Qubein celebrated excellence with an opening keynote presentation. “Excellence is not an act—excellence is a habit that we acquire through repetition and practice…competence leads to confidence and confidence leads to commitment. It’s not the circumstances that define you; it’s always the choices you make.”

Qubein advocated adding a “Stop Doing List” to your daily “To-Do List” so that you can form a “To Become List.” “The things you have in your life right now (those which you can control,) are the things you deserve to have in your life right now. It all boils down to choice…and out of adversity can emerge abundance.”

4 Things You Need to Do to Reach Peak Performance:

1. Go beyond being great communicators to being great at connecting with people.
2. Go beyond selling to positioning ourselves.
3. Go beyond training to education.
4. Move beyond success to significance.

“Peak performance is not always measured by recognition or position or money. It is often measured by how happy you are with the person you are. So celebrate, celebrate your 15 years, your success and significance in your work and your friends here.”

The morning keynote was followed by more than 35 sessions throughout the rest of the day focusing on everything from “Breakthrough Service Performance,” to “Technology Deployment in the Mobile & Wireless World” to something called “The Godfather Part IV—Beyond the Horses Head.”

The expo hall was abuzz with demos and vendor presentations from the more than 80 exhibitors and new product launches and announcements at the HDI 2004/TechRepublic Launch Pad stage from Invoq Systems, NextPage and TechTeam Global (who webcast its announcement of a new facility in Romania live across the Web).

The afternoon’s three mini-keynotes or Celebration Presentations were presented by: Guy Kawasaki who explored the “New New Economy,” Joe Calloway who discussed becoming a “Category of One,” and Jay Rifenbary who proposed an “Action Plan for Success.”

The Afternoon Under the Palms featured nearly a dozen different opportunities for focused roundtable discussions, executive networking, brainstorming, idea sharing, tech tips, and more.

The evening’s activities included informal networking and dinner groups, a VIP reception, and resting up for the next day of learning, product previews and fun!

Tuesday, April 20th
Tuesday morning’s HDI 2004 celebration of community began with Daybreak Discussions and informal roundtable breakfast groups, and continued with a celebration of excellence in the general session with the presentation of the HDI Team Excellence Award for Internal Support, which was presented to Saudi Aramco, an HDI-Certified Support Center (HDI SCS).

The morning’s general session continued with a lively keynote presentation by Stan Slap entitled “Bury My Heart at Conference Room B.” In his address, Slap recounted the 7 deadly sins of managing corporate culture:

1. Trying to control corporate culture.
2. Presumption of rapid behavioral change.
3. Leadership vacuum.
4. Big kickoff—little payoff.
5. Say what?—communication has to be simple, clear and understandable. Obscure buzz lexicon does not work—i.e. “paradigm,” “empowerment,” “synergy.” Do not use these words.
6. Pay what?—every employee understands the difference between being paid well and being treated well. Everything that motivates an employee is compensation and that includes money, but more importantly it means the things that money can’t buy.
7. Trying to peddle strategies as values.

“The bottom line—you can’t sell it outside if you can’t sell it inside—if you hold on to this one concept your strategies will be successful. One piece of advice for a manager: Be human first and a manager second.”

Breakout sessions from such industry luminaries as John Ragsdale (Forrester), George Spalding (Pink Elephant), Ken Wendle (HP), T. Scott Gross, Mark Minasi, and more than 30 others rounded out the rest of the day’s education.

In the expo hall, announcements were made on the HDI/TechRepublic Launch Pad stage by Primus and FrontRange, and the 80+ industry vendors showcased the latest in service and support technologies tools and services to the more than 1,400 attendees.

The HDI 2004 Expo concluded with a great prize giveaway—the culmination of the Expo Hall Boardwalk Bingo Game, which included such spectacular prizes as MP3 players, iPODs, digital cameras, gift certificates, Pocket PCs, and more.

Tuesday afternoon’s Celebration Presentations included the Sate-of-the-Industry address by Phil Verghis, HDI’s outgoing Strategic Advisory Board Chair, who spoke about offshoring/outsourcing trends and the future of tech support.

Tuesday evening featured the HDI 2004 Sunset Celebration Party, which included tropical treats, live music, dancing, a South Beach-style pool party, games, fun and a prize giveaway of a Segue HT—sponsored by FrontRange.

Wednesday, April 21st
The final day of the HDI 2004 conference began with an executive networking breakfast as well as breakfast and networking opportunities and roundtable discussion groups for the other HDI 2004 attendees who dared to get up by 7 A.M. after the previous night’s party, followed by nearly a dozen breakout sessions ranging from “IT IQ,” “Help Desk Tools and Technologies That Cost Less,” and “Leveraging Self-Service and Knowledge for Global Intranet Support.”

The HDI 2004 Annual Conference & Expo concluded with a keynote address by Mimi Donaldson entitled, “All Stressed Up and No Place to Blow” as well as the presentation of the HDI Team Excellence Award for External Support to Akamai Technologies.

Thanks to everyone who attended HDI 2004—Where the Sun Never Sets on Service. With more than 1,600 people onsite, it was the largest HDI annual conference ever, and a wonderful celebration of HDI’s past, present and future!

We look forward to seeing you all again next year at the Venetian in Las Vegas, March 7-10, and encourage and welcome your feedback. E-mail us at info@thinkhdi.com.