Coming off a week of U.S. West Coast conferences, I have finally caught my breath and readjusted to my home time zone here in North Carolina.
The week started in San Diego at the Teradata Partners conference, where the mood was upbeat and the sessions abuzz with the success that companies are experiencing with In-database Analytics. The conference theme was "Innovate to Differentiate" and they did not disappoint. Presenters delivered session after session of company case studies; nineteen of which SAS and Teradata hosted.
Of course, as a SAS Marketer, I was pleased with the number of mentions of SAS as the ideal Analytics engine for these remarkable feats, utilizing huge quantities of data for business insights.
Tuesday brought another flight and another conference. This time to Las Vegas, and the Premier Business Leadership Series, sponsored by SAS. This conference is several years running and never disappoints. The 2010 theme was Innovate, Optimize, Transform.
The conference kicked off with a discussion of the global economy with two renowned economists, Linda Yueh and Dr. Sung Won Sohn. While they did not agree on everything, both were cautiously optimistic about the US economy noting that we are experiencing growth, albeit slow. Vijay Govindarajan then provided a successful model for innovation and the execution of transformative ideas. Video of these presentations are available at the PBLS website, along with blogs and tweets from the conference.
I have participated as a host, speaker and moderator with this conference for the last three years. This year was different.
Business Analytics was not simply an academic discussion, but one of substance. Companies were sharing their success and asking questions of each other, and SAS, that demonstrated a deep understanding and interest in "what's next" in Analytics, rarely, "how do I get started".
Empowerment, in the form of distributed Analytics tools, was a common discussion among speakers. I picked this up from case study speakers when asked how they are able to accomplish so much with limited staffing. Analytics Centers of Excellence have formed, sometimes within departments and other times across departments. These centers are empowering departments with tools to answer many of their own analytical and reporting needs, while taking on the heavy-lifting of more complex insights within the Center of Excellence.
Innovation and empowerment, often driven by In-Database Analytics. Something to build on as our economy recovers and grows.
