Hi, I'm John Balla - I co-founded the SAS Customer Intelligence blog and served as Editor for five years. I held a number of marketing roles at SAS as Content Strategist, Industry Field Marketing and as Go-to-Marketing Lead for our Customer Intelligence Solutions. I like to find and share content and experiences that open doors, answer questions, and sometimes challenge assumptions so better questions can be asked. Outside of work I am an avid downhill snow skier, hiker and beach enthusiast. I stay busy with my family, volunteering for civic causes, keeping my garden green, striving for green living, expressing myself with puns, and making my own café con leche every morning. I’ve lived and worked on 3 contents and can communicate fluently in Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and get by with passable English. Prior to SAS, my experience in marketing ranges from Fortune 100 companies to co-founding two start ups. I studied economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and got an MBA from Georgetown. Follow me on Twitter. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
I am thrilled to be at SAS’ flagship annual thought leadership event, the 2011 Premier Business Leadership Series. The theme is “Innovate, Optimize, Transform” and we have world leaders, best-selling authors and thought-provoking professors with great wisdom to share in one exciting event. It’s truly inspiring. Yet as compelling as all
SAS is once again a proud sponsor of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization conference, happening in New York City on October 19-21, 2011. One of the ways to participate in eMetrics that we have found the most engaging is by hosting a “Marketing Lab.” Marketing Labs are designed to allow the
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
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
SAS will be at the DMA2011 conference in Boston on October 1-6, 2011, sponsoring David Meerman Scott in the Thought Leadership Series. David is a noted marketing strategist and author of seven books on marketing and PR, including The New Rules of Marketing and PR. His session is titled, 'How to
Last week, I had the pleasure to attend a great session with noted speaking authority Bart Queen. The session was titled, “The Power of Many” and it included 4 communication goals and tons of other great tips on how to drive your message through the use of panel discussions. Here
This week, SAS hosted the Financial Services Executive Summit at our headquarters in Cary, NC. Part of the content was a fascinating panel discussion moderated by Lori Bieda, the SAS Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence. In the picture below, Lori is on the left and she was joined on the
We are very pleased to co-sponsor a terrific Webcast with PharmExec Magazine on May 19 at 2:00pm ET (available on demand afterward) titled, Customer Intimacy – the Pharma Challenge. This is our opportunity to zero in on an industry with dynamics so complex that customer analytics holds great promise. Like
The following is an entry reposted from a blog focused on healthcare and life sciences called A Shot in the Arm, by my friend and colleague Jason Burke. In it, he describes the creation of The Center for Health Analytics and Insights, and the contributing factors that made it both
SAS is very pleased to co-host a Webinar with HealthScape Advisors on May 4, 2011 at 1:00pm ET, produced by AHIP. This Webinar will highlight the role that customer intelligence can play in helping health insurance plans manage the challenges of healthcare reform, and is titled: Manage the Challenges of
