We are a month out from Analytics 2013 in London! I am already getting excited about the trip and am starting my list of what to pack (and where to go and what foods to eat and what pubs to visit --- the list goes on!).
As host of the Inside Analytics video series, I’ll be taking you along for the journey. Here’s a peek at what you can expect at this year’s conference from June 19-20.
Are you an NFL fan, or curious about analyzing social media data? -- Well, in either case, this blog's for you!
I recently read a fascinating Facebook article that included a U.S. county map showing which NFL (U.S. football) team had the most 'likes' in each county (based on ~35 million Facebook users who have 'liked' one of the 32 NFL teams). It was very interesting to see which teams had mostly 'local' support, and which teams had a large fanbase spread across multiple states. For example, I was surprised to see that my county (Wake County, NC) was dominated by Pittsburgh Steelers fans.
But upon closer examination, I found that the map in the Facebook article had some problems. For example, many of the teams were represented with nearly the same colors - and even when I used a tool to find the exact RGB of the pixels on the screen, I could not determine exactly which colors in the map went with which colors in the legend, because the RGB values varied from pixel to pixel (perhaps there was some shadowing/blending going on?) Also, I wasn't sure exactly what some of the team names were, since the map only showed the abbreviations. And the map had no title or other identifying information (so it was hard to know the 'context' when people took just the png image of the map and re-posted it). And I wasn't sure if the blue 'things' between Alaska and Hawaii were the islands of some other U.S. territory, or part of Alaska.
Of course, it's "poor form" to just point out flaws in a map, without actually providing a useful alternative ... therefore (of course) I set out to create my own SAS version!
I invite you to click the thumbnail snapshot image below to see my full-size interactive SAS map!
Note that the colors in my map exactly match the colors in the legend, and you can hover your mouse over the counties to see the county name and the name of the NFL team. You can also hover your mouse over the legend color-chips to see the full-text team name for each of the abbreviations. The SAS map makes it clear that the blue blobs between Alaska and Hawaii are indeed part of Alaska. And the title and footnote provide a clear 'context' for the map and the data.
Does anything in the map surprise you? Do you think it's a good/accurate representation of the distribution of NFL fans? How might you enhance this visualization to be even more useful? (For example, I would love to plot this data as an animation, to see if the fans shift geographically over time).
Don't you agree that SAS is an awesome way to visualize social media data!?! Do you have access to similar data that you could also visualize on a map? If you'd like to learn more about creating maps with SAS, check out the training course, Mike Zdeb's excellent book, and do a search for gmap in the SAS Global Forum proceedings - there's lots of great info out there!
Note/disclaimer: I didn't have the original/raw data, therefore I had to 'estimate' the value for each county, by visually looking at the original map. In some cases (because of the color ambiguity) it was impossible to definitively determine the favorite team of a county, so I made my best guess.
In my last post, I promised to lift the lid on British etiquette in time for your visit to the Analytics conference. Well, I’m going to be a bit more specific and focus my insight on London Etiquette, primarily, Greetings and Tube Etiquette.
Greetings
Around the world, we greet people in different ways depending on whether we use formal language or informal language. In London, it’s no different. You will often hear people use formal phrases such as "good morning", "good afternoon" or "good evening", informal phrases such as "hi"; "hello"; "how are you"; or sometimes just dropping the ‘good’ from a formal greeting and saying “morning”, “afternoon”, “evening”. A formal greeting is usually accompanied by a firm handshake, an informal; a nod of the head or a wave of the hand. We sometime say 'cheers' instead of thank you. You may hear 'cheers' said instead of 'good bye', what we are really saying is 'thanks and goodbye'. In London, you may specifically hear some people say, Alrigh' or Wotcha or Allo. Sometimes accompanied with rhyming slang, (the rhyming word isn't usually spoken), for example: 'Alrigh me old china' (translated as ‘alright mate?’, China Plate = Mate ), but most Londoners are more likely to say "Wotcha, mate" or "Alrigh' mate". To show respect, you can also use Guv. (short for Governor), "Alrigh' Guv?"
