Michael Gilliland is a longtime business forecasting practitioner and formerly a Product Marketing Manager for SAS Forecasting. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters, and is Associate Editor of their practitioner journal Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Mike is author of The Business Forecasting Deal (Wiley, 2010) and former editor of the free e-book Forecasting with SAS: Special Collection (SAS Press, 2020). He is principal editor of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions (Wiley, 2015) and Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Wiley, 2021). In 2017 Mike received the Institute of Business Forecasting's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021 his paper "FVA: A Reality Check on Forecasting Practices" was inducted into the Foresight Hall of Fame. Mike initiated The Business Forecasting Deal blog in 2009 to help expose the seamy underbelly of forecasting practice, and to provide practical solutions to its most vexing problems.
History is easy to explain. We can always come up with some story for why this or that occurred. And, if the story sounds plausible enough, the explanation will be accepted as true. But can we ever know that the explanation is correct? How would we ever test it? If we
Some ideas sound great (combining chocolate with peanut butter) and turn out great (Reese's Peanut Butter Cup). Some ideas sound great (getting a face lift) but turn out bad (Kenny Rogers, Greta Van Susteren). Some ideas sound bad (a Run-DMC / Aerosmith duet) but turn out great ("Walk This Way"). Some ideas sound bad (letting
Have you noticed the annoying stock art they put on The BFD blog header? All I can think of is "If those idiots only used SAS Forecast Server, they wouldn't have to draw graphs all over their window panes just to do forecasting." It must really p.o. the housekeeping staff at that
