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
The SAS Social Media Analytics product launch was a huge hit with the press at SAS Global Forum. I wrote about it below, a lot of analysts and social media pros are blogging about it too, and it seemed for at least a few hours last Monday that everyone on
One of the events I look forward to every year is the unveiling of a year’s worth of SAS R&D’s magic. It occurs during the SAS Global Forum Technology Connection. Today’s show was all we could have hoped it would be! We heard from some SAS software, technology and statistics
During Analytics Camp 2010 this past weekend, I facilitated a discussion with a great group of attendees looking to create or improve their own dashboards. The question asked was: "What should all dashboards have to make them useful & successful?" During this discussion I added *** within my notes around
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 SAS Visual Data Discovery package includes, among other things, SAS Enterprise Guide and JMP. If you are among the growing numbers who use these two software applications together, you might be looking for more ways to integrate the two. Here's one way: a SAS Enterprise Guide task that opens
I’ve read - and heard - that SAS spoils its employees. I’ve been at SAS for six months, and it’s true. A great example is the training. Earlier this week, I was invited to attend a SAS® Hands-On Workshop. The workshop is actually designed for customers, but open to everyone.
