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.
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
~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
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 -
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
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
This is a fun and informative video from one of our partners, Sword Ciboodle. You can visit the Sword Ciboodle site to learn more about the partnership and how it can help you turn your customers into advocates.
~ 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,
Here's something you don't expect to hear from a banking executive: "The best thing that happened is the financial crisis." Of course, Tonny Rabjerg is not your standard banking executive. He's the Vice President of CRM Systems at Danske Bank. "I know the financial crisis is not good for the
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
A lot of technology conferences are celebratory in nature. They showcase new products, highlight customer successes and provide a platform for authors, analysts and industry experts to praise these accomplishments. To be sure, there was plenty to celebrate at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference. But this year’s conference -
A number of the sessions at today's SAS Global Forum Executive Conference included discussions about how IT and business leaders can best collaborate on business analytics projects, or how analysts and business decision makers can best work together. In one panel I attended, "Retail and Manufacturing Analytics: Driving Business-Building Insights
From posterous photos of Opening Session to the New York Times Bits Blog, the first blog posts about SAS Global Forum are starting to show up online. Writing on the Bits Blog, Steve Lohr says: Analysts who have looked at the new offering – and tried it out – are
In a recent Datamation article, "Business Intelligence Software and Predictive Analytics," Jeff Vance asks, "What exactly is predictive analytics?" His answer, in part: "Take traditional business intelligence, combine it with data mining and add on statistical analysis and you have predictive analytics. Math geeks will squabble over the nuances, say,
The last time I mentioned Accenture on this blog, I linked to their recent survey results, which show that companies are recognizing the value of predictive analytics – and are planning for it. What does that mean for business analytics vendors? In a lot of ways, it means business leaders
Last week was a busy one in the world of business analytics. The biggest news for SAS is our ranking as a leader in predictive analytics and data mining by an independent analyst firm. In The Forrester Wave: Predictive Analytics and Data Mining Solutions, Q1 2010, SAS earned top overall
~ Contributed by I-kong Fu ~ AnalyticsCamp is an unconference started by Nathan Gilliatt after a group of us met at a networking meeting in Raleigh last year called Web Analytics Wednesday. The first AnalyticsCamp will take place at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School in Chapel Hill on Saturday, February 6th,
It's been almost two weeks since I attended Podcamp Ohio, and I'm determined to publish a post today summarizing the event. I've started with my notes from Twitter as a base, and added in lots of links plus a few edits. I hope you'll find them useful. Creative Commons and
Do you remember the article, "This is your life ... with SAS" from the second quarter 2008 issue of sascom magazine? If you do, you'll remember how much information we were able to pack into two pages with the fun comic-strip format. If you don't remember it or never saw
We're working on an education piece for the second quarter 2009 issue of sascom. If that's an area that interests you, watch these videos to set the mood.
Earlier this week, I had a quick meeting with Mikael Hagström, our VP of Operations for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. As you might imagine, he has a pretty good handle on the use of business analytics around the world. Mikael provided some good suggestions on content for
Jerry Williams is a Project Manager for Environmental Sustainability at SAS. What are you working on right now? There is so much going on…. No two days are ever quite the same. Some of my priority projects include: Balancing expectations of employees so passionate about stewardship while giving fair consideration
~ Contributed by Hope Squires ~ Daniel Schorr is one of my favorite NPR reporters. I just hope he doesn’t mind me announcing that in a blog. Schorr has some strong opinions about what blogging has done to the news industry. In a recent Q&A with The Sacramento Bee, he
Last week I saw a slide from a customer presentation that said 85 percent of that company's data is unstructured data. This isn't usual, either. But what does it mean? First and foremost, it means the data we're all collecting at unprecedented rates is no longer stored strictly in spreadsheets
Years ago, when I was a fledgling writer, I would get frustrated to read guest columns in my favorite magazines by non-writers. You know what I mean: fitness articles by Gabby Reese or business columns by Donald Trump. As a writer, I argued that teaching a writer a topic was
I've never been a fan of the old "pull my finger" prank. I'm not above bathroom humor in general, but even as a kid I wasn't interested in actively participating in someone else's less-than-pleasant bodily functions. Some people feel the same way about blogs: "Eww," they think. "Don't make me
Research from a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says yes, according to the New York Times (registration required). Judging by comments on the article, many Times readers disagree. In 2005, when the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award raised similar questions, three Southeastern economists turned
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I've read lots of coverage recently about the new Butler Group report that says public sector agencies could be making better use of business intelligence. That's good to know and not too surprising - but how? Peter Dorrington, head of industry marketing strategy at SAS UK, has a few ideas.
Data integration is not data warehousing, says Claudia Imhoff in a post that discusses data quality, master data management and operational data stores. According to Imhoff: None of these is a data warehouse project. They should stand on their own two feet as independent initiatives that just happen to make
