Okay…I don’t usually do the rah-rah SAS stuff, but it was a really great week here and I wanted to share. The Analytic Cheerleader is getting out her pom-poms and cheering for SAS! Since I’ve been a SAS employee for exactly 3 months, I thought it was a good time
I have a confession: I am not very good at math. I know that will come as a terrible surprise and disappointment to some of you. You may even be astonished that SAS would hire someone who doesn't have a PhD in statistics. But math is not the only skill
A few days ago, I wrote a post on the "soul" of analytics - basically the careful balance we need to keep between qualitative and quantitative decision-making. I asked others to post their experiences and perspective, and I was fortunate enough to begin a "dia-blog" with Colonel Jim Markley, Director
In our SAS Hartford regional office, there is an annual tradition – the holiday breakfast. This will be my first breakfast with my office mates and I’m looking forward to the famous conference room waffles cooked up by a certain insurance account executive. Thinking about those waffles reminded me of
In a number of posts over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been discussing ideas for becoming an analytically driven insurance company. We’ve talked about information strategies, user enablement, collaboration, and now we’re going to talk about growing pains. We recently met with an insurer for a discussion around their
Recently I was listening to an NPR (National Public Radio) documentary about the history of cancer and medicine’s evolution in understanding and treating cancer. This was an amazing story. I would venture a guess that nearly everyone who is reading this post has been affected by cancer in one way
This year’s winners of the Best Paper Award at SAS Belux Forum 2010 have been given a trip to SAS Global Forum 2011 in Las Vegas. Attending any SAS users group event is an exciting opportunity to meet other SAS users and learn new ways to use SAS, but this
As I mentioned in an earlier post, having an information strategy and analytic goals tied to key business objectives are critical components of being able to competitively leverage your analytic assets and capabilities. In general, in the insurance industry vertical I support, we don’t see many organizations that have a
If you're like most large organizations, you've got a bunch of business intelligence and analytic applications at your fingertips. In my prior organization, a large insurance company, I believe the magic number of tools that the organization had to support was north of 40. No kidding. Now, this is a
Computer science is more than the pursuit of "let's see what we can make this computer do." If that's your only goal, then you might make a fine computer geek, but a lousy computer scientist. In her blog post for Computer Science Education Week, Caroline McCullen reminds us that computer
Last month I attended the Predictive Analytics World conference in Washington DC. It attracted more attendees from last year with broad representation from multiple industries. The conference was kicked off by Eric Siegel’s keynote focusing on Five ways predictive analytics cuts enterprise risk. The gist of his presentation was to
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,
In honor of the United Nations World Statistics Day (October 20, 2010), let’s not leave finance out of the party. In fact, let’s continue with our focus from last time on the analytical and decision support payback afforded by Activity-based costing, perhaps the most underappreciated finance tool for adding value
~ Contributed by Jens Olivarius ~ Wednesday at The Premier Business Leadership Series in Berlin, Futurist Thornton May challenged a group of international business executives with this question: Has the way people think about analytics changed over time? The response was a resounding yes, but for several different reasons. Yes,
In his introductory address, public sector session moderator Thomas Spiller of SAS neatly summed up some of the biggest challenges faced by national governments: dealing with the current economic climate and managing a crisis of confidence within their governments. In his experience, government responses seem to fall in to three
SAS and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) have announced the release of the 2010 EIU report, "Rebuilding trust: Next steps for risk management in financial services," sponsored by SAS. The 2010 report includes the results of an online survey - that attracted 346 global respondents, all executives with risk management
From agriculture to wholesale, 29 industries were represented at SAS Global Forum 2010. Which industry was the most well-represented? Here's a breakdown of the top ten by percentage of attendees: 1. Government (13%) 2. Education (12%) 3. Healthcare insurance (10%) 4. Pharma (9%) 5. Consulting and systems integration (8%) 6.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Blink, and Tom Davenport, Babson College professor and author of Competing on Analytics, engaged this morning in a debate on a live Webcast onsite at The Premier Business Leadership Series at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. The theme of the debate is analytics vs. instinct:
Last week I was a guest of Gaurav Verma on the SAS Applying Business Analytics Web Series, and presented “What Management Must Know About Forecasting.” One of the most important things you can bring to management’s attention is the benefit of making your demand forecastable. In forecasting we tend to
The numbers are in and SAS Global Forum 2009 had strong attendance with 3,353 attendees. What do we know about the SAS professionals who gathered in Washington, DC, this week? • 25 percent of attendees traveled here from outside the United States. • The top 10 countries represented were: Canada,
Right now I'm packing up my materials for SAS Global Forum. It's actually a lot easier than it used to be. My first SAS conference was SUGI 21 (1996), and we didn't have personal laptop computers or USB drives or fast network connections. Machines were staged weeks ahead of time
I recently attended the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) “Big Think”. The Big Think is an annual invitation-only event hosted by Tracy Mullen, CEO of NRF, and her staff. NRF is the “voice” of retail and represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail companies, more than 25 million
In just nineteen days, SAS users from around the world will be convening in Washington, DC. The countries from outside of the U.S. with the most registrants are Canada, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Top industries include Government, Education, Consulting & Systems Integration, Pharmaceutical, and Insurance. You can use the social
AHIP brings each year a bit of a surprise. In my pre-AHIP posting, I discussed the dedication to improving the healthcare system all the while your industry is being painted as the “bad guy”. That point was driven home this morning. As I was getting charged-up learning about the opportunities
An afternoon of sessions followed by the exhibit hall mania to the AHIP Opening Night Reception…..from the discussions to exhibits to the presentations, there is no doubt that the business of health insurance plans is changing…..but I am not convinced we are all on the same page as to how,
AHIP’s 2008 Institute is getting cranked up and the streets of San Fran are filling with bag-carrying registrants scurrying back and forth between their “conference hotels” (1 block to 15 blocks away) while the early session workshops are underway. This morning’s AHIP Evidence Policy “update” was a good supplement session
As we head into the week before America’s Health Insurance Plan’s annual Institute, just a few thoughts…….. How healthy is our healthcare system? It depends of course on your definition of healthy. Imagine spending 24/7 tirelessly working to improve “the system” and always being painted as the “bad guy.” What
How much time should be devoted to preparing for an important challenge? Depends on the challenge, I hear you say. From my experience, it is important to be aware of the challenges to be confronted when completing a significant project. Not under-estimating the real effort required, often depends on fitness
In the Kalevala the God of the Forest is called Tapio. The Kalevala, also known as the land of heroes, is the national epic of Finland and is not only an extremely important work to the Finns but also an important contribution to world literature. For example, the meter in
A new book brings into pop culture a concept that we've already known for years: that is, governments and corporations use data mining and analysis to influence our lives in major and minor ways. While Super Crunchers author Ian Ayres might not mention SAS by name (actually, I don't know
