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Every night, I drive right by our favorite grocery store on my way home from work, so I usually call home to see if we need anything. Sometimes the list gets long and I have to pull over to write it all down. That’s how I manage our grocery list.
When I finished writing my book, Statistical Programming with SAS/IML Software, I was elated. However, one small task still remained. I had to write the index. How Long Should an Index Be? My editor told me that SAS Press would send the manuscript to a professional editor who would index
Dear SAS Users - As I write this last post for 2010, I have one ear listening to the weather forecast for signs that we should pull out the sleds and snow boots. MAYBE we’ll get a little snow in the next few days to make it really seem like
Paula Joshi wrote last month about how what we learn from the commercial world can be applied in government. She also promised to post a few examples. I’ll get that ball rolling. This week SAS announced the availability of SAS Enterprise Case Management. While the announcement focuses more on the
I’m excited to publish a new segment of our “Nuts & Bolts of Social Media” video series. In this interview, SAS’ Lori Schafer talks briefly with Michelle Thomas and Jaimee Newberry from Zappos. Michelle, a Senior Brand Marketing Manager, and Jaimee, a Product Manager & UI Designer, both offer up
Recently, I needed to detect whether a matrix consists entirely of missing values. I wrote the following module: proc iml; /** Module to detect whether all elements of a matrix are missing values. Works for both numeric and character matrices. Version 1 (not optimal) **/ start isMissing(x); if type(x)='C' then
Predictive analytics is not the easiest concept to wrap your head around. It’s all too easy to get lost in explanations about statistics, game theory, modeling, and the rest, and end up with a muddy understanding of a process that draws on historical facts, like customer data, to make predictions
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
There are three kinds of programming errors: parse-time errors, run-time errors, and logical errors. It doesn't matter what language you are using (SAS/IML, MATLAB, R, C/C++, Java,....), these errors creep up everywhere. Two of these errors cause a program to report an error, whereas the third is more insidious because
Deb Orton recently had a chance to speak with Bruce Bedford, VP of Marketing Analytics and Consumer Insights at Oberweis Dairy about social media and its role in how they do business. Oberweis Dairy is based in the Midwest and reaches its customers through 48 store locations, its home-delivery business
I helped to write a quiz for the Computer Science Education Week promotions that were featured on our company intranet. Do you fancy yourself as a Comp-Sci aficionado? Let's see how you do with these. 1. Which achievement is Charles Babbage most famous for? A. Establishing software retail shops in
Last week, several of the faculty members of the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) —Tom Davenport, Jeanne Harris, James Taylor, John Elder, Bill Franks, Niel Nickolaisen, Jeremy Shapiro and I—offered some predictions for analytics in the coming year. You can hear an audio recording of the discussion or read a
While insufficiently endowed to be called a "get rich quick" scheme, here is a good way to pocket an extra $5,000 for your holiday shopping budget, and contribute to the body of forecasting knowledge. For the ninth straight year, SAS announces funding of two $5,000 research grants to be awarded
Imagine you are attending the BCS National Championship game next month. You have invested top dollar in your seats and you have been anticipating the game for weeks. You settle in to your seat with your hot dog, soft pretzel, and your favorite beverage a few minutes before kick-off because
Both covariance matrices and correlation matrices are used frequently in multivariate statistics. You can easily compute covariance and correlation matrices from data by using SAS software. However, sometimes you are given a covariance matrix, but your numerical technique requires a correlation matrix. Other times you are given a correlation matrix,