MacAdmins Conference

Speakers: Tom Bridge, Dr. Emily Kausalik-Whittle, Chris Dawe, Rich Trouton, Caleb Coy

Level: Panel Discussion

Excerpt: This session will consist of a brief talk introducing the Mac Admins Foundation, its mission, and history, followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with the Foundation’s board.

Description: Upon the acquisition of Slack by Salesforce, a group of longtime Mac Admins community members began considering the possibility that the special status of the Mac Admins Slack as a free Pro instance with nearly 50,000 members might be limited by factors outside the community’s control. Following discussion and research, the community members formed the Mac Admins Foundation with a mission of establishing the Mac Admins community as an truly independent community able to stand on its own..

About the speaker

Tom Bridge, Co-Chair

Tom Bridge is the Principal Product Manager for Apple Technologies at JumpCloud. He is also the producer of the Mac Admins Podcast. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Tiffany, their son Charlie, and large cat, Macro. Prior to joining JumpCloud, he was a partner at Technolutionary LLC, where he managed IT operations for more than 60 Mac-focused businesses, including the 9:30 Club, Arcadia, Navanti Group, and more.

Dr. Emily Kausalik-Whittle, Co-Chair

Emily Kausalik-Whittle is the Manager of Client Platform Engineering at Jamf, founder of Austin Apple Admins, and a co-host of the Mac Admins Podcast. Before joining Jamf she managed Apple technology for The Home Depot and various startups based in Austin. She holds a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in Music Theory and is based in the Austin, TX, area.

Chris Dawe, Secretary

Chris Dawe is a consultant specializing in Apple technologies and networking. A partner in Seattle-area consultancy Wheelwrights, Chris manages systems for a variety of businesses, speaks regularly on industry topics such as Wi-Fi and IT management, and helps lead the Shadowy Cabal running the regional meetup group Apple Admins of Seattle and the Great Northwest.

Rich Trouton, Treasurer

Rich Trouton has been doing Macintosh system and server administration for over twenty years and has supported Macs in a number of different environments, including university, government, medical research, advertising and enterprise software development. His current position is at SAP, where he works with the rest of the Apple@SAP team to support SAP’s Apple community. Rich has also written for Peachpit, Apress and MacTech Magazine on various ways to manage Apple devices.

Caleb Coy, Chair Emeritus

Caleb Coy co-founded the Mac Admins Slack Community in 2015 and has served on the Admin team since. Caleb got his start in tech while working for Apple Retail in 2005, and has since worked in IT Support, Helpdesk Management, SaaS Ops, and SaaS Support. He is currently a QA Engineer at Kandji and Director of Operations at Night Shift Media Group.

Speakers: Jim Rispin

Level: Presentation

Excerpt: With the possible exception of some of our introverted friends, the dramatic move to remote work, as a result of the pandemic, has been extremely challenging. As if managing a team of IT professionals wasn’t difficult enough, now you have to do with one arm (one eye?, one ear?, one leg?) tied behind your back. In this session we’ll give you some tactics for overcoming this loss, and hopefully help you restore the balance of trust, accountability, and connection in your team. We’ll also offer some ways you can up your remote game, even if you’re not a manager.

Description: .

About the speaker

Jim Rispin

Jim is the Deputy Chief Technology Officer at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has degrees in communication and ethics and has held a variety of roles throughout his career, from dishwasher, to radio disc jockey, to a cappella backup singer. But the bulk of his professional experience lies in technology. And, as a result of this journeyman experience, has found himself perfectly positioned at the intersection of technology and relationship. His deepest passions are increasing the quality of management in IT and improving the experience for under-represented groups in the IT industry and beyond.

Speakers: Robert Hammen

Level: Presentation

Excerpt: In this session, you’ll learn about the changes coming in macOS 13 that will affect how you manage and deploy Macs.

Description: Apple’s yearly OS upgrades often impact deployment and management workflows. In this session, we’ll cover, from an administrative perspective, the new features and changes in macOS 13, including what you need to test and prepare for the new OS release..

About the speaker

Robert Hammen

I’m a long-time Mac admin and former consultant, who has worked for small/medium businesses as well as US government and now manages the macOS and iOS environments at a well-known Aerospace company in Southern California.

Speakers: Anthony Reimer and Graham Pugh

Level: Presentation

Description: The JamfUploader shared processors are a great way to use the power of AutoPkg to make managing your Mac fleet easier for Jamf Pro users. Because it works best if admins write their own templates and recipes to meet their exact needs, users have had a lot of questions. In this session, we will give a brief overview of JamfUploader, explain those less-understood parts of the project, and will highlight some recently-added processors that make JamfUploader useful for even more diverse workflows.

About the speaker

Anthony Reimer

Anthony has been the Head Technician of the IAML at the University of Calgary since 1996, supporting work with Macs and other digital technology in Music, Art, Drama and Dance. He has given presentations on technology to artists and non-artists alike at major conferences like this one, MacTech, MacAD.UK, and MacIT. He is one of the founding organizers of the MacDeployment Conference and meetups in Calgary. When he’s not busy being a Mac Admin, Anthony conducts Foothills Concert Band and is an avid curler.

Graham Pugh

TBA

Speakers: Ben Bass

Level: Presentation

Excerpt: Internships should be a time of learning and exploration for the interns and their managers as well as the rest of your team. Interns are not glorified gophers, there to do the work you don’t want to do and pickup coffee for the team. Join us to help figure out what you can do to help you and your intern gain as much out of their internship as possible.

Description: Internships are an amazing opportunity for both the interns and their mentors. The intern has a chance to learn new skills – not just specific skills to your domain; python, packaging, etc., but also how to be a good co-worker. As a mentor, you are able to help teach them, and model for them what a good co-worker does. How are meetings handled in your environment? College age and younger interns have probably not dealt with Outlook or other enterprise calendaring and do not know the proper etiquette. An internship is a chance for the mentor to mold the intern into someone you want to work with, your ideal co-worker.
In addition to how to properly adult, a mentor has the opportunity to present different ideas and job roles to an intern. Many people have no clue what they want or do not want to do until they have tried it. An internship is an amazing opportunity for the intern to get a taste of many different jobs and roles that are available within your organization. Often times learning what one does NOT like is more important than knowing what one does like. A well thought out and planned internship can provide this opportunity to many interns over the years.
Another benefit is for the mentor. Mentoring and teaching an intern provides an amazing opportunity to work with and interact with those who are much closer to their education than you are. You can learn new things, see what is being taught. As these interns have different experiences and perspectives than you do, listen to what they say and test or implement ideas that they have. Do not throw them out without thinking about them. If they are missing/lacking perspective, this a teaching opportunity for the intern. If the idea does have merit, include it and make sure to give credit to the intern and potentially let them help with implementing the idea if possible..

About the speaker

Ben Bass

My name is Ben Bass and I have been working in IT for over 24 years as a macOS specialist. I have run the gamut from help desk and front line support to building infrastructure to support several thousand macs. I also worked as a consultant for quite a while where I would be the entire “IT Shop” for small to medium businesses. More recently I have been focusing on macOS client security, where I have been working on translating the vast experience and pool of knowledge of windows endpoint security and take those concepts and apply them to the macOS. I also have been one of the intern coordinator for the IT department for the past two years.