Past Talks

Faster, smarter, still in control: AI-accelerated device management

August 25–26, 2026 X World Melbourne, Australia

Device management teams are asked to do more with less: more platforms, more compliance requirements, the same headcount. This talk covers how to give an AI assistant the context it needs to produce accurate, platform-appropriate output, and how to build review practices that keep humans in the loop. Includes live demos of AI-assisted policy authoring across macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Device management is still mostly ClickOps - no audit trail, no rollback, no way to answer who changed what and why. AI coding agents can now turn a sentence of intent into a pull request against your MDM configuration, but only for teams with GitOps discipline already in place. This talk covers why GitOps is the prerequisite for AI-accelerated device management and what that workflow looks like in practice.

From recipe to reality: Automating software deployment with AutoPkg and Fleet

July 7–10, 2026 Penn State MacAdmins State College, PA

A deeper dive than the MacDevOps session. Learn how to build end-to-end software deployment workflows using AutoPkg and Fleet's open-source platform - covering practical examples of automating everything from package creation to deployment through GitOps workflows. We'll look at how AutoPkg processors integrate with Fleet's API, how to manage software releases declaratively, and how to build repeatable workflows that scale. Includes real recipe demos, common patterns, and a look at community contributions to FleetImporter.

Not broken, just different: Working with ADHD, anxiety, and neurodivergence in tech

July 7–10, 2026 Penn State MacAdmins State College, PA

Co-presented with Andrea Pepper. Mac Admin work requires staying calm while systems break and priorities shift. For neurodivergent people, this creates predictable challenges. Two neurodivergent technical professionals share practical techniques they use to stay effective: time containment, energy-aware scheduling, professional communication strategies, and when to ask for accommodations. You'll leave with concrete tools you can use during incidents, meetings, and when your brain is loud.

Automate software deployment with AutoPkg and Fleet

June 25–26, 2026 MacDevOps Montreal, QC

AutoPkg already handles software packaging and updates for thousands of Mac applications. Fleet manages software deployment across your devices. This talk shows you how to connect them - using FleetImporter, a custom AutoPkg processor that adds software directly to Fleet's package management from your AutoPkg runs. We'll cover both direct API mode for quick deployments and GitOps workflows for version-controlled, declarative management.

Co-presented with Andrea Pepper. Mac Admin work requires staying calm while systems break and priorities shift. For neurodivergent people, this creates predictable challenges. Two neurodivergent technical professionals share practical techniques they use to stay effective: time containment, energy-aware scheduling, professional communication strategies, and when to ask for accommodations. You'll leave with concrete tools you can use during incidents, meetings, and when your brain is loud.

Stop clicking and start committing: a GitOps workflow for endpoint management

April 15, 2026 PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit Bellevue, WA

Endpoint management is still mostly clicking through GUIs - and that means no audit trail, no rollbacks, no code review, and no single source of truth. This talk makes the case for treating your device configuration as code: your git repo becomes the source of truth, changes land through pull requests, and CI applies them. We'll walk through a practical GitOps workflow for managing your fleet declaratively, and why this foundation is what makes safe, AI-accelerated device management possible.