JNUC 2016

[deanhager]

Dear JAMF Nation,

I am pleased to announce that on April 6, 2016, the registration site will launch for the 2016 JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC). For the sixth consecutive year, we will host JNUC at the historic Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 18-20, 2016.

Prior to the registration site opening and issuing our public press release, I wanted to first write a personal message to you, JAMF Nation, informing you of several changes to this year’s event — and more importantly, the reasons why.

Back in 2010, JAMF founders, Zach Halmstad and Chip Pearson, had a vision to bring together a community of JAMF customers for the sole purpose of connecting with and learning from each other. Zach and Chip did not want a ‘marketing event.’ They wanted a gathering for JAMF customers, where the content came from JAMF customers. For those of you who have attended frequently, you know JNUC has become a lot like a reunion, where friends gather to hear stories — some related to our profession, and some not. In short, JAMF Nation has truly become a community.

As JAMF's new CEO, the 2015 JNUC was my very first. I never experienced the intimate gathering of only 100 people back in 2010. I have only known JNUC as the largest gathering of Apple administrators in the world, with more than 1,000 attendees last year. Despite it’s size, it still had a community appeal.

For those who joined us last year, you had an opportunity to meet several new members of the JAMF leadership team, connect with over one hundred new JAMF team members, and witness many informative presentations from JAMF Nation members, including the amazing IBM story of 30,000 Macs deployed in less than four months (having now grown to over 50,000 Macs, as documented in this IBM paper.

During JNUC 2015, you also witnessed first hand, after six years, we have now hit capacity in our current venue at the Guthrie Theatre. Yet JAMF is adding more than two thousand new customers every year. To accommodate this growth, and your desire for even more educational sessions, JNUC requires additional space — which of course requires more investment. The unfortunate reality is that all investments in the JNUC event comes directly out of JAMF’s capacity to invest in your product and support. Thus, we are at a crossroads.

After months of consideration, JAMF has decided it is necessary to share the cost of JNUC with its attendees in order to improve the quality and scope while protecting investment into your product. To be clear, JAMF has no intention of profiting from JNUC. We are not morphing it into a marketing event. Our intent is only to charge enough to help cover the costs of hosting this large gathering. This year’s JNUC prices will encourage early registration, allowing JAMF to plan the best possible event for attendees. The prices will be as follows, based on registration deadlines:

• $499 if registered before May 4th
• $599 if registered between May 5th and July 12th
• $799 if registered between July 13th and October 11th
• $999 for those registering after October 11th

JAMF’s desire has always been to keep attendee cost as low as possible. At $499 for early registrants, it continues to be one of the most affordable conferences in the industry. However, we understand that, for over half a decade, it has been one of the very few free technology events. The hard truth is that, with its size and scope, continuing to provide a free event has proven an immense challenge. That challenge is exacerbated when combined with JAMF’s desire to maximize our spending on your product development and support.

When I joined JAMF nearly one year ago, the first improvement I wanted to make was to maximize our investment in product development. In fact, at JNUC 2015, I promised you that JAMF would grow its research and development organization by 60% year-over-year by March 2016. Now that March 2016 has come and gone, I am pleased to report that we have surpassed this goal and grown our product development by 100% since the same time last year.

The result of this growth will be directed toward more new product capabilities delivered with higher levels of quality in 2016 than any year in JAMF history. I can tell you now that in 2016, JAMF will deliver substantial improvements in cloud computing, enterprise integration, scalability and performance, patch management, classroom and school management, usability — for both IT admins and self-service users, and of course, support for the latest Apple releases on the day they become generally available. And you will be able to see and touch all of this new functionality at JNUC 2016.

Proof of our increased product development is already visible with the release of Casper Suite 9.9 on March 31st. As you know, Apple recently announced iOS 9.3, which includes many new features like Managed Home Screen Layout and Managed Lost Mode, as well as substantial functionality to serve the education market like Classroom app and Shared iPad. I am pleased to tell you, with Casper Suite 9.9, JAMF is first in the market to support all of this new functionality, as well as adding iOS and OS X capabilities independent of iOS 9.3. Casper Suite 9.9 represents the first of several feature-packed releases we have planned for 2016, which is possible because of our increased investment in research and development.

With all of this development, rest assured, I still stand firm in the commitment I made to you at last year’s JNUC: At JAMF, quality is more important than time. To support this commitment, our development processes have been bolstered to make sure that products are truly ready when we make them available to you.

