On July 28, the weather wasn't the only thing that was hot in Richfield, Minnesota. About 130 SAS users from the Twin Cities area braved the heat to attend a sizzling summer meeting of the Twin Cities Area SAS Users Group (TCASUG). Meeting organizers Donalee Wanna and Brian Kreeger proclaimed the meeting to be a huge success.
I kicked off the meeting with a 90-minute talk about integrating SAS procedure output with Microsoft Excel. This topic usually sparks a lot of questions and commentary, and to facilitate that I allow questions at any point during the talk instead of waiting until the end. We got off to a slow start, but the audience was engaging and enthusiastic once their coffee kicked in, or was it after my coffee kicked in?
Unfortunately I had to leave shortly after my presentation and was not able to attend the many other excellent talks on the agenda.
Here's the lineup:
- 9:05 am "An Introduction to Creating Multi-Sheet Microsoft Excel Workbooks the Easy Way with SAS"; Vince DelGobbo, SAS Institute
- 10:40 am "SAS Enterprise Guide: A Revolutionary Tool for All"; Jennifer First, System Seminar Consultants
- 11:30 am Lunch (Sponsored by Safenet Consulting)
- 12:30 pm "Copy and Append: Developer's Secrets"; Diane Olson, SAS Institute
- 1:50 pm "Introduction to Credit Risk Modeling using SAS"; Kevin Hoguas, US Bank
- 2:30 pm "SAS BI Content Syndication across the Enterprise with the REST Framework"; Mike Vanderlinden, Senior Technical Manager, Experis
But Diane Olson picks up where I left off. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of your SAS user group meeting!
I was thrilled to be invited to speak to the good folks in Minnesota. Alas, I arrived too late to get to hear Vince’s presentation, but I could tell he had an attentive and appreciative audience from the applause at the conclusion. The board of TCASUG was very welcoming during the short break between Vince and Jennifer’s talks. Jennifer is a member of TCASUG. I very much enjoyed her presentation SAS Enterprise Guide: A Revolutionary Tool for All.
In her presentation, she stressed how SAS Enterprise Guide is a great tool for people who are not - and don’t want to be - SAS programmers, but who still need to produce reports. Jennifer mentioned that she majored in psychology, so programming is not how she enjoys spending her work time. But, she said that Enterprise Guide makes it easy to produce reports. She emphasized that it takes a burden off IT, and allows them to focus on more intricate programming and reporting needs.
Next up was a good lunch sponsored by Safenet Consulting. We enjoyed a healthy salad and some piping hot pizza while talking to other attendees. People from many different industries were there, including folks from BestBuy, local universities and US Bank, where the event was held. The room was abuzz with conversation all during the lunch hour, as people met new contacts and shared their SAS expertise with one another.
Then it was my privilege to address TCASUG members with a presentation about secrets little known by PROC COPY and PROC APPEND users. It was after lunch, so I tried to keep folks awake with rubber duckies tossed into the audience. (No ducks or audience members were harmed.)
Thanks for allowing me to get out and meet all of you; it was a real pleasure. Unfortunately, I had to leave directly after my talk to catch a plane back to Cary, so I did not get to attend the last two presentations of the day. Many thanks to US Bank and Safenet Consulting for sponsoring this event!
