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.
Your cross-divisional analytics team may be called many things, including a business analytics center of excellence or a business intelligence competency center. Regardless of what it is named, you will need to pick up your PACE (predictive analytics center of excellence) or be left behind. To really see the benefits of
As more and more data is being collected and analyzed, it becomes even more important to have a strategy in place that will allow you to get value out of your data. Since it's humanly impossible for your brain alone to process fast streaming data, an event stream processing (ESP) engine
Twas the night before "big data," when all through the data center Not an IT supervisor was stirring, not even the help desk on-call. The servers where all humming along nicely in hopes Big data would soon be there. The business users were nestled all snug in their offices
Over the years, in all my roles within SAS, I've been asked by customers, friends, family and all sorts of people, "What does SAS do?" Bottom-line: SAS delivers results across the organization, because that is what it was designed to do. Specifically, SAS was designed to deliver analytic results, which
Jennifer Whaley, one of our energy analytic utility experts, and I were talking about customer demos recently and discussing the work that goes into a proof-of-concept done with customer data. If you've never been directly involved in preparing for a customer demo, you probably don't realize how much time and effort
Yes, we have all heard about the 3 V's of big data by now. Or the 4 V's or possibly 5 V's, depending on who you ask. However, I would argue the value of data isn't necessarily tied to the "volume" part of big data (unless of course you are a
Analytics, to me, has always been about continuous education and giving people the chance to learn new insights. The SAS Day at Houston CityCentre earlier this month is a shining example. Hosted by the Department of Statistics as Texas A&M University, the event showed how analytics guides decisions across many
From what I've seen, the energy industries appear to be at a tipping point in their interest and adoption of advanced analytics. If there's any question about how analytics can be used to benefit these industries, consider a few examples:. How much demand for electricity will there be and when?
Perhaps I should have titled this post, "Riddle me this Batman..." Bam! Zap! etc.... now back to our regular scheduled blog post, where we explore the many lessons that can be learned from one industry to the next. Let's start with one of the easier comparisons: How is an
Are you uncomfortable with analytics? Do you know someone who is? One reason might be that they think of predictive analytics as magic rather than science or fact based. Good magic amazes people and so do good analytic based reports and decisions. Being able to predict what product or service
Our perceptions can impact others and influence decisions. As a result, I always like to understand each customer's perception of what SAS is and what we do. There is no right or wrong answer to this question, however the response provides me with a chance to listen to our customers.
Engineers who implement process control can use analytics to think outside the of box. Better yet, they can use analytics to help solve the issues and risks associated with being inside the box or outside the box in the first place. Read on to learn what box I'm referring to
The value of analytics to solve multiple business problems really makes analytics the ultimate reusable business investment, or as they say in the energy industry, it may be called a renewable resource. As I've commented before, organizations spend billions of dollars on storing data, and unless you happen to be a
With all due respect to Microsoft, I am not talking about that type of ppt, but instead I am referring to people, process, and technology (PPT). SAS helps to solve all types of problems because we bring more to the table than technology; we help our customers get answers to
According to Forbes, a comprehensive "big data" strategy is vital because without one your business will miss out on at least 71 million dollars a year! To me this means your "big data" strategy should be more focused on how best to derive value from your data instead of focusing
It goes without saying that if you know the value of analytics, it can sometimes be frustrating when leaders who may not have an analytic background do not understand or see the difference between basic reporting and advanced analytics. At SAS, we often refer to those two very different things
Organizations must find the right balance between tactical use of their data and strategic use of their data. The following statement encapsulates the difference between an application that was primarily designed from a tactical perspective versus a strategic one.: "Thanks, you delivered what I asked for (tactical), but not what I
SAS provides solutions that have analytics integrated into reports that deliver insight into what will happen in the future, not just report on what has happened in the past. Who wouldn't love that? However, what makes the SAS programming environment so useful to end users is how efficient and effective
Ever since the term "big data" has popped up as a hot topic, you may have also heard about this "new" role called the data scientist. This is an important role that helps derive insight out of any sized data by applying knowledge about analytics to help solve business problems. I would argue that
At the beginning of a recent customer meeting I was involved in, I mentioned how easy it is to shut down idea generation by judging too soon or too harshly, to which a CIO at the meeting shared this story about five monkeys in a cage. You may have heard
