Foster youth present a unique challenge to educators. Probably the most famous former foster care child in the world right now is Simone Biles, already one of the more formidable and successful athletes in the history of American sports. As a big fan of women’s gymnastics, Biles has thrilled me with her accomplishments.
"Tap into all your demand signals. Organize. Visualize. Analyze. Predict. Orchestrate. Optimize." The availability and collection of data are compelling companies to invest in demand signal management solutions to take advantage of the vast amount of information to support their planning processes. However, many have not gotten the return on
Since this is an election year, I've been scrutinizing the voter registration data. One thing that surprised me is there are more female voters registered in NC than males. I wondered if this was consistent across all 100 counties, and created some charts to help visualize the data... First I went
Companies launch initiatives to upgrade or improve their sales & operations planning and demand planning processes all the time, but many fail to deliver the results they should. Has your forecasting operation fallen short of expectations? Do you struggle with "best practices" that seem incapable of producing accurate, useful results?
What does it really mean when we talk about the concept of a data asset? For the purposes of this discussion, let's say that a data asset is a manifestation of information that can be monetized. In my last post we explored how bringing many data artifacts together in a
Last week I showed some features of SAS formats, including the fact that you can use formats to bin a continuous variable without creating a new variable in the DATA step. During the discussion I mentioned that it can be confusing to look at the output of a formatted variable
Has there ever been an app that’s captured the world’s imagination as quickly as Pokemon Go? The usage statistics are mind-blowing, and whether or not the world has reached “peak Pokemon Go” yet, this will doubtless be a short-lived fad. But this could be the app that brings augmented reality and
There's an old expression "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it" - and while that expression probably isn't universally true (as pointed out in this interesting article), I think having a way to quantify your stress could be useful. I recently read an interesting article about the Holmes-Rahe Life
A colleague approached me with this very important business problem: Every Friday at SAS HQ, SAS cafe staff provides a breakfast goodie in our breakrooms. Often the supplied goodie is delicious, but sometimes it's more...well...healthy. I want to know whether I should eat my breakfast before I leave home on
Asking about the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning reminds me a little of the transition to suitcases with wheels. Do you remember lugging around those old suitcases? If not, good for you - this original advertisement from US Luggage will take you back! Thank Bernard Sadow for persistence with his
Data monetization, at its simplest, is the process of turning data into bottom-line value for a company -- often through improving efficiency and/or customer experience, and building customer loyalty as a result. This may sound simple, but in practice, it’s anything but. Good data, advanced analytics and real-time decision making
Machine learning applications for NBA coaches and players might seem like an odd choice for me to write about. Let us get something out of the way: I don’t know much about basketball. Or baseball. Or even soccer, much to the chagrin of my friends back home in Europe. However,
Where is solar and wind power generated in the US? Let's visualize this data on a map... I recently saw the following map on the metricmaps.org website. It caught my attention because it looks like North Carolina has a lot of solar power plants, whereas our neighboring states have very few.
Da immer mehr unserer Kunden erwägen, ihre Daten in die Cloud auszulagern, möchten wir uns hier mit einigen der wichtigsten Fragen im Zusammenhang mit dem Datenschutz auseinandersetzen.
If your enterprise is working with Hadoop, MongoDB or other nontraditional databases, then you need to evaluate your data strategy. A data strategy must adapt to current data trends based on business requirements. So am I still the clean-up woman? The answer is YES! I still work on the quality of the data.
A common question is "how do I compute a bootstrap confidence interval in SAS?" As a reminder, the bootstrap method consists of the following steps: Compute the statistic of interest for the original data Resample B times from the data to form B bootstrap samples. How you resample depends on
Announcing New Book by Charlie Chase: Next-Generation Demand Management My colleague Charlie Chase has just published his latest book, Next-Generation Demand Management. It is available August 29, and can be pre-ordered now on amazon.com. It will also be available for purchase at the SAS Bookstore, along with Charlie's other books:
I ran across a map recently that seemed to show a lot of US states are primarily coal-powered. The map was a little difficult to read, so I decided to give it a SAS makeover ... Before we get started, here's a picture my friend David took of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power
The demand for data preparation solutions is at an all-time high, and it's primarily driven by the demand for self-service analytics. Ten years ago, if you were a business leader that wanted to get more in-depth information on a particular KPI, you would typically issue a reporting request to IT
SAS formats are flexible, dynamic, and have many uses. For example, you can use formats to count missing values and to change the order of a categorical variable in a table or plot. Did you know that you can also use SAS formats to recode a variable or to bin
There has been much discussion about the relationship between data science and artificial intelligence. It can become a complicated dance when applied data science is partnered with emerging artificial intelligence technologies. Who takes the lead? How do we keep the beat? Can we make sure neither party steps on the
The term Data Scientist is in vogue right now. Let’s explore Data Science, what key skills make a data scientist and how SAS’ Academy of Data Science may help advance your career. The term "data science" (originally used interchangeably with "datalogy") has existed for over thirty years and was used
How is it that 91% of the US didn't vote for either Hillary or Trump in the primary, but yet they're still the final two candidates in the presidential election? Let's break it down with a simple graph! I recently saw a really cool slideshow on the nytimes website, that answered
The digital disruption is creating unforeseen events, such as new competitors, products and services that threaten the performance and positioning of consolidated players. Big data and analytics prove themselves, through successful user cases, as the answer to intercept the demand, prevent churn, draw an integrated view of the customer, manage
Multi-echelon inventory optimization is ever more a requirement in this era of globalization, which is both a boon and bane for manufacturing companies. Optimizing pricing is also important. Global reach allows these companies to expand to new territories but at the same time increases the competition on their home turf.
Every grocery store must be laser focused on those things that maintain a competitive edge in this saturated market. In Bedford, NH, with a population around 21,000, there are six grocery stores and two mass merchants who sell groceries. If Bedford is like the national average, these food retailers are
.@philsimon channels his inner Queen Latifa.
I usually try to avoid political or religious debates ... but as an impartial data analyst, it is possible to analyze data about something, without entering into the debate. In this blog post, I try to walk that fine line, and analyze data about the political leanings of religious groups in the US.
Any subject matter expert (SME) who has written test questions will tell you it is a lot harder and much more time consuming than they initially expected. Many believe they can simply write down any topic-related question that pops in their mind. Easy, right? Not so fast. Questions should be
Data access and data privacy are often fundamentally at odds with each other. Organizations want unfettered access to the data describing customers. Meanwhile, customers want their data – especially their personally identifiable information – to remain as private as possible. Organizations need to protect data privacy by only granting data access to authorized
