I believe most people become overwhelmed when considering the data that can be created during event processing. Number one, it is A LOT of data – and number two, the data needs real-time analysis. For the past few years, most of us have been analyzing data after we collected it,
You've probably heard many times about the fantastic untapped potential of combining online and offline customer data. But relax, I’m going to cut out the fluff and address this matter in a way that makes the idea plausible and its objectives achievable. The reality is that while much has been
The SGPLOT procedures includes features to add annotations to your graph in many different ways. Annotations provide you a flexible way to add features to your graph that are not available through the standard plot statements. Recently, I saw this graph on the web that caught my attention. Clearly, this looks like
When reading a text file (common extensions: TXT, DAT; or, for the adventurous: HTML) with the DATA STEP, you should always view several lines from the text file, and compare to the record layout, before completing the INPUT statement. There are many ways to view a text file. I use
I still remember the first time I was asked to "consult" on a statistical problem. A former physics professor had some students who had gathered data that should lie along an arc of a theoretical circle. The professor asked if there was a regression technique that could find the center
Have you heard of Meskimen’s Law? It states the following: “There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over.” If you work in software development you’ve probably come across colleagues who seem too ready to apply this law in the realm of software quality.
I am noticing a trend. At the ASSA meetings in January (where economics, sociology and finance academics and practitioners gather to discuss their research) I was surprised to see how much “machine learning” was trending with economists. The session “Machine Learning Methods in Economics and Econometrics,” with papers by Susan
My previous blog was about popular first names ... now for a blog about popular surnames (ie, last/family names)! But before we get started, here's a little pop-quiz - what country is my friend Mr. Foley's surname from?
According to recent studies on big data readiness, the majority of companies (more than 60 percent in the latest study of Crisp Research) are not prepared for the challenges of digital transformation. In fact, 58 percent of decision makers surveyed say they have no strategy in place. The quest for
Your customers are more demanding than ever before. Improving field quality and your customer's experience of your product is essential to staying competitive. However, truly understanding customer experience can be a daunting task. These recommendations have been refined and proven in dozens of manufacturers as simple ways to rapidly improve field quality performance. 1. Think big; start small.
In my last two posts, I introduced some opportunities that arise from integrating event stream processing (ESP) within the nodes of a distributed network. We considered one type of deployment that includes the emergent Internet of Things (IoT) model in which there are numerous end nodes that monitor a set of sensors,
Default PROC FREQ output looks like this: Suppose you don't want the two cumulative statistic columns above. No problem. Those can be suppressed with the NOCUM option on the TABLE statement, like this: proc freq data=sashelp.shoes; table product / nocum; run;
The Internet has been around a long time. "Things" have been around even longer. Put the things on the Internet, aka the Internet of Things (IoT), and you get so much hype that IoT is at the top of Gartner's "Peak of Inflated Expectations" – and poised for a fall into the "Trough of
USA Today recently published an article titled 10 retailers take two-thirds of your money. The story highlights the revenue distribution among the Top 100 retailers in the S&P 1500. It was startling to see that such a small number of retail powerhouses take in such a large percentage of consumers’ income.
Alles wird zu Software : Wir hören es derzeit überall - Firmen erfinden sich neu. Ob Automobil, Kraftwerk oder Einzelhändler, alle Geschäftsmodelle sollen sich vom Produkthersteller oder -verteiler, hin zum Services-Geschäft bewegen. Über die USA weiss man ja, dass fast 80% des Bruttosozialproduktes aus den Dienstleistungen kommen. Oftmals weniger bekannt
A couple of years ago, I blogged about the most popular baby names in the US over the past 100 years. This time, I focus on the most recent year, and take it to the state level! But before we get started, here's a picture of my friend Jennifer's daughter,
A couple weeks ago, I completed my third half ironman (a triathlon consisting of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run), and WOW; it was a hard event! I had an awesome race back in October and had high expectations for this race – even
I was reading a statistics book when I encountered a histogram that caught my eye. The histogram looked similar to the one at the left. It contained a normal density estimate overlaid on a histogram, but the height of the density curve seemed too short when compared to the heights
There is a job category unfamiliar to most people that plays a crucial role in the creation of analytics software. Most can surmise that SAS hires software developers with backgrounds in statistics, econometrics, forecasting or operations research to create our analytical software; however, most do not realize there is another
Every year rowers get faster, records are broken, medals are won, but can this trajectory continue? Rowing as a sport lends itself well to data analysis and at the British Rowing Sports Science and Medicine Conference earlier this year I shared some insights the rowing community has gleaned from the
In my previous post, I discussed the similarities, differences and overlap between event stream processing (ESP) and real-time processing (RTP). In this post, I want to highlight three things that need to get real. In other words, three things that should be enhanced with real-time capabilities, whether it’s ESP, RTP or
I guess most of us have a morbid curiosity about how we're going to die ... which is probably why Francis Boscoe's Causes of Death map went viral (no pun intended, of course!). This blog post shows how to create such a map... But first, to lighten up the mood a bit
When the executives in an organisation start evaluating whether or not they should embark on a marketing automation journey, they are obviously going to ask themselves what return they should expect from doing so. Likely to be factored in to the evaluation process are obvious drivers such as reduced acquisition
I recently taught a SAS training course where the students were very engaged. They had so many questions, I could have spent the next month writing helpful blog posts that came from that one class. However, I picked this one question that the class begged for me to share. The
You might have lots of data on lots of customers, but imagine if you could suddenly add in a huge dollop of new, highly informative data that you weren’t able to access before. You could then use analytics to extract some really important insights about these customers, allowing you to
A SAS programmer asked for a list of SAS/IML functions that operate on the columns of an n x p matrix and return a 1 x p row vector of results. The functions that behave this way tend to compute univariate descriptive statistics such as the mean, median, standard deviation, and quantiles. The following
This month we take a fresh analytical view of our hypothetical VirtualOil portfolio by comparing the forward price of WTI (the green line) to the prompt month price (red line). The resulting graphic (chart 1) demonstrates the relative stability of the 48-month forward price in contrast to a very active spot
The analytical lifecycle is iterative and interactive in nature. The process is not a one and done exercise, insurance companies need to continuously evaluate and manage its growing model portfolio. In the last of four articles on the analytical lifecycle, this blog will cover the model management process. Model management
A recent news report shows an unexpected spike in traffic fatalities here in the US in 2015. This got me wondering what the data shows ... for the past 100 years or so... Driving was a lot more dangerous in the early days. If you were in a wreck, you
SAS software is used around the world in some of the most sophisticated ways, like ATM fraud detection and cancer research. But recently, I used it for a practical, and much needed, task -- replacing our break room coffee machine. Now, this is no ordinary coffee machine. It also makes
