A SAS user (who lives in the the US) emailed me a question about SAS functions. He was reading UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) datetime values from server logs, and to make future calculations and comparisons easier, he wanted to transform the value to local datetime. The INTNX() function worked great, but
Alan Adams, Senior Director of Customer Analytics at Office Depot, took part in a great panel discussion on integrated marketing management at the 2012 SAS Global Forum Executive Conference along with his colleagues from Seminole Gaming and Best Buy. The session included a short presentation by each panelist, followed by
I recently gave a talk to a group of engineering students at Duke University, located just down the road from our headquarters in North Carolina. A couple of days later, one of the students sent me an email asking a very good question: which skills should I build up to
To a statistician, the DIF function (which was introduced in SAS/IML 9.22) is useful for time series analysis. To a numerical analyst and a statistical programmer, the function has many other uses, including computing finite differences. The DIF function computes the difference between the original vector and a shifted version
Many SAS customers are quickly adopting 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, and they are pleased-as-punch when they find a 64-bit version of SAS to run on it. They waste no time in deploying the new version, only to find that a few things don't work quite the same as they
Robert Allison's SAS/GRAPH: Beyond the Basics collects examples that demonstrate a variety of techniques you can use to create custom graphs using SAS/GRAPH software. To celebrate the book’s publication, we asked Robert to tell us more about why he loves SAS/GRAPH. Here’s what he had to say: A graph is
Last week I introduced this series. Today I begin to dive deeper into each of the four E's. First up? Enforcement. In 2009, there were 5.5 million police-reported traffic crashes. Law enforcement officers work diligently to prevent crashes by enforcing traffic safety laws pertaining to, among other things, seat belt
During the SAS Global Forum this past week, SAS offered several demos on mobile technology including: Michael Hecht, SAS, JMP iPad App Super Demo Chris Hemedinger hosted a Live Tech Talk on Tuesday that covered the new SAS Visual Analytics Explorer with demos on Microsoft Surface and iPad Apps Remember everyone is using mobile devices
To a statistician, the LAG function (which was introduced in SAS/IML 9.22) is useful for time series analysis. To a numerical analyst and a statistical programmer, the function provides a convenient way to compute quantitites that involve adjacent values in any vector. The LAG function is essentially a "shift operator."
Question: What do John Travolta, Gina Davis, and I all have in common? (I mean, besides the obvious fact that we are all awesome dancers.) Answer: We have all had makeup applied by artist Roxie Stice. I was the host for two SAS Tech Talks, which were broadcast via Livestream
A storyboard is a blueprint of drawings/ideas in a specific sequence to illustrate a story. Let’s take the Pixar film Toy Story as an example (I have a two-year-old and admittedly have watched this movie more than the hairs on my head). Before they ever began animating with the design
Unfortunately, my clone attempt didn't work like Chris Hemedinger's did. With all my papers, presentations, and demo hall duties, I realized yesterday that I certainly missed a lot. Included is my to-do list for items to watch and catch up on this weekend. Not really sure how I missed the
Last week's INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research drew over 700 attendees to Huntington Beach, CA. I had the pleasure of serving on the conference selection committee, and wanted to share this content from one of our invited speakers, Kean Chew of HAVI Global Solutions. The Numbers Behind Burgers
There's recently been a lot of discussion and release of products around high-performance analytic architectures and in-memory computing. It seems like every vendor in the BI and analytics realm has jumped on this bandwagon. Is it all the same stuff? Or are there signficant differences? No question in our minds, the
Like Vince said a few days ago, you don’t have to be Goliath to see how the intersection of big data and high performance analytics creates competitive advantage. Let’s also be realistic though: compared to someone like Walmart, pretty much everyone’s David! While Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank may not be the largest companies by global measures, they’re still
Nine Publications colleagues describe their favorite moments of day two at SAS Global Forum. A paper, the SAS authors' dinner, SAS Visual Analytics, eBooks, documentation, attendees, and more made the list. Kathy Council – Vice President, Publications I’ve enjoyed two full days of conference activities and many meet-ups with attendees. Great folks! I
Whether you call it Business Intelligence, Business Analytics, Visual Analytics, etc. - getting information to the users when they need it and make it actionable requires more than just software. BI Content Developers can have a certification but to be successful they really need to have an understanding of human
One of the biggest hits of the demo hall at SAS Global Forum was the cute Koala bear swag from MetaCoda.com. Everyone wanted to stop by the booth and pick one up for their badge. Driving people to your booth is the first step, but then you must have cool
Bill Franks’s new book, Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave: Finding Opportunities in Huge Data Streams with Advanced Analytics, has just released. This book shows how big data is changing the world of analytics; what people, processes, technologies, and mindsets are necessary to succeed in analytics in this new era;
SAS Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence Lori Bieda moderated this panel and introduced the concept of Marketing Optimization as the "Holy Grail" of marketing for the power it holds to enable marketing to fulfill its mandate as driving profitable growth for organizations. Joining her in this session was Stephan Chase,
Resourceful Publications colleagues shared highlights of day one at SAS Global Forum. SAS documentation, Kindle Fire surveys, SAS students, preview copies, and high-performance analytics top the list: Sean Gargan – Director, SAS Publishing Monday morning musing from the Bookstore at SAS Global Forum... I had the good fortune to meet three enterprising
I had the distinct pleasure today to hear Guy Kawasaki deliver a keynote address at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference 2012. I thought of his engaging address as a nice guide for personal effectiveness, particularly in a professional realm. And my main takeaway from yesterday's keynote address by Joe
How can you go home on time? Take a quick tour with these 5 tips that I was able to summarize for my students in the SAS SQL 1: Essentials class yesterday. Since they found it handy and asked if it could become a blog post, I thought I’d share
So far in our journey of the best practices for information management, reporting and analytics, we have learned about the importance of securing executive sponsorship, having a solid understanding of stakeholders needs and integrating all the data needed to make this happen. Now that stakeholders realize that you know their
My friend and fellow blogger Steve Overton was tasked with presenting not one by two papers in a single one hour block. My original strategy was to take Instagram pictures of him running down the hall to get to the second session on time, but since both were in the
The April 2012 issue of ORMS Today contains a piece on "How analytics enhance the guest experience at Walt Disney World," by Pete Buczkowski and Hai Chu. While many of us are used to forecasting just one or two things (such as unit sales or revenue), Pete and Hai illustrate
I just saw the legendary NFL quarterback Joe Theismann deliver his keynote address today at SAS Global Forum 2012, and as expected, he provided us with vivid anecdotes and recollections from his experiences both as a championship athlete and as a businessman. By delivering an engaging mix of humor, lessons learned
Ron Cody is the author of several bestselling SAS books, including his latest SAS Statistics by Example. He's also one of the most highly regarded SAS experts anywhere. One could even make the case that Ron has achieved somewhat of a cult status within the SAS user community. Whether you've gotten a chance to meet Ron
As a marketer at SAS, there are few better moments than being at SAS Global Forum, happening right now at Walt Disney Dolphin Resort and the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, FL. It's like an annual family reunion of SAS users from around the world, all coming together to reconnect,
We already miss you and wish you could be here. WAIT! Don't cry in your office! There are so many ways to stay connected to the SAS Global Forum happenings this year. If you are not able to attend in person, here is a list of sites that you can