Tube Etiquette
The London Underground, (Tube), was the world’s first subterranean railway. Carrying over 4 million passengers daily, some say it resembles a mild form of torture. That many people in a close confined space can be a recipe for disaster, but the unwritten rules of the tube make traveling on the underground an unforgettable experience. Here are my top ten tips to surviving your Tube journey:
1. Have your tickets at the ready. Causing delays at the ticket barrier is a big no.
2. On escalators, stand on the right, walk on the left.
3. If you’re first onto the tube, then move down well inside the carriage to allow more commuters on board.
4. Give your fellow commuters enough space.
5. Step to the side. Most useful when leaving escalators, looking for directions, or letting people off the tube that’s just pulled in.
6. Possibly one the tube's golden rules: Let others off the train first.
7. Your bag or suitcase is not entitled to a seat, especially if the train is crowded.
8. Invest in a decent set of cans or keep your music on low.
9. Though it is quite tempting, don’t read over other people’s shoulders.
10. Mind the gap! You really don't want to fall in, there's dirt down there.
When you ride through the tube, you are riding through living history. From the hum of the hordes to the drone of the trains as they go from station to station. With this history comes it’s own brand of humour, supported by these genuine announcements made by London Tube Drivers:
"Ladies & Gentleman, upon departing the train may I remind you to take your rubbish with you. Despite the fact that you are in something that is metal, fairly round, filthy and smells, this is a tube train for public transport and not a bin on wheels."
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologise for the delay to your service. I know you're all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you'll want to cross over to the Westbound service and go in the opposite direction".
Until next time, Cheers!
photo credit: @Doug88888 // attribution: creative commons
This year we’re holding the first of our Analytics Series conferences in London, right by Waterloo Station. Not too far from the hotel is the Florence Nightingale Museum. Most of us (at least in Britain) know her well from school as ‘the Lady with the Lamp’. Florence Nightingale is most famous as the founder of the modern profession of nursing and a champion of women’s rights in a very different time to our own. But fewer probably know that she was also a pioneering statistician.
Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy British family in the Italian town of Florence; hence her name. Her career was spent in the service of others and she helped look after wounded soldiers during the battle of the Crimea during the 1850s. There she acquired her moniker ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ as she would do her rounds in the military hospital with a small lamp.
Florence Nightingale was also an accomplished statistician. Although she had not formal training in the subject, as a girl she had shown an aptitude for mathematics and took to the use of numbers to back up her arguments for improved sanitation as key to public health. In fact, she showed a particular interest in data visualization. She made good use of the existing bar chart and pie chart, but went on to develop her own variation on the bar chart known variously as the ‘Nightingale rose diagram’, circular histogram, polar area diagram or “coxcomb”. You can see her chart below.
It’s essentially a stacked bar chart arranged around a central point, with each segment representing a month. It is especially useful for showing cyclical classifications; hours, days, months, points of the compass etc. But not so useful for classification variables such as year, gender or country.
You can create a polar area diagram in JMP and similar diagrams are available in SAS including the Windrose diagram in PROC GRADAR.
So, when you’ve got a moment during your visit to London for the Analytics Series Conference, perhaps take a break and visit Florence Nightingale’s museum, see her statue, you can also often see a stained glass window of her in many London churches.
References:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
Celebrating statisticians: Florence Nightingale, Laura Lancaster: http://blogs.sas.com/content/jmp/2013/02/04/celebrating-statisticians-florence-nightingale/
San Francisco! The Bay Area and Silicon Valley: innovation, the brightest minds, creating, inspiring new technology and style.
This city is known for its healthy food choices. For example, I spotted a homeless man on my way from the Westin St. Francis to the Moscone Conference Center with this never- before-seen sign:
Hungry, will take fruit or granola bar!
If that doesn’t speak to the health of this prosperous town, what else can?
Top it off with the best analytic conference in the world: SAS Global Forum 2013.
Here are a few of my best memories:
Analytics for everyone: Billy Beane set the stage for the conference with a technology keynote that had me (a barely tweeter) tweeting every other minute to share his fantastic insights. Strangers or neighbors often ask me, “What does your company do?” Too often I grapple with the answer on a mission to see how to make it relatable. Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, gave the surprising answer. Analytics are everywhere, not just in the traditional industries of banking, but also in the baseball fields managing and analyzing player statistics. In 1990, Beane resigned from a mediocre career in baseball and began a three-year stint as a baseball scout with the A's. In 1993, Bean was promoted to assistant general manager and in October 1997, Beane became general manager. Soon he became interested in an area of baseball research called sabermetrics, in which statistics are used for decision making in terms of trades, rosters and the like, instead of players' star status or recent success. Billy spoke about how emotional decision making didn’t work completely. It took analytics to take baseball to “Money Ball” heights!
