JNUC 2016

I've been surprised that it has remained free as long as it has. I'm in K-12, this will be tougher to sell, but in the end it was necessary.

Thanks for letting us know as soon as you could. I hope to attend.

I get that they need to charge for it and it will be a tougher sell to the boss, but I am going to try. It will be near impossible to get the PO cut that fast........

3 of my four attendances have been on my own dime, pretty sure that will stop :-(

@deanhager I completely agree that it was very generous of jamf Software to invite everybody for free the last few years and I can understand your move. I also want to chime in that at least here in Europe we had several cases where school officials were getting in trouble for going to free events organized by Apple because of bribery worries. So a modest fee like the one you settled on surely also has its advantages on a political level.

I'm very much looking forward to JNUC016!

I second what @hansen_m said:

What also doesn't really add up is how "JNUC requires more space" and there is a need to "pass on the cost" but yet it is being held at the same venue again this year.

Because my company has zero training budget and zero travel budget, I'd never be able to go anyway, but this is a very good point.

it is a disappointing state of things when EDU (or really anyone) would spend the money on a deep product like the Casper Suite and then not understand the value of PD to utilize the product to its fullest.
Some might call this "fiscal responsibility" but I disagree. EDU loves to cry poor, but when needs arise that the purse holders understand, money is usually there. I am so thankful for an administration that has flexibility in this respect. As for needing more space but keeping the same venue, I think one point is that there were hundreds of no-shows last year due to the "free" access. Imagine how challenging this makes the planning. Adding shuttles over to the offices does in fact expand the space as well.
Timing... well, as with all things you cannot make everyone happy. Kudos to JAMF for capturing sessions for those who maybe will not be able to attend this year. Start making your case for next year, I guess.

Will the sessions still be posted to JAMF's Youtube channel? I'd hate to fight some kind of pay-wall for this...

@Sonic84 the videos will still be posted free.

@deanhager responded to that worry:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=19421#responseChild116580

The hands on aspect will be hard to recreate but the videos tend to be priceless for sharing and growing the community.

Now off i go to build something to present on so i can go for free and get a snazzy Presenters lanyard.

@deanhager, I wasn't able to attend last year, my first year as a full Casper user. But I still hope to go this year (schedule permitting).

I have plenty of experience working in Higher Education, and totally understand the pains these new fees preset. But I'm fortunate now to work for a Fortune 500 company, so fees like this are not unexpected for an event like JNUC.

One thing I've seen in the past for conferences or trade shows is tiered pricing. The larger the company, the larger the fee. But the difference in the fee would be used to help subsidize the fees for education. Either directly (grants) or indirectly (lower costs for education). Or maybe even something where I could optionally pay more to help subsidize someone in K-12/Higher Ed to attend.

All of this would obviously be hard to do effectively this year, but perhaps for 2017.

Having worked in edu before the private sector, I can't really feel too badly about the same registration fee applying to both edu and private sector being that edu gets such a steep discount on Casper licensing compared to those of us in the private sector.

I do hear the timing argument though, as the edu budgeting process is a bit of a nightmare (one of the reasons that I left). Honestly the new fee structure is not outlandish by any means, especially with the wealth of information which you have access to at JNUC. Its still a GREAT deal, and edu administrators should be able to do the cost/benefit analysis on a conference like this (but often can't wrap their heads around PD for non-teachers - another reason I got out of edu).

Second @cwaldrip ...a lot of educators don't grasp the need...I've learned more in the hallways of a JNUC about the hard tech skills than I learn from a year of reading forum posts and talking to support reps. I work hard to keep our local taxpayer dollars down both in what I submit for travel and in how I do my job. The $499 is hard but am trying to figure it out as JNUC is worth it. Any help for K-12 that Jamf can give in JNUC costs is appreciated in advance.

As a tech conference organizer myself, I understand that the cost to run a conference that keeps getting bigger does not go up in a linear fashion; it goes up in a more exponential fashion in some areas, more than the economy of scale can offset. At a certain point, you have to make tough financial decisions. I also believe in the general concept that you cheapen the thing if it is always free — if it has value, you should charge for it. (For conferences, that also helps reduce no-shows, improving access.)

Nevertheless, this is a vendor conference, not a general Mac Admin or DevOps conference. It is to the benefit of the vendor to hold the conference because it leads to customer retention (or attraction) and lower tech support costs. The synergies of in-person conferences also build community for their product and give engineers exposure to a broad range of customers that they might not otherwise see, leading to ideas for advancement of their product. So while I completely believe the CEO when he says that they are not pricing this to make money, I do not think that accounting includes the benefits in kind that JAMF gains from this event.