Now, back to the topic of JNUC. Last year, I enjoyed meeting and speaking with many of you. In each discussion, I asked, “What about JNUC is valuable to you?” Predominately, you told me relationships and content from customers. However, you also told me you’d like more content from JAMF. You wanted topics to go deeper. Some of you long-time Casper Suite experts felt you had seen everything, and wanted a deeper technical understanding and visibility not only into what Casper Suite does, but what it will do in the future.

Considering this, we are committed to provide you greater information, training, and value than ever before. At JNUC 2016, in addition to customer presentations, JAMF employees will offer tracks that provide education on:

• All new functionality offered in 2016
• All functionality in planning and development for 2017
• Deep dive technical sessions delivered by JAMF’s team of experts

In addition, JAMF will offer shuttle services to visit our new headquarters in Minneapolis and participate in our new usability lab — where you will have an opportunity to direct the user experience for future product. And we will offer simultaneous Casper Suite certification courses through JAMF Education Services, giving course attendees the opportunity to attend JNUC keynotes and social events at no cost. Our registration site will contain details regarding all of these plans. In short, JNUC 2016 will be the best single week of Casper Suite training available anywhere.

We understand the JNUC fee may cause some past participants to miss the 2016 event. We deeply regret this. While the size and scope for JNUC may cause a short-term logistics problem, we are excited about turning the challenge into an opportunity to improve your experience. Our JAMF team plans to over-deliver on the promise of content and experience I'm making in this post. In addition, we will offer complimentary passes to customers providing presentations at JAMF. This incentive will attract case studies on the best and most innovative Casper Suite implementations in the world.

Regardless of whether JNUC is free or for fee, only a small subset of JAMF Nation is able to attend each year. At JAMF, our first investment priority is development and support of product that impacts 100% of JAMF Nation. With the new changes, we will be able to grow JNUC in the future without limitation and deliver you the best event and product experience possible.

In closing, for those able to attend JNUC 2016, my hope and plan is that you'll say, other than purchasing Casper Suite, it was the best JAMF investment you ever made.

Thank you,
Dean

[chriscollins]

@Eigger i think it's easier to just charge the 500 bucks. If they did it your way and one group buys 50 licenses for the year and another buys 5,000, how would that be fair to the people spending 100x as much money? And if you are building in the cost for that into subscriptions then what about all the institutions that DON'T want to go? Should they be subsidizing other people that do want to go? And then if you turn around and say "ok, well we'll only have the people who want to go subsiding it with their subscription pass", then the easier path again is to just charge the people who want to go the price of a ticket.

I think the simple thing as has been stated multiple times by others already is this year there are going to be disappointed folks that can't go and there's not much that's going to change that now. Next year when it can be planned and budgeted for then just charging everyone the same fee will be the best coarse of action. I think folks trying to figure out convoluted ways to hide the cost of a ticket so it looks "free" is just that, a more convoluted way of having attendees shoulder some of the burden of attending that can be more transparent by just charging for a ticket if you want to go.

[Chubs]

Hey @chriscollins , they "bundle" in training for the MDM piece regardless of how you try to save money. They force you to "pay" for training - even though I'm a self-learner on most things. How would "bundling" in the JNUC (just say, $500) into the yearly maintenance be anything different?

I guess there is no right or wrong model on how they do it - just company-personalized preferences.

[JimNyland]

Our school just signed on. Haven't even had the training or installed the software yet. We are a small school and had to go through a great deal of effort to get the powers that be to even consider this kind of investment. And now, we learn of a wonderful learning event, perfect for small town, small budget people like us - probably the kind of people who could most benefit from it - and more than likely we won't be able to attend because even at the early bird price, we may be priced out of the event. Excited about the product. Pretty bummed about the cost of something so valuable that usedf to be free.
I completely understand the need for for a fee, especially since the event is growing. However, the software is not cheap and the on going costs are significant. I know you folks in larger schools or businesses probably scoff at that concept but to us, it is prohibative. The only part I question is going from $0 to $1000, or $500 for the early bird. And one cost for all size clients. I wonder why some sort of stepped process couldn't be there - either stepped over time or stepped based on client size. Again, even though we haven't gotten the product, we are impressed enough by what we have heard to basically put ourselves out there to recommend it to a school board that really doesn't want to buy it. Going to this conference probably would help us be as efficient users as possible, making justifing the cost easier. But $500 to $1000 for a conference? On top of the thousands to purchase it? I hope we can attend. We have requested it, but the look we got when we did tells me something about our chances. Not complaining. I just think it is a shame - just wish some thought had been put into us little guys

[nessts]

Man life is tough.

