ETL and data warehouses are dead! Long live ETL and data warehouses!
Why they will still play a valuable role in organizational data-management and -integration efforts.
Uncategorized
Approachable Analytics – das E-Bike fürs Business
Ist Ihnen das auch schon mal passiert? Sie radeln mit Ihrem Fahrrad zügig durch Gegend, und plötzlich werden Sie scheinbar mühelos von einem anderen Radfahrer überholt. Keuchend sehen Sie dem anderen hinterher und wundern sich über die unglaubliche Fitness des vermeintlich untrainierten oder älter aussehenden Rasers. Erst auf den zweiten
What you need to know about programmatic advertising
Once upon a time, the only way to buy and sell advertising inventory was based on the relationship between advertiser and publisher. The exchange was manual, with advertisers paying publishers an agreed-upon price for every impression. The process involved a lot of phone calls, spreadsheets, negotiation and re-negotiation, all of
Hadoop and MDM – Who is the master?
Today, I was in a conversation about using Hadoop (a big data platform) for master data management (MDM). I still find it amazing when we have the discussion of what systems feed another system. Many of our friends have spent years creating MDM for customer, product, etc. with success. I'm a
SAS Author Spotlight: David Dickey
In the spirit of our “40 and forward” theme to celebrate 40 years of SAS, this blog focuses on David Dickey, an accomplished SAS user since 1974 and a SAS instructor since 1981. He actually co-wrote the original Time Series SAS course in 1981, and helped with the most recent
How to visualize a kernel density estimate
A kernel density estimate (KDE) is a nonparametric estimate for the density of a data sample. A KDE can help an analyst determine how to model the data: Does the KDE look like a normal curve? Like a mixture of normals? Is there evidence of outliers in the data? In
Modernisation is the new normal
In my last post, I talked about how to observe the impact of modernisation through a data quality lens. I asked you to consider the quality of your legacy data and what that means on the "shiny new toy" you intend to buy in the future. In this post, I
Do you trust statistics?
One of my favorite quotes is: "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet" - Abe Lincoln, 1868. And that is especially true when it comes to graphs and statistics. Hardly a day goes by without me seeing a bad graph that misrepresents the data (either intentionally or unintentionally) .
Everything you need to know about the new Analytics Experience event
SAS is kicking off a new event Sept. 12-14 in Las Vegas called the Analytics Experience. It’s actually not completely new. In the past, we’ve held our annual Analytics and Premier Business Leadership Series conferences in the fall. But as the industry landscape continues to change – SAS continues to
Are you ready for the Analytics Fast Track? Part I
Ever hear the phrase: "If the mountain won't come to you, you must go to the mountain"? Well, at SAS, we bring the mountain to you. The Analytics Fast Track™ for SAS®, affectionately called “rolling SAS,” is a partner program between SAS and Intel that showcases the incredible performance of
Statistical model building and the SELECT procedures in SAS
Last week I read an interesting paper by Bob Rodriguez: "Statistical Model Building for Large, Complex Data: Five New Directions in SAS/STAT Software." In it, Rodriguez summarizes five modern techniques for building predictive models and highlights recent SAS/STAT procedures that implement those techniques. The paper discusses the following high-performance (HP)
How to publish to a Slack channel with SAS
Slack is a tremendously popular app for team collaboration. At its core, it's an open messaging app that allows team members to communicate with each other in real time. It works well with "startup"-style teamwork, which requires constant communication among people who aren't always located together. I've heard a lot
Getting started with IoT
The Internet of Things (or IoT, as some like to call it) holds a number of benefits for many organizations: revenue growth, smarter decision making and efficiency. Experts are predicting anywhere from 20 to 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020. That’s almost here! Are you
How to use SAS software to capture Pokémon!
With the Pokémon Go craze sweeping the world, techies and programmers are looking to apply their skills to gain an advantage over the average user. In this blog post, I show how to use some of SAS' geospatial analytics capabilities to capture a Pikachu. Let's say you know of a building that has
Jedi SAS Tricks: Explicit SQL Pass-through in DS2
One of the things I’ve come to love most about DS2 is the tight integration with SQL which makes so many data prep chores so much less onerous. An example is DATA program BY group processing. With a traditional DATA step, you must first sort or index the source data
Four DI modernization mistakes
.@philsimon with some recommendations on modernization.
