+Alison Bolen is an editor at SAS, where she writes and edits content about analytics and emerging topics. Since starting at SAS in 1999, Alison has edited print publications, Web sites, e-newsletters, customer success stories and blogs. She has a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism from Ohio University and a master’s degree in technical writing from North Carolina State University.
The promise of high-performance analytics, as I understand it, is this: Regardless of how you store your data or how much of it there is, complex analytical procedures can still access that data, conduct a series of calculations on that data and provide answers quickly, accurately and using the full
The Platform Development team in SAS R&D has a vision for how SAS applications will be built and deployed in the future. It’s a vision that accounts for recent trends in cloud computing, high performance computing, open APIs and smart phone app stores. It’s also a vision that promises to
As part of the staffing efforts for the new SAS Center for Health Analytics and Insights (CHAI), SAS recently hired Dr. Graham Hughes, MD, as the company’s first Chief Medical Officer (CMO). When I heard the news, I sent a few questions to Graham to learn more about the new
In an era when software updates are a dime a dozen, why should you care about SAS 9.3 being available today? With help from my colleagues and fellow bloggers here at SAS, I give you these top ten reasons: When you fill out your brackets during March Madness next spring,
Contributed by Thornton May, IT Futurist On June 15, 2011 twenty plus analytic pioneers from twelve different vertical markets convened to explore the current state and future trajectory of enterprise analytics. Each participant in The SAS Power Series event brought with them intellect, energy, curiosity and a challenge. During the
Our friend Martha Rogers recently blogged about her trip to Arkansas for a Walmart Analytics Day. She says, "I can tell you that up close, the folks here believe the customer is number one. It's even part of the 'cheer' that the hundreds of people here did. Loudly." You should
The moment you (the expert) start to think a topic is boring is the moment when the average person is just starting to become aware of that topic. As soon as I'm bored with a topic, I know it's time to write about it at least five more times. It's
The basic big data problem is simple to understand: we create too much data to store and analyze it all. The problem gets bigger, however, when you consider the related factors: our problems themselves are getting bigger, the analytics needed to solve them are more complex and the data is
Are we oversimplifying customer segmentation and treatment strategies? SAS Marketing Director Jonathan Hornby thinks so. He also believes customer lifetime value should include an understanding of sentiment, influence and the value of collaboration with your customers. In fact, if you're not factoring these items into your customer segmentations, you're probably
Is there even such a thing as a typical day anymore? We travel. We write. We tweet. We meet. We code. We coach. We manage. We lead. We all go in so many different directions, that it's hard to really picture a normal day the way you might quaintly envision
I've blogged before about how to leave comments, why to leave comments and when to leave comments. I've challenged readers to leave one comment a day, to contribute substantively to online conversations and to answer questions or solve problems when commenting on blogs and discussion forums. But there's a different
~Contributed by Becky Graebe, SAS Communications Manager~ If there was any doubt in the minds of SAS Global Forum attendees that the computing landscape has changed remarkably in recent years, Vice President of Platform R&D Paul Kent and Research Statistician Developer Oliver Schabenberger set that idea squarely off the grid
~Contributed by Becky Graebe, SAS Communications Manager~ Did you know that you could save and export one, some or all of your keyboard macros/abbreviations in one simple operation? sasCommunity.org users do, thanks to today’s Tip of the Day, submitted by Arthur Tabachneck (better known as Art297 on the site). The
One of the first things many of us do in the "monitoring and listening" phase of social media engagement is to sign up for Google Alerts. After you sign up for those alerts, one of the things to watch out for are scraper blogs. These sites copy and paste (or
Seth Godin, bald. Mitch Joel, bald. Greg Verdino, bald. Stacey Alexander, bald. Yes, you heard that right. Former SAS intern, Stacey Alexander, who blogged here frequently last summer, is shaving her head. But no, she's not really doing it to join the bald social media guru club. Instead, she's doing
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 -
I read the new book Enterprise Social Media Strategy last weekend and came away from it feeling like I had just attended a useful two-day social media conference. You know the feeling, right? Your head is swimming with ideas from lots of great people who are smarter or braver or
One of the most popular blogs for SAS users is the Do Loop blog, where Rick Wicklin presents tips and techniques for statistical programming in SAS, with an emphasis on SAS/IML programs. Even if you're not a programmer, you have to appreciate the way Rick brings statistics to bear on
There are two very different ways to think about keywords on the Web: one is for writers and one is for researchers. Web copywriters are often advised to use keywords that customers type into search engines. Researchers, on the other hand, are told to focus on the words that customers
If I say, social media analytics, and you say, What's that? I have some good links for you. First, you'll want to read this interview with Katie Paine, where she explains, among other things, the difference between social monitoring ,social measurement and social analytics. "Social analytics is where measurement and
If I say, social media analytics, and you say, What's that? I have some good links for you. First, you'll want to read this interview with Katie Paine, where she explains, among other things, the difference between social monitoring ,social measurement and social analytics. "Social analytics is where measurement and
Once upon a time, almost three years ago, before most of us ever heard of Twitter, I was just signing up for the service and starting to follow anyone that I found who might be there talking about SAS. I used Twitter Search and I didn't find a lot. Some
In April, I wrote 12 ways to write a conference blog post. It's one of those posts that I continue to share and often see others reference as well. One thing that might be implied in that post but isn't overtly stated is something of a golden rule for for
In a recent Social Media Today post, Alexandra Cojocaru asks, How Predictive Can Social Media Analytics Get? She goes on to offer a few areas where she thinks predictive analytics can be applied to forecast the future using data collected from Facebook, Twitter and other sites. Alexandra mentions a project
Customer segmentation is a very basic component of most modern marketing strategies. The process involves dividing a customer base into groups of individuals who are similar in specific ways that matter in the context of your marketing programs. You can use segmentation to target groups effectively and allocate marketing resources
Customer segmentation is a very basic component of most modern marketing strategies. The process involves dividing a customer base into groups of individuals who are similar in specific ways that matter in the context of your marketing programs. You can use segmentation to target groups effectively and allocate marketing resources
One of the most prestigious award programs in our industry is the Excellence in New Communication Research Award from the Society for New Communications Research. I was in San Francisco for the awards gala on Friday, where the winners spoke briefly about their award-winning projects, and I came away with
Last year Dave wrote an inspiring post on this blog that included information on how Kinaxis is successfully re-using and promoting content in social media channels. At Blogworld in Las Vegas, I saw Kirsten Watson from Kinaxis on a B2B social media panel, where she shared even more about the
Chris Brogan. Charlene Li. David Meerman Scott. All on one panel. Streaming live from Vegas Thursday Oct 28 at 11:15 PST. Read the panel summary, From Engagement to Results, and add it to your calendar too. For a short teaser, here's Chris talking to SAS Marketing Director Deb Orton last
With so much focus on new media, social media, blogs and communities at Blogworld in Vegas last week, it was refreshing to hear the panelists on the “PR in a 2.0 World” panel admit that some things haven’t changed. In fact, they said a lot of the strategies that worked