[howie_isaacks]

@JimNyland I think you've made a great case against the fee. I totally understand JAMF's reasons for instituting the fee, but I hope that they find a way to make it possible for you to attend. Casper is very expensive. It certainly has been for us. Last year, we paid to send me to CCT training. Then a month later, we paid our yearly licensing fees. A month ago, I registered for CCA training, and then I paid another $500 for JNUC. If we total all of that together, it comes to about $8000 invested in Casper in less than a year. Now, we're being told we have to pay another $750 for an iOS jumpstart. This is not to mention the cost of traveling to Minneapolis for JNUC 2015 and my hotel stay. Again, I totally understand the reason behind the charge for JNUC, but I do feel that maybe the decision makers at JAMF may not have thought this through fully with consideration given to the price of training and licensing. For small companies like mine, all of these costs are a huge investment that we must be able to recuperate from client billing. It could actually cause us to lose business because we may have to pass on the extra costs to our customers. I think more thought needs to be given to all pricing for JAMF products, training, and other things. I think that Casper is awesome, and the support we get from JAMF is awesome too, but pricing can be a problem for a lot of us.

[Eigger]

@chriscollins The idea of modelling I have in mind is not per seat but per year. And like I said, the buyer have an option to cancel to get a refund if terms and condition are met. You may ask...how you will determine who will go in your IT team. It can be just as easy as "Whoever gets the shortest stick Go!" Or It can be a Reward to an employee for a Job Well Done, or a Price Item during your departments Christmas Party or something. I think this is not a half bad idea at all. Getting a JNUC pass everytime you renew or buy subscription to give away to your team can boost moral, get them motivated, something to look forward to every year.

[nessts]

You know if you wait a few weeks after JNUC they post all the videos for FREE. While I found the JNUC useful, I really did not think it was something I needed to pay to go to every year and knowing that it costs 500 or 1000 more does not really help or hurt that. And you can get all of the same info via video later free. You either can make a justification that its needed or you cannot. Since travel is involved my company does not and will not pay for travel to any training and therefore you either justify that you need it and figure out how to get there on your own, or you don't. I am pretty sure any successful company is going to make you pay for the conference. Apple being the biggest one that you all can look at. While the big apple event in San Francisco is neat it surely is not worth the 1000s of dollars it costs to go there every year either, unless you have made a business case for it. I suppose its time to remove myself from the JAMFNation email it seems that every day there is less good technical information coming through this forum than anything else. I am sure I hurt some feelings somewhere, and sorry for that. But, good Lord quit whinging about this and show us how important free stuff is to you and elect more democrats this fall, vote for $15 minimum wage and complain about $20 hamburgers. Good bye JAMFNation its been an interesting ride.

[JimNyland]

nessts, first, I'm a good old fashioned conservative. I believe in paying my way, working for what I get, and making the most of what I have. So it isn't about wanting it for free. I am not against paying a fee and frankly am shocked that JamF charged nothing for an event like this for so long. What I am saying is simply going from nothing to a fee like $500 to $1000, puts an even I could have found useful, especailly as a new user from a small school, but that price makes it really difficult. Believe me, as a tech person in a small school - and by small I mean less than 200 kids in grades pre-k through 12 - I struggle mightily daily trying to provide our kids with the kind of technology tools that they will get the most out of. I have to make a case for literally everything all the way down to simple and inexpensive cords and accesories. Our population is so small and our money so short, we don't simply face shortages. We face the inability to operate or exist at times. That is how small we are and how tight our money is. We have an amazing school board and a supportive superintendent. They have supported some pretty big requests from me in the students' interest. They have, in fact, done more than I ever expected. But there is a clear point where the well runs dry and our well was not that deep in the first place. We always want to do the best for our kids but the fiscal reality of our situation means there is only so much money. And then the superintendent has to decide if it is more important to send me to a $500 conference than buyiong books. So, some sort of stepped pricing simply allows us to continue to try to do the best for our kids. Our reality is simply different. Not worse. Just different, and I was just putting in my 2 cents for some consideration of that

[donmontalvo]

@JimNyland +1

I believe in paying my way, working for what I get, and making the most of what I have.

