sascom voices - The sascom magazine blog

The title of this presentation is, "Connect with SAS Professionals around the World with LinkedIn and sasCommunity.org." Kirk Paul Laffler is presenting the talk that he co-wrote with Charles Shipp. Originally this presentation was written to cover only sasCommunity.org, but they updated it recently to include LinkedIn, in recognition of the popularity of that site for business networking.

The objective of this talk is to show you how you can connect with other SAS users around the world, says Kirk. "I like to connect and share knowledge," he says. He's in 50 different groups in LinkedIn.

Kirk says he has abandoned his own personal Web site and uses sasCommunity and LinkedIn instead as his main home pages on the Web. That's where he directs business contacts to learn more about his work.

sasCommunity is free and just for SAS users, says Kirk. SAS provides the hardware and networking capabilities, but the site was built by SAS users to meet the networking and collaboration needs for sharing with other SAS users. It's set up as a wiki, so all registered users can easily contribute and edit content.

Features on sasCommunity.org include forums, user blogs, upcoming events and watch lists that can alert you to updates on specific topics or conferences. You do not have to create an account to access sasCommunity.org. "That's one of the virtues, in my opinion," says Kirk. If you're shy or if your company discourages sharing, you can still benefit. Another option is to create an account with a pseudonym if you're not comfortable sharing your full name on the Web.

sasCommunity has 38 blogs in a wide range of topics, including one for SAS Global Forum 2010, some for consultants, and some authored by SAS employees. It also inludes an area called Sasopedia, which links to dozens of SAS-related resources, including conference proceedings, white papers, Webcasts and FAQs.

For those who use SAS-L, Kirk says sasCommunity is not a replacement for SAS-L. It's another channel for people interested in all things SAS. It's currently growing, but Kirk says he'd love to see it grow even more. He's very interested in hearing feedback from other SAS users about the site.