The term "analytics" has become so overused that I'm not sure anyone really knows what it means anymore - or at the very least, it means a lot of different things to different people. Sometimes analytics gets blended in with "business analytics" which gets blended in with "business intelligence." What
I am one of those people that frequently walks around with a soundtrack playing inside my head, and during the holidays it usually involves Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole crooning about snow or jingle bells. It might involve grandmas getting run over by reindeer, or the female sensation du
Today I’m highlighting our ten most popular blog entries in 2010. Two takeaways from this list: (1) videos are viewed most, and (2) social media is a topic with a lot of interest. No surprises there, right? At any rate, we are going to work to bring you more video
If outliers could scream, would we be so cavalier about removing them from our history, and excluding them from our statistical forecasting models? Well, maybe we would – if they screamed all the time, and for no good reason. (This sentiment is adapted from my favorite of the many Deep
A few days ago, I wrote a post on the "soul" of analytics - basically the careful balance we need to keep between qualitative and quantitative decision-making. I asked others to post their experiences and perspective, and I was fortunate enough to begin a "dia-blog" with Colonel Jim Markley, Director
It's almost 2011, so let's reflect on the top 11 posts (by number of visits in 2010) on this blog. Not all of these posts were written in 2010; in fact, some of these date back to 2007. But apparently they are oldies and goodies. 1. SAS 9.2 and SAS
Many years ago I served as the program manager for the NC Alternative Fuel Vehicles program. The goal of the program was to promote the usage of various vehicle types that were alternatives to gasoline powered vehicles. One of the main programs in this set of grants was the Clean
A customer phoned up SAS Technical Support the other day with a problem. (Yes, that happens occasionally...) When he ran a certain program through SAS Enterprise Guide, the program didn't seem to complete and no results were returned. Here is a snippet of the program (modified a bit to make
Once upon a time, almost three years ago, before most of us ever heard of Twitter, I was just signing up for the service and starting to follow anyone that I found who might be there talking about SAS. I used Twitter Search and I didn't find a lot. Some
Ever since I got SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, my help is not really helping, meaning, I don’t see a lot of items listed when I type ‘filename’ under Index. As you showed us in class with SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2, I used to see lots of items in the Index.
Google eBooks are like print books, only digital — so they can be discovered, purchased and read on almost any device. You can store your collection of ebooks in the cloud and access them from many different types of devices. Available in the U.S., you can read your Google eBooks
In our SAS Hartford regional office, there is an annual tradition – the holiday breakfast. This will be my first breakfast with my office mates and I’m looking forward to the famous conference room waffles cooked up by a certain insurance account executive. Thinking about those waffles reminded me of
I recently had the pleasure to attend the keynote panel for NCDM, which began with introductory statements by Larry Kimmel, CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. One of his statements really set the tone for the panel and actually for the rest of the show: “Data, customer centricity and accountability
In a number of posts over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been discussing ideas for becoming an analytically driven insurance company. We’ve talked about information strategies, user enablement, collaboration, and now we’re going to talk about growing pains. We recently met with an insurer for a discussion around their
As Chris Hemedinger has written in several of his blog posts, SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 has many more formatting options. I particularily enjoyed the 'CTRL-i' option to reformat SAS code with indents and carriage returns to make my programs even more readable. The 'CTRL-e' and 'CTRL-SHIFT-e' keyboard shortcuts are also
When I wake up early to write my blog, I often wonder, "Is anyone going to read this?" Apparently so. I started writing The DO Loop in September, 2010. Since then, I've posted about 60 entries about statistical programming with SAS/IML software. Since this is a statistical blog, it is
You might be too young to remember Clara Peller. She was the star of a series of fast-food burger commercials in the 1980s, in which she demanded meatier meals by shouting "Where's the beef?" at the pickup counter or drive-through window. Alas, the competitor restaurant meals were afflicted with "Fluffy
Recently I was listening to an NPR (National Public Radio) documentary about the history of cancer and medicine’s evolution in understanding and treating cancer. This was an amazing story. I would venture a guess that nearly everyone who is reading this post has been affected by cancer in one way
This year, SAS joined the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF). Not long ago I had a chance to attend my first CAIF meeting and I was very impressed with what I saw and heard. Fraud continues to be a thorn in the side of the insurance industry. The most recent
When I joined SAS Institute I had no knowledge of SAS. I studied, researched and practiced. The questions I asked would make even the most seasoned programmer blush a beetroot red! Those were an intense nine months—I’ll tell you more in a later post about the learning system at SAS
Every night, I drive right by our favorite grocery store on my way home from work, so I usually call home to see if we need anything. Sometimes the list gets long and I have to pull over to write it all down. That’s how I manage our grocery list.
When I finished writing my book, Statistical Programming with SAS/IML Software, I was elated. However, one small task still remained. I had to write the index. How Long Should an Index Be? My editor told me that SAS Press would send the manuscript to a professional editor who would index
Dear SAS Users - As I write this last post for 2010, I have one ear listening to the weather forecast for signs that we should pull out the sleds and snow boots. MAYBE we’ll get a little snow in the next few days to make it really seem like
Paula Joshi wrote last month about how what we learn from the commercial world can be applied in government. She also promised to post a few examples. I’ll get that ball rolling. This week SAS announced the availability of SAS Enterprise Case Management. While the announcement focuses more on the
“Preparing more than 50 million students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and careers is the greatest moral and economic challenge of our era.” So reads a new bi-partisan report on digital learning. Digital Learning Now! is a call to action for governors and state education leaders.
I’m excited to publish a new segment of our “Nuts & Bolts of Social Media” video series. In this interview, SAS’ Lori Schafer talks briefly with Michelle Thomas and Jaimee Newberry from Zappos. Michelle, a Senior Brand Marketing Manager, and Jaimee, a Product Manager & UI Designer, both offer up
Recently, I needed to detect whether a matrix consists entirely of missing values. I wrote the following module: proc iml; /** Module to detect whether all elements of a matrix are missing values. Works for both numeric and character matrices. Version 1 (not optimal) **/ start isMissing(x); if type(x)='C' then
Predictive analytics is not the easiest concept to wrap your head around. It’s all too easy to get lost in explanations about statistics, game theory, modeling, and the rest, and end up with a muddy understanding of a process that draws on historical facts, like customer data, to make predictions
Integrating Stored Processes into Information Maps can improve process performance as well as provide extra flexibility and complete query generation control. In order to showcase how powerful this combination is, I am presenting this topic during a SAS Talks webinar session this Thursday, December 16th. The scope of the example will
As I mentioned in an earlier post, having an information strategy and analytic goals tied to key business objectives are critical components of being able to competitively leverage your analytic assets and capabilities. In general, in the insurance industry vertical I support, we don’t see many organizations that have a
