David leads the pre-sales technical team for SAS US Energy which solves business problems in the Oil & Gas and Utilities industries using advanced analytics. He is a lifetime learner who enjoys sharing information and helping others to grow their careers. He earned a BS in Industry Engineering and a Computer Programming Certificate from North Carolina State University. Furthermore, he has over 29 years of business experience working with SAS across R&D, IT, Sales and Marketing in the Americas and Europe. He is an expert in working with data and producing insights through the use of analytics. David has presented at SAS Global Forum, the 2012 SAS Government Leadership Summit, IBM’s Information on Demand(IOD), EMC World, CTO Summit Conferences, is the author of the book: "Big Data Analytics with SAS", and he currently holds 14 patents for SAS in several countries: US, CA, Norway, UK, China, Mexico, and Hong Kong.
I've worked at SAS for quite awhile, and people always want to know more about SAS, especially it's great work environment. In response to those questions, I've written this story full of SAS product and programming puns to describe how SAS has evolved over time and remains LASR focused on helping
I recently read an article about the major challenges electric utilities are facing in 2016, and I thought: "Wow, those challenges can be answered in so many ways..." Utilities are dealing with an onslaught of issues which can no longer be ignored or put off because they're all high priority and interrelated. But
A successful energy savings program is a good thing for utilities, right? The truth is, that success can result in unintended consequences. One of our utility customers shared this example with me recently: "Let’s say we offer a free LED light bulb to every customer, and everyone removes an old bulb that used 75
You’d better watch YouTube, you’d better not cry You’d better not post, I’m telling you why Big data is coming to town He’s making many lists (and selling them too), he’s writing it twice (for redundancy’s sake), He’s gonna find out whose naughty or nice Big data is coming to town
On the first day of Big Data Analytics my colleagues sent to me: A data scientist discussing a decision tree On the second day of Big Data Analytics my colleagues sent to me: Two business analysts and A data scientist discussing a decision tree On the third day of Big Data Analytics my
With so many cybersecurity stories and large scale data breaches in the news, it's no wonder that cybersecurity is a top priority for leaders in many industries. But did you know analytics can help protect your customer and organizational data? Franklin Witter, Principal CyberSecurity Consultant, recently shared these three cybersecurity
How can you grow a culture of innovation, scale your data, modernize your legacy BI strategy - and more? With "analytics in action," says Paul Bachteal, Senior Director of the Global Technology Practice at SAS. Bachteal recently presented to a standing room only crowd as part of the 2015 Texas A&M
Big data is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Regardless of how you feel about it, it can help solve problems which simply could not be addressed without big data and advanced analytics. One area in which big data and analytics can provide huge benefits is the medical arena. In a recent
When I was discussing decision making and analytics with a colleague, he recommended I read the book Your Brain at Work by David Rock. I took his advice because I wanted to find out how the brain processes information and how it might relate to analytics. Rock (you gotta love that name) explains the importance of the
I enjoy watching TV crime series like Law and Order, Crime Series Investigation (CSI), CriminalMinds, Numb3rs, Person of Interest, as well as real-life mystery stories on shows like 20/20 and others. Obviously, the popularity of these types of shows means I'm not the only one who enjoys this type of entertainment. Here at SAS,
In the oil and gas industry, analytics are used to improve both upstream and downstream operations, from optimizing exploration and forecasting production to reducing commodity trading risk and understanding customer's energy needs. If you plan to derive value from the digital oil field, big data, and analytics, one of the first things
What's that productivity related quote by Charles Dickens? "My advice is never do tomorrow what you can do today." For years, machine learning has been written about and discussed widely with a focus on the benefits it will bring in the near future. But guess what? The future for machine learning
The smart grid is a technology infrastructure that adds intelligent capabilities to the electricity distribution system. When you apply analytics to the smart grid data, you can automate and improve operations, maintenance, planning and customer satisfaction - among other processes. As utilities continue to upgrade meters, transformers, and add new sensors and equipment,