[pete_c]

Regarding the JNUC session videos - which I have found immensely useful over these past few years - I have one small request that I hope JAMF will consider.

I just referred the Solving Real Needs with the Command Line session from last year to one of my clients, who is hard of hearing, but he noted that there were no captions. Additionally I was unable to find any transcript of that session.

Universal access is beneficial for everyone. JAMF, please at least investigate doing this for future sessions.

[bentoms]

@pete_c Great idea!

If that happens, I'd suggest a person & not a robot doing the captions.

This can lead to unexpected results from me at times!

[AVmcclint]

@pete_c https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=4687

[Chubs]

Lol @bentoms been burned by Siri in the past?

Gotta get someone that understands all dialects as well as slang to do real time CC for the conference. I'm sure there are some partially deaf/wholly deaf people who'll attend.

[spalmer]

@deanhager As we are looking at how many we can send to the conference I noticed there is a "Super Early Bird (Group)" discount where you can buy 3 get 1 free. I have a couple of questions since a few things regarding the group rate are not clear to me and I couldn't find the answers in the FAQ.

1. Will the group rate go away when the Super Early Bird pricing expires, or will it continue through all of the discount levels?
2. When registering for the group rate it only allows a maximum of 4. What if we end up having eight people attend? Is there a way we can get two groups of "buy 3, get 1 free" on one registration so that we can do it all on one purchase order?
3. Similarly it would be nice if we could do any combination of individual and "buy 3, get 1 free" so that we can say have seven for example on one registration and use one purchase order so we can internally spread that cost savings across all seven registrants since we are all from different departments that have different budgets.

These aren't deal breakers since we are still up in the air about how many we are going to send, but it makes it a little easier, since we might have to submit a purchase order, to do one big purchase and one registration for 4 to 8 people.

[deanhager]

@spalmer Thanks for the questions. I hope this helps.

1. Buy 3, get 1 free WILL continue after the Super Early Bird pricing expires
2. I'm sure we can accommodate this. Write jnuchelp@jamfsoftware.com and they can get it organized.
3. I'm not sure I follow completely. But I suspect if you write the same address listed in #2, we can help. If not, let me know.

Thanks!

[snovak]

Thankfully we allocated a pretty healthy PD budget this year, so I'm gonna get to go! :D

[jkozyra]

Another educational partner here from Canada. We have participated for the past 3 years in JNUC but unfortunately that will not be an option moving forward with these fees.

[Gocobachi]

I have just received confirmation from others not going to JNUC 2016 due to the fees. These folks are actually trading the would be JNUC fees towards airfare to go to other conferences. Why they are not posting their thoughts on this forum is beyond me, but I figure I would at least express to the JNUC committee that this introduction to fees is affecting a lot more JNUC fans than you think.

I am close friends with those other folks that are not attending and I am definitely going to sit out if they don't go. It's unfortunate it has come to this, but maybe things will improve for future JNUC's.

[Kevin]

RE:"I have just received confirmation from others not going to JNUC 2016 due to the fees. These folks are actually trading the would be JNUC fees towards airfare to go to other conferences."

Please post the list of free conferences they have found that will be of greater benefit to Casper Admins than the JNUC.

I have been to two other conferences far this year. The cost of just the conference fees for these two are over $3,800. And, travel always costs more than registration…

RE:"I am close friends with those other folks that are not attending and I am definitely going to sit out if they don't go."
With all respect, basing conference attendance on whether your friends go or not is not the best criteria. Go to learn. At EVERY JNUC I have been to (all of them), I have learned something that was much more valuable than $500.

[easyedc]

This thread is growing. Can we please up-vote Ignore or unsubscribe from email updates to an ongoing JAMF Nation Post so that we can make these notifications stop the next time it gets on-going like this. At this point, the comments aren't (IMHO) worth getting email notifications every time.

[blackholemac]

I do feel the pain of folks that want to go, but can't due to financial concerns. I could just as easily be in your shoes, but am not due to a very wonderful boss.

I disagree STRONGLY with anyone who says that the JNUC isn't worth it. Even previously when JNUC was free, I have learned a considerable amount of information that I have been able to take back and implement rather quickly. One year, I learned a technique from some other admins that totally paid for all of my lodging and airfare in the man-hours saved. Last year, I learned some strong techniques that I was able to implement fairly quickly and some ideas to give our building principals to motivate students more.

