Recently I had the privilege of hearing Nathan Falkenborg, Head of Consulting & Analytics, North Asia at Visa speak at the SAS Executive Forum in Singapore. Nathan has also spoken at SAS Premier Business Leadership Series where he talked about how the analytics guy won over the marketers at Visa.
As we enter the era of “everything connected,” we cannot forget that gathering data is not enough. We need to process that data to gain new knowledge and build our competitive advantage. The Internet of Things is not just a consumer thing – it also makes our businesses more intelligent. Whenever
The cottage industry was based on workers buying raw materials, bringing them home and producing hand-crafted items to sell. The system worked, but was slow, tedious and expensive, producing goods that were affordable only by the rich. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. The factory system brought machines and workers
After acquiring personal IoT data in part 1 and cleaning it up in part 2 of this series, we are now ready to explore the data with SAS Visual Analytics. Let's see which answers we can find with the help of data visualization and analytics! I followed the general exploratory workflow
We have spent a good deal of time at the Analytic Hospitality Executive advocating for the value of big data for hospitality. Just a few months ago, for example, I wrote a two part series on how Big Data was a “big opportunity” for hotels and casinos. Our goal at
.@philsimon says that you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight.
The XLSX libname engine in SAS allows you to read and write Microsoft Excel files in the same way that you can work with other data sets and databases. This article describes the basic (and some limitations) of the XLSX engine.
(Otherwise known as Truncate – Load – Analyze – Repeat!) After you’ve prepared data for analysis and then analyzed it, how do you complete this process again? And again? And again? Most analytical applications are created to truncate the prior data, load new data for analysis, analyze it and repeat
Well OK, so there is an "i" in science, but being a data scientist is certainly not a lonesome job. Engagement with other team members is essential with data analytics work, so you never really work in isolation. Without the rest of the team, we would fail to ask all
This SAS tip is from Robert Virgile and his book “SAS Macro Language Magic: Discovering Advanced Techniques”. We hope you find this tip useful. You can also read an excerpt from Virgile’s book. When CALL SYMPUT creates a new macro variable, it places that variable in “the closest non-empty symbol
Event stream processing (ESP) and real-time processing (RTP) so often come up in the same conversation that it begs the question if they are one and the same. The short answer is yes and/or no. But since I don’t need the other kind of ESP to know that you won’t
The Two-Bin Inventory Control System So what is a two-bin inventory control system? Whether you realize it or not, you are probably very familiar with the concept. In fact, if you are reading this on a tablet or smartphone, you may be sitting next to one right now (see photo). According to
When I was an undergraduate physic major, my favorite professor would start each class with a joke or pun. One day he began class with a paraphrase of a famous quote from the movie Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (the one with the whales). "Today," my professor said, imitating
As discussed in the last BFD post, sometimes a difficult and expensive problem doesn't have to be solved -- it can simply be avoided. When the teetering boulder threatened the baby below the cliff, we removed the baby and no longer had to worry about propping up the boulder. When it
Mount St. Helens volcano here in the US had a big eruption 35 years ago this week! Do you know exactly where it is located? Perhaps this SAS map can help... As you might have guessed, I'm a big fan of the awesome power of nature (hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, earthquakes, and
We often hear questions like: Are the shared service chargebacks to my business units’ cost centers accurate and transparent? Will I save any money by using a centralized shared service? Why should I consider a centralized shared service? These are all good questions. To answer them, you need to understand
You are going to be spending proportionately more of your IT budget on security than you have previously spent or ever wanted to spend. Why? Because you and everyone else on this planet is engaged in the still early stages of an escalating information arms race, that, while you didn’t
In 1988 President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May as National Foster Care Month as a way to recognize foster parents for opening their homes to and caring for children in need. This annual celebration has grown to generate awareness of foster care and a recognition of all involved. The children, foster
What sends a data management product to the top of the “hot” list? In a word – speed. Especially when that speed can gracefully accommodate the huge world of streaming data from the Internet of Things. One of SAS’ hottest (and recently enhanced) products, SAS Event Stream Processing is an
It seems like everyone is searching for ‘best practice’ these days. We are constantly looking to learn from what is being held up as good, leading and perhaps even the best itself. While this is a valid exercise, I believe we are missing an opportunity to take a closer look
According to Time Magazine, the next Ebola outbreak will cost the World Bank in excess of $30 billion dollars. In 2014, America spent in excess of $1.16 million dollars to treat two victims of the dreaded disease. While Ebola and other microorganisms of the deadly variety are scary creatures there
Dataset too big for PROC PRINT? One weird trick solves your problem! proc print data=bigdata (obs=10); run; The OBS= dataset option specifies the last observation to process from an input dataset. In the above example, regardless of dataset size, only the first 10 observations are printed; an easy way to
North Carolina is a state that requires yearly inspections of motor vehicles. An inspection checks for safety features (lights, brakes, tires,....) as well as checking vehicle emissions to ensure that vehicles meet air pollution standards. I recently had a car inspected and noticed a pie chart on the inspection's summary
Nun ist es schon wieder vorbei, das SAS Forum Switzerland 2015. Es war in vielerlei Hinsicht erfolgreich und hielt viele Neuerungen bereit. Die auffälligste war natürlich die neue Event-Location, das Marriott Hotel in Zürich. Nicht jeder fand die neue Lokation besser als die alte (das Trafo in Baden), aber unter
Es macht sich ein neues Berufsbild breit: Das des Data Scientisten. Auf dem weiten Feld von Big Data Analytics sind sie die Übersetzer zwischen den Fachanwendern und den Statistikern. Wo aber steht das Multitalent innerhalb eines Unternehmens und wie kommuniziert dieses mit seinen Kollegen - Feind oder Freund?
Many of our authors often ask us where they can find real data that they can use without copyright or other confidentiality issues. Instructors too are always on the look-out for real-life data. Well, thanks to a new initiative supported by SAS, you can now access data from more than
As a kid, I was always intrigued with UFO sightings and I guess I'm still a little that way ... therefore how could I not jump at the opportunity to explore some UFO sightings data! I guess "UFO" doesn't necessarily imply that something is an alien space ship - just
The gaming business moves fast. Casinos serve a multitude of entertainment options to thousands of patrons 24 hours a day, a pace that results in a myriad of interaction points with their patrons. Competition in this service industry is fierce. If patrons at a casino do not feel that
Do you “buy and build as you go” with your analytics architecture? Most companies do, and have for decades. The result is a heterogeneous environment for analytics with a variety of hardware, software, databases and analytical applications used in silos. There’s tremendous duplication of data and inconsistency in the analytical
Ein nüchternes Geschäft ist die Datenanalyse allemal, ob in Wirtschaft oder Wissenschaft. Deshalb sollen bunte Bilder immer dem besseren Verständnis dienen, zur schnelleren Wiedererkennung oder dem höheren Unterhaltungswert. Mit bunten Bildern meine ich "nüchterne" Grafiken oder wie auch immer man sie vielleicht bei ihren speziellen Fachbegriffen nennen mag - Ladespaß
