When it comes to e-mail-based newsletters, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I feel like I receive enough (or maybe too much) e-mail and I'm reluctant to clog up my inbox with more stuff -- especially if it's information that's located elsewhere (such as on that big backup drive that we call "the Internet").
But on the other hand, I don't usually have time to go searching the Web for stuff that might someday be useful to me, or even to pay regular visits to the sources that I know will have good information (such as blogs and discussion forums). If someone collected some of the best tidbits from these sources and delivered them to me -- even in e-mail -- I think that would be useful. Do you agree?
We know from experience that SAS users love to see tips about how to do more with SAS. So we got to thinking: What if we curated an e-mail newsletter that was ALL SAS tips? Where all of the content was coming from the "hey, we bet you didn't know this" category?
We're making that happen, beginning this month. It's called SAS Tech Report: Tips Extra. It contains tips -- some from SAS staff and some from the larger SAS community -- to save you time and expand your mind. If you subscribe to the SAS Tech Report newsletter already, then do nothing -- you'll receive it automatically. If you don't yet subscribe, then visit the e-Newsletters section of www.sas.com and click the link to sign up. It's free, of course -- all you need is a SAS profile (which you probably already have if you participate in communities.sas.com or interact with SAS Technical Support).
I hope that you like the content, and that you appreciate it showing up in your inbox. And if you have feedback or ideas for topics to feature, let me know here in the comments.
5 Comments
Hi Chris, could this include http//www.sasCommunity.org tips of the day ?
Lainie -- the sasCommunity site is definitely a rich source for good tips and techniques, so I expect we'll see it represented in this newsletter!
Thanks, Chris, this would be nice to have the tips provided on a 'push' basis via email. I think it would spare a lot of times to everyone concerned or interested on the same topic. SASCommunity "tip of the day" or , for instance, Amadeus (UK IT Consulting) already publish some excellent SAS tips , but only on a 'pull' basis : you have to connect to the website.
Another option would be to publish the tips as blog posts entries on a dedicated blog (anonymous authoring has my preference) wich would also offer another subscription option using RSS Feed.
I am a long-time subscriber of SAS technical newsletter, always very useful - quite a mandatory reading in the trade ;-). The French SAS local office Support Team has a newsletter of its own ("A la une du support" for French speakers) which is also a must read.
If I may say so, however, I find rather dubious to track the readers using custom links (with slight obfuscation of the readers susbscription email sent as URL parameters) in some of these newsletters. As electronic privacy is concerned, I sometimes wonder if this behaviour doesn't go to far. Of course, providing freely valuable information must be balanced with SAS gaining more customer knowledge. This could be achieved less intrusively, perhaps.
Ronan
Thanks for the comment, Ronan. We do use tracking links to measure which newsletter items generate the most interest. In fact, it's those metrics that revealed the popularity of the "SAS tip" items, and led us to create this tips-centric edition. SAS is very keen to have metrics to analyze, as you might imagine. We use this information to create more relevant content for our readers. However, we are also sensitive to privacy concerns and of course we comply with the various regional rules that govern the collection/use of tracking information.
That's clearer now, thanks for clarifying the point :)