As previously mentioned, I am at DMA:2011 in Boston with David Meerman Scott and he was the featured guest at our executive dinner this evening. We invited marketing executives attending this conference to have dinner with the best-selling author, who will also present in the Thought Leadership Series tomorrow at
On the SAS Dummy blog, I often receive questions that smack of homework assignments. After all, SAS programming is taught in universities (and even high schools) around the world. So I didn't consider it unusual when I received this question recently: Write a short DATA _NULL_ step to determine the
Birds migrate south in the fall. Squirrels gather nuts. Humans also have behavioral rituals in the autumn. I change the batteries in my smoke detectors, I switch my clocks back to daylight standard time, and I turn the mattress on my bed. The first two are relatively easy. There's even
SAS superstar Rick Wicklin and his book Statistical Programming with SAS/IML Software inspired this week’s SAS author’s tip. Besides earning stellar reviews from SAS users, Rick is one of those highly productive people who stands out in whatever role he’s undertaking—from senior research statistician developer at SAS to developer of
Webinar October 4, 1:10 pm ET: What is Your Product Forecastability??? Thanks to Rich Gendon and the Chicago APICS chapter for hosting me last week at their professional development dinner meeting. I always enjoy evening speaking gigs, as they provide a chance to break out some of my nightclub-worthy material.
Every six months or so I try to find a recent picture that captures who I am and what I am feeling. Loading this into my various social/online profiles in Twitter, SAS Community, Forums, LinkedIn, corporate internal, Facebook etc then take me a bit of time to implement. Wouldn't it
I previously wrote about an intriguing math puzzle that involves 5-digit numbers with certain properties. This post presents my solution in the SAS/IML language. It is easy to generate all 5-digit perfect squares, but the remainder of the problem involves looking at the digits of the squares. For this reason,
Wondering about Bloom and what he has to do with SAS programming. For any learner, he is someone to respect. For anyone wishing to learn more about the levels of the learning process, this is the master. Bloom classified cognitive, a big word for thinking skills, into 6 broad categories.
Filed under "Little changes that you probably didn't notice". When Microsoft introduced Windows 7 to the desktop, one of the many usability features that they added were "Jump Lists". Jump Lists serve as a sort of shortcut to not just open an application, but "jump right in" to a particular
I've had the pleasure of working with Ron Cody for a number of years and I’ve always been amazed by Ron’s enthusiasm for just about everything he does, from Geocaching, scuba diving, cooking, playing the piano, biking, traveling the world, teaching SAS classes, and writing SAS Press books! He’s quite a prolific
There is a great opportunity for marketers coming up at DMA:2011 to learn about how customer analytics help marketing fulfill its mandate as a driver of profitable revenue growth. SAS will present a DMA:2011 Preconference Intensive Session on Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2, titled Customer Intelligence & Analytics. There will be four parts that
With the publication of the Demos think piece on the importance of open data for the UK government to effectively engage with its citizens, I wanted to raise the question: How will this data be used effectively? While the UK government should be congratulated on the steps that it is currently
A few sharp-eyed readers questioned the validity of a technique that I used to demonstrate two ways to solve linear systems of equations. I generated a random n x n matrix and then proceeded to invert it, seemingly without worrying about whether the matrix even has an inverse! I responded to the
Private sector vendors/suppliers seeking to conduct business with government often find frustration with the maze of policy and legislative hurdles encountered during the procurement process. As difficult as the experience may have been from the private sector perspective, take a moment to look at the other side of the procurement
I was intrigued by a math puzzle posted to the SAS Discussion Forum (from New Scientist magazine). The problem is repeated below, but I have added numbers in brackets because I am going to comment on each clue: [1] I have written down three different 5-digit perfect squares, which [2]
Tomorrow I was going to go visit one of our insurance clients. I was really looking forward to the meeting – a chance to share experiences with a strategic analytic team. Unfortunately, I got an e-mail from the team’s administrative assistant: “I’m sorry, but so-and-so needs to cancel. An important
For marketers with a lengthy, complex sales cycle, it is still imperative to engage a potential buyer as quickly as possible with relevant information. In an online world, tools like “click to chat” help with those willing to engage with vendors. In handling the volume of interactions of those who are not yet ready to
Today, I came across this article that discusses how software users rarely change the settings in the applications that they use. Users assume that the software vendor sets the default values as they are for a reason, and who are they to set them otherwise? I'm a software developer (and
I showed a SAS/IML customer a debugging tip, and she said that I should blog about it because she had never seen it before. The tip is very simple: inside of a DO loop, use the MOD function to selectively print the values of variables. Recall that the expression MOD(a,b)
One of of my favorite reviewer quotes about Michele Burlew's book SAS Macro Programming Made Easy, Second Edition is" [ It ] helps eliminate the 'fear factor' often associated with using macros, while offering valuable insight to programmers with a broad range of experience." --Suson vonLehmden, RTI International I've worked with Michele Burlew
Australian merino wool sweaters, Russian watches, Swiss chocolate, Chinese silk blouses, Canadian country music, American sweatshirts, English knitting patterns, Californian pistachios, French muesli, Egyptian bracelets, Scottish kilts, the list goes on. Was I born in a king’s family? Not really, much as I’d like to think of my dad as
Over my 32 year career in local government as a city and county manager I was faced with many difficult decisions during budget deliberations. Setting tax and utility rates, adding head count, determining compensation and benefits, calculating the appropriate mix of debt and cash for funding capital projects…these were all
In my previous post, I blogged about how to sample from a finite mixture distribution. I showed how to simulate variables from populations that are composed of two or more subpopulations. Modeling a response variable as a mixture distribution is an active area of statistics, as judged by many talks
A recent post on the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) site, Analytics Conferences Gone Wild!, is*not* about how statisticians are sexy. Yes, I'm recalling that memorable quote in the August 2009 NY Times story, "For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics,” which included the following quote: “I keep saying that
Back in May I blogged about a QR code survey SAS Publishing conducted at SAS Global Forum. We wanted to know what you'd expect to see if you scanned a QR code located on the back of a SAS Press title. Due to the relative unfamiliarity with QR codes (as
If you would like to link users to a specific section within a Web Report Studio report, there is a quick way to generate the URL. Just send yourself an email from Web Report Studio. A parameter &rsTS is included in the link which corresponds to the specific section selected.
SAS programming is taught in schools all over the world, including in high schools. Occasionally, I receive questions via my blog such as this one: Can somebody help me on this? Write a short DATA _NULL_ step to determine the largest integer you can store on your computer in 3,
Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. -Yogi Berra As Moneyball hits theaters on September 23, I know awareness and appreciation for analytics will spike. The thought of the little guy being able to outmaneuver their stronger, better equipped opponent resonates with many people and relates
Recently I had the privilege to attend two customer events hosted at SAS’ new Executive Briefing Center. The first was a two-day SAS anti-money laundering (AML) customer connections workgroup which was then followed by the 7th Annual Terrorism Financing and Money Laundering Forum. Some of you may be thinking, “Isn’t anti-money
The instinctive answer to this question is “Yes, obviously they do”. But as a marketer the obvious answer is not enough. Yes they do, but what does that look like in practice, and how does this affect the way I should approach my marketing. This is the question that has
