I love to teach, but it took several years of teaching before I felt comfortable being in front of a class. And having taught for over 20 years, the fear of presenting in the classroom has passed, but what about presenting at professional meetings or in front of my peers? I still get nervous for presentations outside of the classroom, but the 20 years of teaching has helped me control my nervousness.
Like me, some of this year’s SAS Global Forum presenters have a fear of public speaking. Others have topics that lend themselves to more visual treatment. Others simply prefer the give-and-take of an informal discussion. Rather than giving a paper, they have chosen to present their ideas as an ePoster.
An ePoster is visual presentation that summarizes a SAS-based problem, tip or coding trick, its implementation, and the final solution. The ePoster is created in specific presentation software and can be animated to zoom into a specific section, highlight snippets of code, or draw attention to a comment. As well, short audio explanations can be included that are recorded and embedded into the presentation file.
At SAS Global Forum, ePosters are displayed throughout the conference on 20 different monitors and attendees are able to look (and listen) to each ePoster at their leisure. Each monitor has 4-5 ePosters loaded, and attendees navigate with a mouse to the ePoster they want to see. And what is displayed will live on in the Proceedings.
We do want attendees to meet the people who are providing the content, though, to ask questions, give suggestions, etc. SAS Global Forum is about you learning how to use SAS to it’s greatest potential. So there are specified time blocks on Monday and Tuesday where ePoster presenters are able to have informal one-on-one conversations with other attendees about the content of their poster.
This year at SAS Global Forum 2015, nearly 100 ePosters will be presented. All topic areas are covered: Data Management, Programming, Administration, Analytics, Business Intelligence and Business Analytics, and Solutions. System administration, macros, graphics and visualization, data and metadata, statistical analysis, data and text mining, sports and gaming—it’s all there. Some ePosters that I will definitely be checking out include:
Session 2785: “Transpose Data Sets by Merge” because I have to transpose data for just about every project I work on.
Session 3434: “From Backpacks to Briefcases: Making the Transition from Grad School to a Paying Job” because I might be able to give my students some pointers from this ePoster.
Session 1335: “Using GLIMMIX and GENMOD procedures to analyze longitudinal data from a Department of Veterans Affairs multisite randomized controlled trial” because I do this kind of analysis A LOT.
Session 2787: “GEN_OMEGA2: A SAS® Macro for Computing the Generalized Omega- Squared Effect Size Associated with Analysis of Variance Models” because some journals now require effect sizes.
The ePoster sessions above are just those I am interested in. I would encourage attendees to check out the ePoster presentations this year, find those that are of interest and spend some time in the Quad with the ePosters.
Why don’t you consider submitting a session for an ePoster for SAS Global Forum 2016? For people new to presenting or new to SAS Global Forum, an ePoster is the perfect way to start working on your presentation skills as it requires you to focus on the key areas of your idea and solution, just like you would with an oral presentation. The Call for Presentations for 2016 will be coming this summer.
