I’ve written about using text analytics to capture comprehend and act on the voice of the customer on this blog before. Recently, I recorded a short presentation that outlines how text analytics provides insight from all of the customer experience data that you collect, not just review data from social
After attending the SAS Day at Texas A&M University on Oct. 2, I came away with a new perspective on some of the different educational offerings to help fill the analytic talent gap (which according to studies and research continues to grow). In essence, there is a yin and yang of
What age women do men prefer on dating websites? - Let's have a look at the data... When I first started using computers in the early 80s, I thought it would be great to have everyone take a survey, and then let computers show you who your best matches were.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. --Mark Twain In the popular Cryptoquote puzzle, you are presented with an enciphered version of a quote by a famous person. One of the appeals of the puzzle for me is reading the deciphered quote, such
On Thursday, October 30, 11 am ET, Aris Syntetos delivers the next installment of the Foresight/SAS Webinar Series, "Forecasting by Temporal Aggregation." Based on his article in the Summer 2014 issue of Foresight, Aris provided this preview: When we attempt to improve forecast performance we usually consider new or alternative forecasting
Today’s self-parking cars are a marvel, but that’s nothing compared to what’s just around the corner: Autonomous vehicles that can taxi you efficiently around a city, onboard navigation systems that warn of bad drivers or traffic jams nearby and offer safer, quicker alternative routes; trucks that haul commerce safely and
On Wednesday, October 15, Ed and I will be spending the morning at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It’s a great museum, and I always love going there, but that day holds an especially cool event. It’s called the STEM Career Showcase for Students with Disabilities. (If you
Imagine being able to get into your car and say “Take me to work.” Then, it automatically drives as you read the morning paper. We’re not there yet. But we’re closer than you think. Google has already developed a prototype for a driverless car in the U.S. Driverless cars are
Depending on whether you are a half-full or a half-empty kind of person, the "big data" revolution is either a tremendous windfall for the career of a statistician, or the makings of a real existential crisis. As with most things, it’s probably a bit of both. On the one hand,
My favorite dog trick is the group hug. This is achieved by taking a dog's bad habit (rising up on strangers who don't really want a 70# dog rising up on them), and "flipping it" into something cute and adorable. It's all a matter of controlling perception, and that is
Next week I will be presenting at the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit on big data and revenue management. In preparation for the Summit, I have recorded a short presentation that outlines how big data can help augment revenue management. Alex Dietz talks about how big data can help revenue management.
You might assume that a battle-tested businessman with a gruff exterior and a taste for salty language lacks an inner child, but you’d be wrong. Exhibit A is this little-known fact: I have a soft spot for animated Disney movies. Now, I could try to bluff a bit and say
I wrote “Business Transformation” to guide leaders through a journey to transform their organizations. I included methodologies and examples gathered throughout my 29-year consulting career to assist them. Every executive and leader focuses on how to use resources to produce value. Of course, value can be defined in many terms
In the last 5 years, the buzzword "big data" has spread like wildfire. One could argue big data had been around prior, but during this time media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and C-level executives started to take a keen interest in this topic. No longer a problem
“Correlation does not imply causation” is a saying commonly heard in science and statistics emphasizing that a correlation between two variables does not necessarily imply that one variable causes the other. One example of this is the relationship between rain and umbrellas. People buy more umbrellas when it rains. This
Since my opening blog post about our new partnership with British Rowing and the GB Rowing Team, I’ve had a deep dive into their data, and we’re now close to our first key milestone – having all the data about a rower in a single location, so we can then
SAS/IML 13.1 includes a handy function for programmers who write a lot of modules. The PARENTNAME function obtains the name of the symbol that was passed in as a parameter to a user-defined module. How is this useful? Well, suppose that you want to create a SAS/IML module that prints
SAS has been developing "secret sauce" technology for more than 38 years. Whether it has to do with being platform independent, processing in-database, running across a grid, or analyzing data in-memory like our SAS LASR Analytic Server or our High Performance Analytics offerings, secret sauce makes everything taste or, in
Do you order things online, to avoid paying sales tax? Those "good old days" might be coming to an end soon... Here's a snapshot of my latest purchase from Amazon.com (a little something for the Talk Like a Pirate party I had on Sept 19): In the US, each of
At most banks, data is stored in separate databases and data warehouses. Customer data is stored in marketing databases, fraud analyses are done on transactional data, and risk data is stored in risk data warehouses. Oftentimes even liquidity, credit, market, and operational risk data is stored separately as well. Bringing
Part 1: The challenge and the opportunity Mental illness continues to profoundly affect the nation’s population and, for the most part, remains greatly under analyzed. This is the first entry in a series about the mental health problem in the US, and how an analytic approach can improve care for
It’s no secret that SAS is a constant among Best Places to Work lists all over the world. But, what many may not realize is the connection between creating a company employees want to work for, and creating a company customers want to work with.
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) started out with big aspirations. As initially conceived, S&OP was to cover the entire domain now called Integrated Business Planning (IBP). As S&OP process implementations rolled out during the 1980’s, this broad scope turned out to be a bit much to attempt in one bite. S&OP
Next week Breffni Noone, Associate Professor, The Pennsylvania State University and I will be hosting a discussion at the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit on how user generated content impacts the purchase choices of the unmanaged business traveler. The discussion will take place on Monday October 13 at 2:15pm in Statler 396.
In the first installment of this series on Hadoop, I shared a little of Hadoop's genesis, framing it within four phases of connectivity that we are moving through. I also stated my belief that Hadoop has already arrived in the mainstream, and we are currently moving from phases three of connecting people to phase four
In response to my recent post about how to use the PALETTE function in SAS/IML to generate color ramps, a reader wrote the following: The PALETTE function returns an array of hexadecimal values such as CXF03B20. For those of us who think about colors as RGB values, is there an
One of the hottest trends today in the business intelligence and analytics spaces is “self-service.” The word self-service is thrown around lightly in many situations and often carries different expectations for different people and organizations. Before we go into the details of self-service analytics it is important to have a
When I visit with customers or potential clients, they often ask, "Where do I start in order to get a handle on my supply chain?" There is no clear and concise answer, but I usually say "Follow the inventory!" Inventory is a result of decisions made. It is not the
Is the type of car you drive more likely, or less likely, to get a speeding ticket? Let's analyze some data to find out! Do red cars attract more attention from the police, and get more tickets? How about cars with a 'racing stripe'? Or cars with a big chromed motor,
