Hi, I'm John Balla - a Digital Marketing Principal here at SAS focused on Content Strategy. I co-founded the SAS Customer Intelligence blog and served as Editor for five years. I like to find and share content and experiences that open doors, answer questions and maybe even challenge assumptions so better questions can be asked. Outside of work I stay busy with my wife and I keeping up with my 2 awesome college-age kids, volunteering for the Boy Scouts, keeping my garden green, striving for green living, expressing myself with puns, and making my own café con leche every morning. I’ve lived and worked on 3 contents and can communicate fluently in Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and passable English. Prior to SAS, my experience in marketing ranges from Fortune 100 companies to co-founding two start ups. I studied economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and got an MBA from Georgetown. Follow me on Twitter. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
As a marketer, I couldn’t be more excited about the CMO panel on the main stage at PBLS11 . As previously mentioned, the CMO panel moderated by Professor Tom Davenport, included SAS CMO Jim Davis and his peers, Paula Puleo at Michaels Stores and Scott Hudgins from The Walt Disney
I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing General Colin Powell share his viewpoints about leadership as the keynote speaker for PBLS11. I have found that so much of what he’s shared is relevant for marketers, because great marketing happens by teams of people, all working for the same purpose. It’s an environment
I am thrilled to be at SAS’ flagship annual thought leadership event, the 2011 Premier Business Leadership Series. The theme is “Innovate, Optimize, Transform” and we have world leaders, best-selling authors and thought-provoking professors with great wisdom to share in one exciting event. It’s truly inspiring. Yet as compelling as all
SAS is once again a proud sponsor of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization conference, happening in New York City on October 19-21, 2011. One of the ways to participate in eMetrics that we have found the most engaging is by hosting a “Marketing Lab.” Marketing Labs are designed to allow the
As previously mentioned, I am at DMA:2011 in Boston with David Meerman Scott and he was the featured guest at our executive dinner this evening. We invited marketing executives attending this conference to have dinner with the best-selling author, who will also present in the Thought Leadership Series tomorrow at
There is a great opportunity for marketers coming up at DMA:2011 to learn about how customer analytics help marketing fulfill its mandate as a driver of profitable revenue growth. SAS will present a DMA:2011 Preconference Intensive Session on Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2, titled Customer Intelligence & Analytics. There will be four parts that
SAS will be at the DMA2011 conference in Boston on October 1-6, 2011, sponsoring David Meerman Scott in the Thought Leadership Series. David is a noted marketing strategist and author of seven books on marketing and PR, including The New Rules of Marketing and PR. His session is titled, 'How to
Last week, I had the pleasure to attend a great session with noted speaking authority Bart Queen. The session was titled, “The Power of Many” and it included 4 communication goals and tons of other great tips on how to drive your message through the use of panel discussions. Here
This week, SAS hosted the Financial Services Executive Summit at our headquarters in Cary, NC. Part of the content was a fascinating panel discussion moderated by Lori Bieda, the SAS Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence. In the picture below, Lori is on the left and she was joined on the
We are very pleased to co-sponsor a terrific Webcast with PharmExec Magazine on May 19 at 2:00pm ET (available on demand afterward) titled, Customer Intimacy – the Pharma Challenge. This is our opportunity to zero in on an industry with dynamics so complex that customer analytics holds great promise. Like
The following is an entry reposted from a blog focused on healthcare and life sciences called A Shot in the Arm, by my friend and colleague Jason Burke. In it, he describes the creation of The Center for Health Analytics and Insights, and the contributing factors that made it both
SAS is very pleased to co-host a Webinar with HealthScape Advisors on May 4, 2011 at 1:00pm ET, produced by AHIP. This Webinar will highlight the role that customer intelligence can play in helping health insurance plans manage the challenges of healthcare reform, and is titled: Manage the Challenges of
There is a confluence of events happening this month that give us a great opportunity to spotlight one of the most complex and fascinating markets you can find anywhere: healthcare and life sciences (HLS for short). HLS includes all the industries that relate to caring for the health of individuals,
I am at the Forrester's Marketing Forum in San Francisco and today’s keynote presentations included two of Forrester’s Principal Analysts, Chris Stutzman and Emily Riley. Their presentation was provocatively titled, How to Succeed in a Decade of Digital Disruption: ADAPT to the CORE, which tied to the show’s theme, “Innovating
It should come as no surprise that one of the topics of great interest to the customer intelligence community is marketing measurement. And like anything, the better the measurement, the better the potential impact for management. So, to address the topic of marketing measurement for our recent Webinar with the
I recently had the privilege to work with Charlene Li, one of our industry's thought leaders, on a Webinar that SAS sponsored and the American Marketing Association produced, titled "Drive Marketing Relevance in Today's Digital World." The SAS host and architect of the discussion's content was Jonathan Hornby, one of
There is nothing quite like third-party validation to complete the picture when telling a story. A quick peek at our Customer Success Stories page and any number of Analyst Reports tell versions of the SAS story as a great source of business solutions in ways that we could never do
Retail is an interesting industry. It has its own challenges and opportunities, but what happens in retail is worth watching for marketers in any industry because retailing is the essence of a market. The storefront / cash register / online shopping cart is literally the intersection of the “supply” curve
I am one of those people that frequently walks around with a soundtrack playing inside my head, and during the holidays it usually involves Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole crooning about snow or jingle bells. It might involve grandmas getting run over by reindeer, or the female sensation du
I recently had the pleasure to attend the keynote panel for NCDM, which began with introductory statements by Larry Kimmel, CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. One of his statements really set the tone for the panel and actually for the rest of the show: “Data, customer centricity and accountability
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.
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’ll never forget the first time many years ago that I saw the Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams showing Dilbert getting transferred to marketing, approaching a doorway that says “Welcome to Marketing - Two Drink Minimum.” I found it so funny until I realized that my friends in IT and
There are many reasons I often feel overloaded and overstimulated nowadays, so I think I can relate to my target market when they get my messages. I'd like to take a moment to set aside my usual John-the-marketer hat and explore the issue of relevance from the perspective of my
As mentioned in a previous post, SAS was again a sponsor of the Masters of Marketing Conference, the annual executive conference held by the Association of National Advertisers (“ANA”). I had the pleasure to attend the sessions of this extraordinary event, which brings together the marketing leadership teams of the
If I say “Brazil,” what do you think of? The Girl from Ipanema? Pelé and 5 World Cup championships? Coffee? Sultry supermodels? How about statistics? Probably not, but that’s okay (I hope to change that). We Brazilians actually don’t mind being associated with fun, relaxation and other positive things. And
I recently had the pleasure to sit in on one of our customer presentations at the CRM Evolution Conference in New York. Sean Lowe, the Managing Director of Endless Vacation Rentals and Revenue Management for Wyndham Exchange & Rentals, gave a presentation about how his company manages the demand forecasting
Momentum for SAS Customer Intelligence is at an all-time high, and we’re responding in kind by taking it to the streets with a blockbuster line-up for October this year in a city near you. These opportunities have been designed to enable you to interact with both SAS and non-SAS experts
In this segment of “The Nuts & Bolts of Social Media,” Kirsten Hamstra outlines the details of how SAS Publishing planned and executed its social media strategy. SAS Publishing was the first SAS division out on Social Media and they achieved good early success through planning, and are able to
The following entry is reposted from the sascom voices blog, and was contributed by David Hughes, SAS VP of Sales for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. I hope you enjoy reading his words, as there are important lessons for marketers in the examples he uses to illustrate the
