My Volunteer Experience - Blake Kennison
Image: Blake Kennison in the SAcommunity Team, Connecting Up Office
Thank you Blake!
Blake Kennison has a certificate III in Information Technology (Network Administration) in 2011, and a Diploma of Information Technology Networking from TAFE SA completed 2021. He started volunteering with the SAcommunity Team on 7 May 2018 whilst he studied, continuing to volunteer in-between his various subjects. He retired in 2022 to pursue casual employment alongside further academic studies in IT at TAFE and UniSA.
Total Hours 155* Joined 7 May 2018 Last Check-in 2 November 2022 (retired)
Total Hours 155* Joined 7 May 2018 Last Check-in 2 November 2022 (retired)
*Since records began 18/3/2019
Blake plans to move into the IT industry, particularly a position working at an IT help desk. He began his voluntary work at the Connecting Up office, a division of Infoxchange, to expand his skills in customer service, data entry, and to familiarise himself with common software used on a daily basis in an office environment.
Customer Service Team
Blake joined the SAcommunity Information and Customer Service Team over 2018, 2019 and 2021 searching for information, contacting community services, and updating records on the SAcommunity online directory.
Community Services in Councils Project
Blake then joined the Data Analytics Team in 2022 and selected Whyalla Council for his Power BI council reports, a database of approximately 225 community services operating in the area for the financial year 2020-2021 and his completed report can be found >>here.
Mentor Meeting 1 June 2022
Connecting Up Volunteers and Interns are provided with the opportunity to select staff members from across the wider Infoxchange organisation for an informational mentor meeting. Here they have the opportunity to ask more about staff members job roles and employment journey, and learn about their career and professional development, to gain insights and guidance that can be applied towards their own success.
Blake had the opportunity to speak with Koodge Parker ITS Helpdesk Officer Infoxchange on the 1st June 2022 to find out more about his work as an IT professional and his experience in assisting clients with their IT support needs.
Mentor Meeting with Koodge Parker ITS Helpdesk
The meeting with my mentor Koodge from the Adelaide office, took place on Wednesday June 1 2022. Koodge is part of the IT Service Desk team at Infoxchange. Koodge has a broad range of skills and over 20 years of real-life experience in IT, making him an excellent mentor for someone like me, looking to get into the field.
His pathway into IT is interesting, he started by working in Macs through his university studying visual arts, digital imaging, film and electronic media. Which is different from my own background in IT and networking, and it is clear that many people enter this field from various diverse areas and this is something positive.
Koodge took time to understand my background, how I came to IT, and why I want to pursue a career on the help-desk. For me, the key reasons are that I want to help people with tech problems and troubleshoot their issues.
Koodge advised me that having a broad skillset and diverse technical background is essential in IT. For example, knowing more than just Windows would expand my abilities, and this is something that I definitely agree with. He also let me know that because Infoxchange is going to become a Microsoft Golden Certified partner, obtaining Microsoft certifications could be very helpful.
Since Infoxchange is quite large, Koodge does a bit of travelling to address the physical technical issues that can't be handled remotely. This includes setting up and maintaining organisation network racks to get them up and running. The organisation has IT staff all over Australia, so if I were ever to work in an organisation like that I would need to be aware of the tech issues and the time zones. For smaller organisations, employees are normally expected to be a 'jack of all trades' and handle a wide range of different tasks.
One of the key takeaways from our meeting was the importance of learning more about Macs. Koodge explained that the operating system (MacOS) is based on Linux, and as I know bit about Linux, it would be good to get into and to learn more about Linux commands.
He also mentioned the importance of undertanding learning accessibility features, particularly for people with visual impairments. Macs have their own built-in accessibility tools while in Windows you have to download the 3rd party tools and applications, so learning more about accessibility software will enable me to help and assist a wider range of people, including those with visual impairment.
Additionally, learning more about Cloud services like Azure, and more than just the basics of Active Directory and Office365 is quite important. He said that studying Microsoft certifications would be very helpful, like MS-100 which is mainly Office 365 fundamentals, and MS-900 which is more on Office 365 administration and he mentioned that the cost for these certificates is not too much. Koodge also suggested learning about remote desktop solutions, and while I have done a bit of PowerShell, Koodge advised it would be beneficial to know more, as he is learning more about the program too, as well as Juniper because Infoxchange uses that.
Koodge talked about the importance of having people skills. Being a good listener means listening to people and not just the technical issues to understand the problem.
Although my goal is to work on the Help Desk, I have been studying Networking as a way to gain broader technical skillsets and deeper understanding of IT systems as a foundation and part of the next steps to support me to move into a Help Desk job. Koodge said that it's always good to start in Help Desk as it is a great way to gain experience at an organisation and to climb the career ladder. After I have worked there for a while, if there are future project opportunities where they are looking for someone with those IT skillsets, such as networking for setting up routers, switches or racks, than I am ready when that time comes, and can let the company know that I'm also interested in gaining that experience.
I have noticed that most positions in IT normally want years of real-life work experience, however Koodge encouraged me and mentioned that I should not let it stop me in applying for jobs if I believe I am ready, but I do need to get in some IT help desk practice as it will be beneficial.
I really appreciate the time I had with my mentor, Koodge. He has a lot of knowledge and is a extremely busy person so I'm really happy he was able to meet with me. I did enjoy listening to his background, the travelling stories and some of the troubleshooting tech stories. One of those troubleshooting stories was apparently with the HP laptop camera shutter, and a lot of the time the solution is that you just move the slider with your fingers on the top of the screen. I am grateful to spend some time with him to learn more about the field from a more experienced person in the IT field. I really learnt a lot and a lot more to learn towards getting my foot in the door.