Customers: I appreciated the customer centric focus in this conference. On opening night, customers came up to the podium to share with SAS CEO, Jim Goodnight, and the audience how they’re using SAS in the age of big data. JPMorgan Chase shared that its financial customers are looking for insights to satisfy business problems. Problems such as “how transaction velocities impact customer sentiment," said Chris Gifford, senior vice president of customer analytics for JPMorgan Chase. "Each customer's data footprint continues to grow, and the types of questions we're asked now are much more complex.”
Invited paper: What an honor! It was my first time presenting an invited paper “Know Thy Data” with co-presenter, Andy Kuligowski. 70 + participants! And we hadn’t even promoted our workshop actively. What did the participants get? Quick, easy and powerful ways to get to know your data before analysis. Missed out? Here’s a link.
If you are in the Greater Toronto Area soon -- come hear us share a modified version of this paper at the Toronto Area SAS Society (TASS) by request from the TASS president. (dates to be announced shortly)
A flexible yoga pad: Lenovo showing off their Yoga Pad was probably one of my favorite shares from opening night. It’s a dream come true for a yoga instructor to find a laptop as flexible as her yoga moves, well close anyway. :)
Another fantastic takeaway from this conference was the constant hub of new techniques and technology being shared: SAS 9.4, EG 6.1, DS2, Visual Analytics and Big Data, to name a few.
If you’d like to check out insights shared at SAS Global Forum 2013, check out this link which has all posts tagged on the conference.
As the Analytics Conference Chairman, each week I will provide you with insight into what to expect at the event in London in terms of sessions, speakers, the location, evening activities and much more. For my first entry I would like to share with you some interesting facts about our capital city London and in particular, Westminster, where SAS' analytics conference will take place.
Did you know, London is made up of two ancient cities which are joined together making up the area known as Greater London?
(1) The City of London, known simply as 'the City' which is the business and financial heart of the United Kingdom, also known as the Square Mile. It was the original Roman settlement known as ancient Londinium, making it the oldest part of London. It was already 1,000 years old when the Tower of London was built.
More facts about the City of London
(2) The City of Westminster, where many sites commonly associated with London are located, including Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and 10 Downing Street. The City of Westminster contains over 11,000 listed buildings of special architectural and historic interest and 78% of the borough is included within a designated conservation area.
More facts about the City of Westminster
With just under seven weeks to go before we all meet up in London for what will be the premier Analytics event of the year, I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes of London:
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford" - Samuel Johnson.
Look out for my next blog entry where I will lift the lid on British etiquette in time for your visit to London.
You won’t find videos of cats or the Harlem Shake on this website, but you might pick up a useful SAS trick that could improve your job performance or career.
We launched our new SAS Training video library that houses all of our helpful content.
A majority of the videos are developed to help people become better SAS users. There are Instructor Tips on everything from subsetting data with a WHERE statement to displaying a SAS stored process report.
There’s also advice on how to get started with SAS training and what kind of courses we offer.
We even have our own version of comedy with our Stat Wars series where two SAS instructors battle it out over a statistics challenge.
So next time you’re surfing the web for videos, check out our new page and let us know what you think.
You can also find all our videos on our YouTube playlist.
SAS announced the launch of SAS Customer Intelligence 6 today at SAS Global Forum. The new release gives a new look and updated functionality to SAS’ core marketing solutions.
We want to make sure you stay up-to-date on the latest software release. Check out these “What’s New” videos to see the changes and enhancements to CI6. The focus of the videos is to understand how the new interface operates and the concepts behind some of the new features.
If you're interested in learning more, view a list of all Customer Intelligence training.