JNUC is totally worth a $499 cost period! I am excited to be going this year to go to some of the hands-on sessions and sessions run by the JAMFs. I had to do some horse trading to get the $499 cost covered, but so long as the conference cost doesn't go up terribly each year, I've done the horse trading in a way that should get this event covered every year. Excited to go and know I will get my money's worth.

[Gocobachi]

@Kevin

You misunderstand my posting or maybe I did not convey correctly. Sorry. But what I was saying is that folks are trading the JNUC 2016 fees for airfare to other "paid" conferences. I never said free conferences...

I totally vote the option to unfollow or unsubscribe to these types of threads - it's disgusting. Let's put an end to it. I am sorry to all that I caused such a reaction and I feel like the Donald Trump of this fiasco of a posting I committed!

I am sorry I Donald Trump'd this thread.

[cdenesha]

@deanhager Thank you for allowing us in Education to have a chance to use the Early Bird discount with next year's budget money (July 1).

chris

[ndeal]

This will be my first year at JNUC and I can't believe that a for profit company EVER had a free conference. It's still very cheap as far as tech conferences go. Even the hotel and airfare are relatively cheap. Try going to a conference in SF or NYC and see what that sets you back.

[donmontalvo]

@deanhager registering now. I wouldn't miss JNUC for the world.

PS, today is May 4th, hoping that means I only have to pay $499. :):):)

[deanhager]

@donmontalvo I'm looking forward to seeing you there. I just came out of a meeting where we were discussing all of the great content we have for you this year. And yes, if you get it done today, it's $499 :)

[jconte]

For anyone trying to say at the Depot, the JAMF Rate is not valid. Just got off the phone with them and only one of the days was available.

I guess everyone is taking advantage of the SuperEarly bird special.

[mahughe]

just got word by the boss man...won't approve it due to the registration fee which I know was a major selling point in going in years past. This yrs cost was around 2K for me alone to go, then a new person to the team wanted to go and that doubled my price. With that said, last year both of us could have went for about 40% of the cost of what one of ours would have cost this yr.

I'm not sure if @deanhager realizes there is an issue with school funding these days and we already pay a premium, yet discounted price for the services of JAMF. Our district is planning for the possibilities of a shut down if the state of KS can address the funding issue on July 1. Many states have a funding issue these days, reduced budgets, do more with less. So, to impose a fee to your customers to come to a "customer user group" makes hardly any sense to me, but then again I wasn't asked about it. But when I am asked about JAMF, it gets glowing reviews and being around this for nearly 10 yrs now, it's changing and I'm not so totally sure for the better. When my boss was called by the investor group about JAMF, he gave them positive feedback. If in the expansion of how this business is changing it would be nice to see some one on the ground locally to check in, do some overview of new feature much along the lines of an Apple SE. We have to come Minneapolis to see/meet out account manager or whomever it might be and now there is a fee for that?

[Chris_Hafner]

The Depot goes quick! Personally, I've always preferred the Residence at the Depot. Anyways, they only had two days available at the discounted rate. The Hotel MN has rooms. See you all there!

[cdenesha]

@Chris_Hafner How can they only have two days at the discount rate? Wouldn't they have certain rooms blocked off until full, and then let the others goto the public? Or am I dreaming?

[howie_isaacks]

@cdenesha You are indeed dreaming. I ran into a similar issue last year when I tried to book a room at Aloft. They had just two days available. I ended up staying at the Normandy Inn. It was nice, but I would have liked to have stayed within walking distance of The Guthrie. This year, I booked my room early, and I got in at Aloft.

[Chris_Hafner]

@cdenesha @howie_isaacks I'd imagine that you're quite correct. I can't think of a good reason why JNUC discounts or room blocks would be unevenly distributed, and yet I am often proven wrong. Come to think of it, it happened to me last year as well. I ended up booking the Renaissance the first night and then had the rest of my nights at the Residence. What can I say, I like the kitchen and the included meals.

[mscottblake]

Like @Chris_Hafner, when I registered, Renaissance was only open for 1 night, and the Residence was only open the rest. I had to change rooms after the first night.

[Chris_Hafner]

Perhaps some folks (vendors) are only there for their presentations? I'm sure some folks have to leave early or arrive late to the conference due to business circumstances and the like.