I'm not just talking about all the energy put in planning, scheduling, and supporting this great event, which is in Dallas, TX next week, April 26-29. I'm talking about all the presentations about using analytics in energy related industries, particularly in Utilities and in Oil and Gas. There is a
When do analytics really provide value? All the time, of course. However, one of the best times for analytics to prove their value is when you are asked to do more with less. Often, the reason we are asked to do more with less is because of an economic downturn
How many of us have heard or even said the phrase, "If it's not broke, don't fix it." While on rare occasions this may be the correct approach, it is a statement that stops innovation and creativity in its tracks. You might as well say, "Because we've always done it that
As a follow-up to my previous Christmas blog post, Twas the night before big data, I give you ... Bayesian network, the directed acyclic graphical (DAG) model ( yeah, yeah, I know it doesn’t quite have the same ring as last year’s title, but you'll recognize the tune) You know Linear and
After attending the SAS Day at Texas A&M University on Oct. 2, I came away with a new perspective on some of the different educational offerings to help fill the analytic talent gap (which according to studies and research continues to grow). In essence, there is a yin and yang of
SAS has been developing "secret sauce" technology for more than 38 years. Whether it has to do with being platform independent, processing in-database, running across a grid, or analyzing data in-memory like our SAS LASR Analytic Server or our High Performance Analytics offerings, secret sauce makes everything taste or, in
You may have heard the phase that big data is the new oil. Well (pun intended), if that is the case, then analytics should be thought of as the fracking technique used on data to improve the value you get from this new oil. Fracking is actually just one
IT folks love SQL (Standard Query Language). Once you know how to program in SQL, you can work with almost any database because it is a standard. However, SQL is NOT a standard for doing analytics. The SAS programming language pre-dates SQL and even though SAS does SQL, SQL does not
Business Intelligence (BI) can mean many things to many people, but generally BI is associated with business reports. When you fold business analytics (BA), especially advanced analytics that are predictive or prescriptive, under the BI umbrella you inherently dilute the value proposition that analytics can provide to an organization. Why
In the energy industry, oil and gas companies as well as utilities are struggling with many changes at once. First, they're facing what the oil and gas industry has coined "the big crew change," meaning the retirement of those with the most skills and experience on how to run their
As a follow up to my previous post that described analytics in one word, I decided to revisit my choice of the word "strategic" with a video. If the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true, you'll like this version even better than the original. Watch the video
Data federation is a relatively new term used to describe a form of data virtualization. Data virtualization, however, is not new. It has been around since at least the 1960's when virtual memory was introduced to simulate additional memory beyond what was physically available on a machine. While data federation is a
It is always important to continue to sell the value of analytics within your organization, especially to your leaders. Usually, these type of results are delivered via reports, dashboards, or emails. However did you know that analytics: Detects when expensive machinery like electrical submersible pumps (ESP) or oil platforms need maintenance before
What's the differences between predictive analytics and basic reporting? Predictive analytics provides insight about what will happen in the future. Basic reporting only looks at past performance. Why is this difference difficult to grasp? It's partly because transitioning to predictive analytics requires change. And most people don't embrace change. Take
IT support levels for different processes and business applications depend on many factors. So how are analytics projects generally supported? It's common for IT to view the implementation of advanced analytics as part of a production job or process, especially when analytic models are deployed into different operational systems that are
I was recently part of team discussing enterprise architecture with a chief IT architect, and we were explaining how SAS can integrate into their existing infrastructure, add business value on top it and even fit into their future planned infrastructure. This conversation was one of the reasons I blogged about
Acronyms are funny things. Need an example? Try decoding this sentence: How is event stream processing (ESP), applied to electrical submersible pumps (ESP) in the oil and gas industry, like extrasensory perception (ESP)? Even if you had extrasensory perception you would still need some clarification if that sentence contained acronyms only.
