Editor's Note: This article was an April Fool's prank from 2011. The entire article is fake.
Today, SAS, the leader in business analytics announces significant changes to two popular SAS blogs, The DO Loop (written by Rick Wicklin) and The SAS Dummy (previously written by Chris Hemedinger).
The two blogs will be merged into a single blog, called The SAS Smarty: A Blog for an Elite Few. The blog, which will be written by Wicklin, will debut next week.
Ima Phül, director of SAS Brand Preservation, says the change is needed.
"Like many companies, SAS continuously monitors the way its brand is perceived by customers," says Phül. "By using SAS Social Media Analytics and SAS Web Analytics, my team was able to identify several problems in the way that the SAS brand is perceived by customers."
Particularly troubling was the high correlation between the terms "SAS" and "dummy," and the terms "SAS" and "dogfood".
"Thanks to SAS Social Media Analytics, Chris's blog was determined to be the root cause of these undesireable relationships," continues Phül.
Wicklin says that re-aligning the SAS Dummy blog with corporate directions will not be hard. "Expect less humor and more math," he says. "I've got some great articles planned on computing multi-dimensional integrals and using orthogonal regression polynomials."
The archives of the SAS Dummy will continue to be hosted on blogs.sas.com, but the title of the discontinued blog will be changed to an unpronouncible symbol:
Alison Bolin, Editor of Blogs and Social Content at SAS, thanks Chris for his years of blogging. "Chris was instrumental in the success of our SAS blogging efforts. We are happy to announce that Chris will be leading a new R&D effort from our Siberian office, and we wish him well in his new endeavors."
These changes are effective as of today, April 1, 2011, also known as April Fools' Day.
7 Comments
Thanks Rick. Looking forward to the new opportunity. But it's difficult to type from here...so cold, cannot feel my fingers...
ha ha ... love it.
"For an Elite few"? Are you serious? You guys get me worried about the future of SAS. "Dummies" was an extreme, but at least it was cute in a self-deprecating way and the term "Dummies" has already been established in the book publishing world.
If your so-called analysis is correct, then the book "Wine for Dummies" would make wines dumb and "Car Repairs for Dummies" do car repairing stupid...
By the way, "for an Elite few" sounds arrogant and patronizing, at least to my ears. I hope this isn't the marketing strategy for SAS as well.
Just to set the record straight: no, we are not serious. This was an April Fool's joke.
You had me going until I got to the Siberia line. Good job!
You had me completely fooled. coworkers & I even had an animated discussion about the pros & cons of combining the 2 blogs! HAHA..
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