Everyone who attends JNUC is already a paying customer (or is considering ponying up the large upfront cost for Casper). A scheme where every paying client got X number of free admissions based on their seats (almost like delegates to a political convention), could opt to pay for additional admissions, and where sales reps would have a pool of comps or deep discounts to give out to prospective clients (or smaller existing clients that could use some extra help) would seem to make more sense to me. Right now, I look at the price and think that Mac Admins at PSU is a much better value for the dollar. In fact, I could make an argument for any of the existing Mac Admin conferences over JNUC at its current pricing level depending on where you live. I say this knowing full well that no conference is ever free; the price of JNUC has merely gone up USD $500-$1000. Still, that's a substantial jump.

JAMF is a great supporter of other Mac Admin conferences — I'm grateful for that. (My conference probably would not have got the same traction if it wasn't for the support of them and their local dealer.) I'm just not certain that they've found the right balance between cost and value for their own event.

— Anthony Reimer

I get that JAMF needs to charge - if last year (JNUC 2015) was any indication, we've outgrown the proverbial shell.

I also understand that the education sector is going to be hit the hardest with this change in policy - pay to play...

Why doesn't JAMF offer a special discount or special concession for edu?

Let corporate clients foot the $500+ price tags and give the poor, starving schools a break? I'm sure the cost difference wouldn't be that much different than in the past and would allow JAMF (and schools) to ease into the new pricing structure?

Just a thought...

Being in higher ed, I don't think a free ride is in order that is for sure. We tend to get these generous discounts on good and services because we are stewards of tax payer dollars. This goes a long way to secure purchases with vendors and long term contracts. This has been done with Microsoft, VMware, Apple and more for a very long time.

What I argue with is the short term affect of getting approval for this. Most K-12 and higher ed have fiscal years that operate from July 1 - June 30, as an example. This means getting in on the early bird discount, we would have had to know about this going back to last summer. Luckily, my manager has essentially approved my attendance this year despite the shortness of this notice.

The problem is the lengthy process it will take to get the final approval and someone to use a P Card to make the purchase. So I went to the next tier in pricing hoping that we can get approval before July 12th. I know it sounds crazy, but it might take that long!!

Wisconsin's budget for K-12 and Higher ed have been woefully cut to the bare bone. We can borrow money for buildings and projects, but our operational day to day money has dried up like a desert creek. Thanks for listening and understanding our situation.

Mick

Just because someone is not EDU does not mean they have an endless budget of conference and training funds...

My company will send us with or without it being free but not everyone is so lucky.

Just to clarify my earlier response. I understand the need of JAMF adding a cost to JNUC. It was fantastic when I went 2 years ago and I was really suprised it was a free conference. I wanted to attend last year but was unable to attend. What I was able to take back to my school district from the conference helped me create better ways of doing some manual tasks so I wasn't always doing the same things over and over.

Now being in EDU, like what a lot of others have said, my budget for the 2016-2017 year has been set since November, our budget year is July 1-June 30. Which means I would have had to know about this cost back in September to get it approved in time for next year's budget. Again, the cost is fine, but it's really bad timing to hear about it now since our budget is set. I still hope to attend but like what other people have said it'll be a bigger fight with the added cost of the conference. I hope they can extend the early bird pricing out a little more to help those who have a long process of getting this approved.

That was my budget for this years beer share! #stillgoing @RobertHammen

Too bad they are charging for JNUC this year, I bet that is a deal breaker for us. Our budgets went in a long time ago for this event. Bad planning, i am guessing that this wasn't thought of overnight, would have been nice if the thought was shared and not a surprise.

2-3 people increases our costs by close to $2k, even more given our lengthy approval process. We are spending for encompass as well, would have been nice if those customers got a ticket or two.

Hopefully we can get approval, I really enjoy the conference. Furious, bacon flights and cheese curds are just a few of my favorite things.

i am guessing that this wasn't thought of overnight

My bet as well. I would say the reason for the announcement coming now instead of last year probably was because JAMF tried every which way to keep JNUC free and couldn't come up with a way to do it short of trimming perks from the conference, or doing something like capping the attendee numbers at a lower amount to control the costs. They probably deliberated over this decision for months. I'm willing to bet any potential solution they came up with was not deemed satisfactory. It is unfortunate on the timing though for those who already have their budgets set with little flexibility.
Given a decent number of JAMF's employees came from edu environments and would have had some insight into how the process works for budget approvals, I wonder if there was consultation on that front to see what might be best in terms of timing of the announcement. It doesn't seem like it.

