Jamf Nation is a community that is very dear to my heart, & over the past decade it’s grown from a small mailing list to over 100k accounts registered on Jamf Nation.

During JNUC2019’s day one keynote, 10 years of Jamf Nation was celebrated & Jamf Nations Hall Of Fame was announced.

I was inducted into the Hall Of Fame, alongside some fellow admins. Below is some history on why Jamf Nation holds a special place for me.

In the beginning

Around March 2008 I joined Grey Communication Group, supporting Grey London & various other agencies within the Grey Group across EMEA.

It was at Grey where I was first exposed to Casper Suite & it’s mailing list.

Back then, Jamf Pro was the Casper Suite & a lime green. Also Jamf Nation was a mailing list with some 100 or so members.

When I first joined the mailing list, I thought a shebang was a Ricky Martin song. But the Jamf Nation mailing list embraced & taught me as only an Apple admin focused community can.

Pay it forward

Around August 2010 I started this very blog.

This came about from my ever growing confidence with the Casper Suite & the fantastic support offered by my fellow admins via the Jamf Nation mailing list.

It took some time, but I finally felt like I could finally respond in kind to my fellow admins & offer some assistance.

With my first post being a short snippet about disabling Safari’s pop-up blocker.

So much of my admin education has indeed come from Jamf Nation & it’s members.

Today

I am now Technical Director at dataJAR, which when I joined in April 2016 was 3 & we are now 12 with a 13th joining early next year & a few more folks joining before 2021.

At dataJAR we offer folks a full managed Jamf Pro (amongst other things), which we host. This means now that I am helping to administer devices across the Apple admin spectrum.

Becoming Technical Director of a startup has meant I don’t have the same amount of time for Jamf Nation, but I have been on a great learning journey.

Hall Of Fame

As mentioned, I was inducted into the Jamf Nation Hall Of Fame during JNUC2019’s day one keynote.

Each inductee, was inducted due to their work with the Jamf Nation & wider Apple Admin community.

For myself it was due to the contributions I’ve made over the past decade, with 5 thousand posts alone from myself! (quantity over quality perhaps?).

Some of my fellow Jamf Nations Hall Of Fame inductees were part of the Jamf Nation mailing list way back then, & have helped me more than once. So it was an honour to be included among them.

Dean also mentioned that Jamf will be paying for my accommodation & travel to JNUC2020, so I will be seeing my fellow Jamf Nation buddies in San Diego!

New Years Resolution

Jamf Nation truly has been a very important part of my story & one that I feel like I’ve neglected.

Therefore, whilst I don’t normally do these, my new years resolution is to contribute more on Jamf Nation.

My team & I at dataJAR have a few tools in the pipeline we’re looking to release as FOSS over the year too, so watch this space.