Somewhere between RDU and SFO I realized that the tickle and cough I'd had the last couple of days wasn't really a reaction to the heavy pollen in the air in Cary, and instead was something a little more powerful. The good news is that I managed to keep my voice functional until the last few minutes of the DS2 and You pre-conference workshop presentation yesterday. The workshop was well attended, and lots of lively questions came in from the audience to keep me on my toes. By the opening session, I couldn't say a word except in whispers - and so it goes today. Fortunately, I'm just lab assistant for the hands-on workshops so someone else can do all the heavy talking. Regardless of the challenges, I'm having the time of my life :-) I guess you could say that SAS Global Forum has left me speechless in San Francisco (perhaps it should have been in Seattle this year ;-)
Until the next time, may the SAS be with you!
Mark
Summer in the City: The Analytics Conference in London
This year, we're holding the Analytics conference first in London (June 19-20, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge) and then in Orlando (October 21-22, The Peabody Orlando). It’s a great opportunity to hear how the world's top analysts are putting analytics to work to solve pressing issues facing businesses and other organisations. Ranging from text analysis through to fraud detection, analytics is really changing how our world works.
But have you ever wondered, how do we use analytics to promote the Analytics Conference?
Fluffy Marketers and Hard-Nosed Analysts
As a marketer, I know that marketing often gets bad press, in whatever sort of organisation you work in. I’ve probably heard them all over the years: the colouring in department, the lunch division, the home for retired sales people. Incidentally, I used to work in the training department, so the last one doesn’t quite fit for me. And, of course the adjective ‘fluffy’, something that is soft, furry and billowy. So, we think of an activity which is vague and undefined.
However, marketing actually has to be quite a precise science. In essence, your job as a marketer is to offer a product or service to people who would be interested in buying it, at a price they are prepared to pay. And that’s not fluffy at all, in fact it’s quite hard-nosed and requires a close and honest examination of the information available to you. So, marketing can’t be fluffy, because if it's fluffy it won't work.
Assessing the Size of your Market
There are over 60 million people living in the UK, and – depending how you define it – nearly 740 million people living in Europe. But out of these millions of people, who should you target to attend a conference like Analytics 2013? Actually, the question is simpler than that. How many people are you actually able to target? You have to have some means of contacting them and they have to be contactable, this is termed the total serviceable market.
My role as a marketing manager for the UK and Ireland is to contact my local customers and prospects. So, my first job is to extract a list of them. I know who they are, their job title, who they work for and where they are based. All are relevant factors, only certain types of people use analytics, some companies are more and less likely to send delegates, and for an event in London, people closer to the venue are more likely to attend than those who are further away.
Laying out the Tiles
So, the first step is to segment the target list. The most relevant factor is job title, a ‘business analyst’ is more likely to attend than an ‘ice cream consumption specialist’ not that there are many of them on our list! A good way I’ve found to visualise this is the ‘tile chart’.
A tile chart can be created in many ways in SAS, including PROC GTILE, or using SAS Enterprise Guide, or through data visualization with SAS Visual Analytics. It’s a good way to see how large your segments are, and whether you have too many or too few. You can also quickly see if what you are trying to market has a large enough potential audience to make it viable. If not, how could you expand that audience? As a result, I recommended that we introduced an ‘introduction to analytics’ stream at this year’s event.
London Calling
The the second step in the process, now that we know who to contact is to actually contact them. Targeted communications are much more interesting and less annoying than random ‘spam’, so making sure that you contact the right people is crucial. Also, the price of a call is more than the price of a postcard which costs more than an email. And getting an unwanted call is really annoying, well it annoys me anyway. Analytics and data management is crucial here too. We need to know that the people we are contacting are happy to be contacted, and that they haven’t been contacted very recently.
Measurement and Forecasting
Finally, the success – or otherwise – of our campaign needs to be monitored, measured and forecast. Is it on track? How many people have read and responded to our communications? How many people have actually booked? A combination of these allow us to project the likely result of the event and take any appropriate action to ensure that it is a success.
Analytics for the Analytics Conference
So, I hope you are reassured that we do practice what we preach and make use of analytics to promote our events. But if you’d like to find out even more about how analytics is used in marketing, why not attend the event yourself?
Hi! I’m Michele Reister and I’ll be providing you with an insider’s view into the world of SAS training. Follow along with my colleagues and me as we offer up practical information to help you become a better SAS user.