Q: Do you think the forecaster should distribute forecast accuracy to stakeholders (e.g. to show how good/bad the forecast is) or do you think this will confuse stakeholders? A: This just depends what is meant by stakeholders. And what is meant by forecast accuracy. If stakeholders means those people who
I enjoy blogging about new functionality in the SAS/IML language because I can go into more depth and provide more complicated examples than the SAS/IML documentation. Today's article is a summary of all of my posts about features that were added to SAS/IML 12.1, which shipped in August 2012 as
When you hear of a Scatter Plot or a Series Plot, you have a picture in your mind what we are talking about. But one of the plot statements available in GTL, and soon with SGPLOT, is the BLOCK plot. I am sure this leaves many users scratching their heads, wondering
In a pair of articles published in Foresight, and in his SAS/Foresight webinar "Avoidability of Forecast Error" last November, Steve Morlidge of CatchBull laid out a compelling new approach on the subject of "forecastability." It is generally agreed that the naive model (i.e. random walk or "no change" model) provides
In this tutorial video, you will learn to print a simple listing with Base SAS. You see how to write a PRINT procedure step to display a SAS data set. You also see how to use statements and options to subset observations and variables and enhance the report. Learn
Yesterday I blogged about the Hilbert matrix. The (i,j)th element of the Hilbert matrix has the value 1 / (i+j-1), which is the reciprocal of an integer. However, the printed Hilbert matrix did not look exactly like the formula because the elements print as finite-precision decimals. For example, the last
So far in this Ask the Statistician series, we heard statisticians at the Analytics 2013 conference discuss the benefits of statistical analysis, the types of statistical techniques they use to solve their business problems and how they share their statistical results with non-technical audiences that need to use this information. So, the next step
We sometimes describe the potential of big data analytics as letting the data tell its story, casting the data scientist as storyteller. While the journalist has long been a newscaster, in recent years the term data-driven journalism has been adopted to describe the process of using big data analytics to
The Hilbert matrix is the most famous ill-conditioned matrix in numerical linear algebra. It is often used in matrix computations to illustrate problems that arise when you compute with ill-conditioned matrices. The Hilbert matrix is symmetric and positive definite, properties that are often associated with "nice" and "tame" matrices. The
The volume is being turned up on the Control Tower approach to running a business; I have recently been introduced to logistics control towers, supply chain control towers and operations control towers just for starters. I’m sure there must be at least a half dozen more out there – pick
I enjoy reading the Graphically Speaking blog because it teaches me a lot about ODS statistical graphics, especially features of the SGPLOT procedure and the Graph Template Language (GTL). Yesterday Sanjay blogged about how to construct a stacked bar chart of percentages so that each bar represents 100%. His chart
With all the changes the Affordable Care Act brings, including new care and payment models, there is an increase in provider’s need for data. While some large health systems are able to learn much about a patient’s full course of treatment by integrating their systems, the majority of health care
Principle 1: Governance – A bank’s risk data aggregation capabilities and risk reporting practices should be subject to strong governance arrangements consistent with other principles and guidance established by the Basel Committee. My colleagues and I have written a series of posts on the principles of BCBS 239. In this
Did you know that SAS/IML 12.1 provides built-in functions that compute the norm of a vector or matrix? A vector norm enables you to compute the length of a vector or the distance between two vectors in SAS. Matrix norms are used in numerical linear algebra to estimate the condition
SAS Global Forum 2014 was a ton of fun, and extremely busy for yours truly. If you wonder how I spent my time at the conference, you need only to visit the on-demand video archive and see how many of the various sessions feature my shiny head. In most of
Are you wondering what to do next with your analytics program? The latest issue of sascom magazine provides a handy guide. Check it out to get help checking off must-do items like these: Establish an analytics center of excellence. Find out how SunTrust centralized all of the bank’s analytics teams –
The Output Delivery System (ODS) is a very large topic and it can sometimes be difficult to find out if something is even possible from the reference documentation. My new book ODS Techniques: Tips for Enhancing Your SAS Output takes a cookbook approach to various areas in ODS and introduces
This SAS tutorial video will show you how to create a new variable with Base SAS. During the step-by-step video, you will see exactly how to create and modify numeric and character variables using assignment statements in a DATA step. Watch and learn… To learn more about the steps in
At the time this blog entry was written, there still appears to be little to no signs of locating the missing Malaysian flight MH370. The area of search, although already narrowed down from the size of the United States at one point to the size of Poland, is still vast
While at SAS Global Forum 2014 I attended a talk by Jorge G. Morel on the analysis of data with overdispersion. (His slides are available, along with a video of his presentation.) The Wikipedia defines overdispersion as "greater variability than expected from a simple model." For count data, the "simple
The Competitive Intelligence Unit (CIU) ha detectado un foco rojo para las empresas de telefonía: la tasa de desconexión en México (el número de usuarios que cancelaron la suscripción a los servicios de telecomunicaciones móviles o migraron hacia otro proveedor) fue de 3.54 por ciento, ante esta llamada de atención
After just returning home from the greatest SAS conference on earth, I wanted to share a few highlights from the 2014 SAS Global Forum (SASGF) conference, where more than 4,500 attendees from every corner of the globe took part in a multi-day SAS-fest. For four days, from sun-up to well
Judging by the headlines like “Big Data Sparks Corporate Turf Fights” and “5 Things CFOs Hate About IT,” you might think that every IT organization is at odds with the company’s business leaders. But let me ask you, does this look like a group of people at odds with one
Sometimes you have to get small to win big. SAS Data Management breaks solution capabilities into smaller chunks – and deploys services as needed – to help customers reduce their total cost of ownership. SAS Master Data Management (MDM) is also a pioneer in "phased MDM." It's built on top of a data
Interestingly, the Basel Committee’s Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting (otherwise known as BCBS 239) begins with a quote from T.S. Elliot’s The Rock: Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In this age of big
When spontaneous applause broke out during Dr. Jim Goodnight's presentation at the opening session of SAS Global Forum 2014, I was one of the people cheering the loudest. The SAS CEO had just announced free software for students and professors at universities around the world. The SAS University Edition will
Engaging the sales force in forecasting sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Compared to everyone else in the organization, don't sales people have the closest contact with our customers? Therefore, shouldn't they know better than anyone else our customers' future behavior? There are at least three problems with assuming
SAS Global Forum 2014 was a great success, with the SAS Studio, a web based SAS interface garnering a lot of attention. SAS also announced the availability of SAS Analytics U, providing free web based access to SAS analytics for students, faculty and researchers. The conference had multiple paper and Super demos on data
This week's SAS tip is from superstar author Ron Cody and his very popular book SAS Statistics by Example. Ron has been using SAS (and writing about SAS) for a long time. And he communicates his vast expertise in a friendly, easy-to-understand manner. If you've used any of Ron's books, I'm sure you'll agree. The following
The Google Flu Trends application has received negative press since 2013 over its inability to accurately detect flu outbreaks. The latest critique, “The Parable of Google Flu: Traps in Big Data Analysis,” from Science magazine compares Google Flu Trends data to CDC data and dissects where the Google analysis went
