In this Flipcam video by SAS' Steve Polilli, Don Kros and Jon Boase discuss the methodology they developed to help SAS users in their organization advance their SAS skills. Kros and Boase submitted a poster, which you'll see in the video, and a paper "The Path to Developing Your Organization's SAS Skills,"
It’s going to be a busy summer with a lot of travel. I’ve been invited to several user conferences so I’m really excited to get to meet even more SAS users, pick up some great tips for others, and wear myself out chatting.
The future of business is the martial arts CEO, the jujitsu strategist. Far too many organizations approach business with an American football mentality, complete with scripted plays, huddles and time outs, but the real world isn’t quite so convenient and accommodating. The real business world is 7x24 with no time outs
We are half way through my blog series counting to 10 best practices for information management, reporting and analytics. To recap, we have learned the importance of: Securing executive sponsorship. Identifying and involving stakeholders early and assessing their unique needs. Identifying and integrating data sources. Managing user expectations proactively. This
Congratulations to all of you who presented at SAS Global Forum. It takes a lot of hard work to put together the research, write a paper and presentation, and then stand on stage and present to a crowd of people you have never met. You are amazing. From all of
Who's gearing up for SAS Global Forum? I am! I am! (waving my hand enthusiastically.) I'm excited about this conference because that's when I get to meet so many potential authors. Folks come by with ideas they've had percolating for years (or sometimes weeks, days or hours ... the length
Today, more companies are offering more products in more markets in more currencies to more customer segments than ever before. The result? An exponential explosion in data covering virtually every aspect of the organization: sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing, legal, HR, and more. Unquestionably, the era of “big data” has arrived.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I am sharing best practices that I learned from talking to education customers about successful implement ions of information management, reporting and analytics at their K-12 school district or higher education institutions. In that first post, we learned about the importance of securing executive
In the last week, I have interviewed four retail executives about their predictions for big data and high-performance analytics in the retail industry. I hope to publish their thoughts here in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, here are six concrete benefits that big data can bring to retailers, if
Have you noticed the annoying stock art they put on The BFD blog header? All I can think of is "If those idiots only used SAS Forecast Server, they wouldn't have to draw graphs all over their window panes just to do forecasting." It must really p.o. the housekeeping staff at that
Here at SAS Publishing, we’ve started the new year off with a bang, particularly when it comes to conferences. We’re attending a number of new shows in addition to the usual lineup this year. Visit our booth, meet our authors, check out our new and forthcoming titles, and talk with
On his SAS and R blog, Ken K. recently posted an example of a visualization technique called "small multiples". In this exercise, Ken shows the programming technique for replicating a particular series of pie charts in R as well as in SAS. It's a useful exercise to learn from, but
Reflecting on my 25 years as a data analyst, I’ve always felt that there is something more to being a good applied statistician than just applying what I had learned from school. What are those key skills that make a good field statistician? Before analytics came into play, when presented with
The Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) have the best acronym ever, and they're putting on an amazing conference in San Francisco this week. The conference kicked off today with conference chairs Kathryn Valdes and Ginger Carey’s announcement that the Pacific Northwest Users Group is merging with WUSS next year, adding
We had a tornado in April, an earthquake on Tuesday, a drought all summer, and a hurricane arrives on Saturday. All I can figure is that Cary, NC has way too many sinners per capita. What's next -- pestilence? The BFD Makeover The BFD (and all SAS blogs) will now be
Now that the flurry of SAS Global Forum 2011 in Las Vegas has died down, you can take a little time to catch up on some of the reading you said you'd get to. For instance, have you worked your way through the proceedings? They are located here. And I
“Our performance last month was 46.” Oh, you don’t have to thank me, I was just doing my job. Not very well, I might add. 46? 46 what? Or 46 who’s? Without context, 46 is just a number, just data. In context, perhaps that’s 46 out of 48 (not too
Remember the old Reese’s peanut butter cup advertisement? Two people are walking down the street – one eating peanut butter, the other chocolate – they run into each other and the chocolate and the peanut butter get mixed up. They sample the new concoction and marvel at the wonderful mixture
Like many SAS users, Bill Roehl uses SAS in some very clever ways that aren’t necessarily work-related. Roehl is a Research Analyst at Capella University and an outspoken community journalist. When he isn’t working for Capella University, he is hard at work blogging about community news for Dakota County, Minnesota
Contributed by Karen Lee and Kim Darnofall, SAS Communications Thirty-five years ago, SAS changed the world of computing when it opened its doors for business in Raleigh, North Carolina. A lot has happened in 35 years, but one thing remains the same: SAS is still changing the world of computing,
"Twitter, thou art nought but data." So sayeth the SAS programmer. Many data analysts now recognize Twitter for what it is: a tremendous source of data covering almost any topic, from Justin Bieber's hair to political uprisings to technical conferences to company brands. SAS offers sophisticated solutions to harness this
After talking about SAS products and development roadmaps with industry experts at the SAS Analysts Conference in Steamboat Springs earlier this month and now as we're preparing for SAS Global Forum next week, I have to say how proud I am of the SAS Research and Development and Product Management
Last week, SAS held its annual analyst conference in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where SAS leaders and SAS customers spoke to a room full of industry analysts about the direction of SAS products and business strategy for 2011 and beyond. It's a pretty exclusive event, so not many attend. But -
Business Intelligence is a phrase that means many things to different organizations, which is why all BI vendors have their own definition. The term was coined in 1958 by Hans Peter Luhn of IBM*, who described it as “the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a
I've never met Sy Truong face-to-face. (That will be one of the top items on my SAS Global Forum 2011 to-dos.) I’ve talked with him on Twitter and enjoyed his blog so much that I listed it in an edition of the SAS Tech Report. I’ve even talked with him
One of the best things about writing for the sascom blog is the amazing number of people, both internally and externally, that have reached out to share their stories and perspective, and ask more questions. It’s important for us bloggers to remember that while we may not see published comments
Though this is a busy time of year for SAS’ Education Division with the second A2010 Analytics Conference in Copenhagen and the thirteenth M2010 Data Mining Conference both just recently completed, I had the opportunity to catch up with Bob Lucas, PhD, who oversees statistical training at SAS. Anne: Bob,
When Marilyn Manson sang of “The Beautiful People,” I think it was about how symmetry of facial features makes a person more visually attractive. At least that was the message I got out of the song. But unfortunately, even facial symmetry cannot compensate for an insufferable personality, as both Marilyn
Curt Monash posted a nice summary of the current and planned offerings that help to make SAS analytics more available "in the database" -- allowing you to analyze your data quickly without having to move it around so much. If you use SAS with Teradata, Netezza, or DB2, much of
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from John Tukey: “The best part about being a statistician is you get to play in everyone’s backyard."? Statistics (and more broadly, analytics) contributes to and draws from multiple disciplines. There is a unity to analytical methods: The same method used in quantitative