The writing was on the wall at JNUC 2015 for this...maxed out capacity. They had 3 options to keep it going...lottery, charge a fee or move to bigger venue at greater cost (if there is one in Minneapolis).

I was hoping fee...but smaller one. Hopefully folks at JAMF are reading this with ideas or plans for working with folks who Get priced out...regional conferences or discounts depending on EDU vs commercial or by company size.

Unsure of the answer..I'm trying to make up the costs partially by decreasing travel expenses a little but something else also seems to be happening in town that week based on hotel prices. My hope is by driving and not claiming mileage that I make it work.

@ iaml I totally agree with a lot of your view points. There are a lot of hidden positives that come from this conference that's not seen on the P&L statement. At this point, it's likely a customer would never meet their TAM or other members of the JAMF staff of interest. There is an old adage, advertising doesn't cost is pays, granted this isn't a marketing event, it certainly provides advertising. As it has been pointed out, the cost hasincreased 500 - 999% and the venue isn't changing, there are free shuttles to the new office space and new usability lab to play in. When will that be utilized at any high volume besides at JNUC? Staff has increased over the last year dramatically which increases overhead, has the growth been to fast?

My district has been a customer since 2007 and will continue to be one at this point. I've always been a staunch advocate of JAMF, and their top notch support. I hope that this evolution the company is going through doesn't erode the top notch support and turns it into just another tech company that only see's us as number on a renewal. The support is always one thing I consider in decision making about products. With JAMF, I can reach out to my TAM be it using the support email, txt, messages, etc.. or someone else I might know in the community to get a resolution. I don't think that happens at any of their competitors like it does at JAMF Nation. The support is something I bring up when my boss asks about a possible change to another vendor.

I have really appreciated reading all of this commentary -- both sides of the discussion :) My schedule has been packed these past few days, but I've been keeping up to-date. I plan to sit down sometime in the new few days -- perhaps over the weekend -- to address some of your comments. So, stay tuned :) Until then, feel free to check out our registration site that just went live today: JNUC Registration

It's going to be like no other!

I hesitate to enter a discussion in which I may not have too much to add. However, I'd like to talk to the EDUs here. First, I hear you. I understand your budgeting dilemma. This happens A LOT and so we've set a standard, recurring PD line item every year regardless of what we're planning on attending. I believe this to be a critical line item that all IT departments, regardless of sector, keep as a matter of course. This is every bit a surprise to me, but doesn't really have much of an impact because we keep such an ongoing PD budget. That said, I have also been amazed that the JNUC has been free up to this point. I've even gotten a number of weird looks when I came back with a plethora of info from a 'free' conference. Honestly, I hope that this is only a small bump in what I consider to be the very best Mac Admin conference I've had the pleasure of attending. I'd love to be talking JNUC 2017 with the rest of my EDU colleagues if edu presence does temporarily dimish.

For others in the EDU space that are worried about there being less EDU presence, DON'T. I'm sure the presentations from EDUs will still go on and questions will be asked and answered. Presenters get a free pass so they're in anyways. However, never forget to learn from both old and new business alike. I get SO MUCH from talking with all of the private sector folks that never seems to get considered in the EDU sphere.

The writing was on the wall at JNUC 2015 for this...maxed out capacity. They had 3 options to keep it going...lottery, charge a fee or move to bigger venue at greater cost (if there is one in Minneapolis).

Minneapolis has many other venues, which might not necessarily increase the cost. I'm under the impression that the Guthrie is a premium spot.

My only gripe is the 4 tiers of pricing. Every year that I've attended (2 so far) I've always started planting the bug in my boss's ear about using our oft-borrowed from training budget early and often. Many times it's been only one or 2 weeks before the actual conference i get the green light and end up paying premiums for flights and lodging. I'd like to think this year would have been no different (but other factors may be deciding that for me). The double payment price for late registrees gets steep. Though my MSFT colleagues on my team pay thousands for their conferences and we often send multiples. Like everything in life, it's just a matter of timing.

@deanhager Is it possible to announce the following years JNUC and fees associated at the current JNUC or just after the current one concludes so that we in edu can have time to plan according?