Do you write unnecessary SAS statements?
I'm addicted to you. You're a hard habit to break. Such a hard habit to break. — Chicago, "Hard Habit To Break" Habits are hard to break. For more than 20 years I've been putting semicolons at the end of programming statements in SAS, C/C++, and Java/Javascript. But lately I've been
Putting the US in the EU ... bucking the Brexit trend!
What would it be like if the US was in the EU? I don't know how that would work out politically, but this map shows how it might look geographically (if the US was literally picked up and moved to Europe!) My buddy Rick Langston is a bit of a
Stepping up: The rise of the platform economy
The rapid growth of the digital economy has put it on course to account for 25 percent of the world’s entire economy by 2020. Platform business models represent a large proportion of the overall total but what do we mean by platform? MIT Professor Michael Cusumano defines it as follows:
Modernization and data-driven culture – Part 2
Modernization is a term used to describe the necessary evolution of information technologies that organizations rely on to remain competitive in today’s constantly changing business world. New technologies – many designed to better leverage big data – challenge existing data infrastructures and business models. This forces enterprises to modernize their approach to data
Warum intelligente Maschinen nicht den Menschen ersetzen (Teil 2)
In meinem vorherigen Blogbeitrag zum Thema Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) und Cognitive Computing ging es zunächst darum, den begrifflichen Nebel zu lichten, der sich – wie so oft – um solche Hype-Themen bildet. Am Schluss des Beitrags drängte sich bereits die Frage auf, wie technologische Möglichkeiten und gesellschaftliche Verträglichkeit in Einklang
Color markers in a scatter plot by a third variable in SAS
One of my favorite new features in PROC SGPLOT in SAS 9.4m2 is addition of the COLORRESPONSE= and COLORMODEL= options to the SCATTER statement. By using these options, it is easy to color markers in a scatter plot so that the colors indicate the values of a continuous third variable.
Why IoT deployments need design thinking
Design thinking is, broadly speaking, allowing user experience, or even users, to drive design. It’s a profoundly human-centered process, with commentators using words like ‘collaborate’, ‘experience’, and even ‘empathy’ in their descriptions. Steve Jobs is said to have used it in creating the iPod and iPhone, because it brings together
Pokémon: Gotta graph 'em all!
So, how many different Pokémon have you caught - and more importantly, how many different kinds are still out there that you haven't caught yet? I've created some graphs that might help you figure it out! I think my previous blog post might have irritated some of the hardcore Pokémon players out there
3 ways you can compete in the collaborative economy
Powered in equal parts by data, mobility and innovation, the collaborative economy has changed the way we think about automobiles, travel accommodations, office space, living space – and so much more. When anyone can open an app to borrow money from a crowd, order a gourmet dinner from a neighbor, or rent an
Business Intelligence: una meta que tiene de por medio una nueva cultura en la organización
Los cambios que ocurren hoy en día en las empresas, se deben en gran medida a que vivimos en un mundo hiperconectado, en donde los avances tecnológicos han comenzado a marcar la pauta en las relaciones interpersonales, comerciales, laborales y en prácticamente todos los aspectos de la vida cotidiana. Estos
Data ops: Better way to prepare data for analytics and IoT?
We all find change easier when it starts with something we’re familiar with. That’s why I think sports analytics examples are popular – most of us are sports fans, so we get it more easily. It’s also why automotive examples that illustrate the potential reach of the Internet of Things
Turning your data historian into a futurist
Under-utilized technology creates a drag on an organization. The ability to get more out of the tools you already use can increase the value of an existing investment, and that value grows as processes become more efficient and decisions are based on firmer foundations. Consider the facilities engineer at an
Graphical analysis of all the important Pokémon data!
Are you caught up in the recent Pokémon Go craze? Or maybe just trying to figure out what all the fuss is about? In this blog post, I try to analyze all the important Pokémon-related data in one graph! When the original Pokémon game first came out around 1995, you needed
Build your Pokémon library using SAS and the Pokéapi
Today is #EmbraceYourGeekness day, and you are either reveling in this new crazy town inhabited by Pokémon GO, or you are hiding in your house trying to avoid all of the Pokémon GO zombies wandering around. But since I'm living in SAS these days -- not just the place (at