This is the first of two articles looking at how to listen to what your customers are saying and act upon it – that is, how to understand the voice of the customer. Over the last few years, one of the big uses for SAS® Text Analytics has been to
I should have expected it! The end of January/beginning of February always seems to bring some kind of major snow event in the East. Here in Cary, NC we experienced only a couple of inches of snow, but that snow covered a solid inch of ice underneath. Several hundred miles
Infographics are all the rage today. Open any magazine or newspaper and we see data and numbers everywhere. Often, such information is displayed by adding some graphical information to add context to the data. A couple of good examples are Communicating numeric information, and Facts about Hot Dogs. Riley Benson, our UX
In my previous post, I discussed the characteristics of a strong data strategy, the first of which was that a formal, well-defined strategy exists within your organization. This post discusses how often (and why) your organization’s data strategy needs to be updated. While strategy encompasses and sets the overall direction for
You know when you visit Las Vegas you’ll have an experience you can only find in this one of a kind city. Where else can you gamble around the clock, get married in a drive-through, or see the Eiffel Tower without visiting Paris? So in the spirit of Vegas, SAS
A few years back I did a blog about my love for tofu, so I feel I am way past due for a blog on tempeh. Tempeh is like tofu’s hippy cousin- more fiber, and fermented. Tempeh doesn’t seem to get the same recognition that tofu does, which seems odd
How do you sample with replacement in SAS when the probability of choosing each observation varies? I was asked this question recently. The programmer thought he could use PROC SURVEYSELECT to generate the samples, but he wasn't sure which sampling technique he should use to sample with unequal probability. This
Did you know you could drive 74 million cars using the wasted natural gas that is flared from oil wells and refineries? Learn more details in this blog post! Flaring (burning) is commonly used to dispose of natural gas produced at oil and gas facilities that lack the infrastructure to capture it
In my two prior posts, I discussed the process of developing a business justification for a data strategy and for assessing an organization's level of maturity with key data management processes and operational procedures. The business justification phase can be used to speculate about the future state of data management required
As another year goes by, many people think about new year’s resolutions. It’s probably the third year in row that I’ve promised myself I’d start exercising in the fabulous SAS gym. Of course, I blame the recently concluded holiday season. With all the food-focused events, I couldn’t resist, ate way
Like most boys my age at that time, I wanted to be an astronaut. Fate, however, intervened, in the form of nearsightedness, so I had to find an alternative occupation. Coming to my rescue for the launch of Apollo 11 was my father, who presented me with a huge booklet that broke
Featuring a computer-savvy kid and Cold War intrigue, the 1980s movie War Games inspired more than one generation of STEM graduates. Sean Dyer is one Gen X’er who credits the movie for sending him on a path to where he is today as a cybersecurity data scientist. As the fog
Data virtualization simplifies increasingly complex data architectures Every few months, another vendor claims one environment will replace all others. We know better. What usually happens is an elongated state of coexistence between traditional technology and the newer, sometimes disruptive one. Eventually, one technology sinks into obsolescence, but it usually takes much longer than we expect. Think of
In SAS Visual Analytics 7.3, the usage reports accessed from the administrator includes a relationship report. This report provides very basic lineage and dependency information for selected object types. The data to populate this report comes from the middle-tier relationship service. Once you enable the collection and extraction of this
In the SAS/IML language, you can read data from a SAS data set into a set of vectors (each with their own name) or into a single matrix. Beginning programmers might wonder about the advantages of each approach. When should you read data into vectors? When should you read data
Super Bowl 50 (L?) is this Sunday, so it's time for another (American) football-related post. Steven Miller, a mathematics professor at Rutgers University, recently noted that the 2015 NFL schedule allowed a competitive advantage for some teams (including the Carolina Panthers). This figure he generated displays the 2015 regular season
Love includes a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the highest virtue to the simplest pleasure. An example of such a wide range of meanings is the fact that the love of a mother is different from the love of a spouse, which, in turn, is
As many as 2,000 new users are registering each month to partake of -- and contribute to -- collective SAS wisdom in the SAS Support Communities. If you’re beginning your journey to learn SAS, make a habit of stopping by SAS Communities Library to tap a growing treasure trove of fascinating
Here is the first in a series of guest blog posts you can expect to see every Friday throughout February as part of the Work/Life Relationship Series. Our first guest blogger is Laurie Watson, Director of Awakenings Center for Intimacy and Sexuality. Finding the Love You Need If you’re single
Eating donuts, burning calories, and raising money for a good cause -- that's what the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge is all about. If this intrigues you, read on to find out more... But first, here's a picture of me eating a donut, preparing for a race. I bet you didn't
There are SAS users, and then there are SAS Super Users in the SAS Support Communities. What makes a communities user "Super"? It's the Super Users that fly around the discussion boards -- answering questions and guiding other community members. They aren't just SAS experts; they are teachers as well,
In my last post, we touched on the importance of data migration in an overall data strategy. The reason I wanted to do this is because so many organizations see the migration of data as a technical challenge that can be outsourced and largely ignored by their internal teams. I contend
Shocking headlines to start the new year: Paul DePodesta is leaving the New York Mets and Major League Baseball (MLB) to take a top office position at the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). Not so shocked? You don’t care? Who’s Paul De Podesta? Well for those of
TL;DR The next time that you find yourself writing a PROC SORT step, verify that you're working with the SAS Base engine and not a database. If your data is in a database, skip the SORT! The details: When to skip the PROC SORT step Many SAS procedures allow you
Programming loops are a staple of any computer programming language. In essence, loops are what make programming languages so powerful. In all programming loops, a group of statements is executed repeatedly based on the value of an index variable that changes from one iteration to another. The iterations are continued
In the previous article on managing legends, I described the way to include items in a legend that may not exist in the data. This is done by defining a Discrete Attribute Map, and then requesting that all the values defined in the map should be displayed in the legend. In
Living in a society where the pressure to succeed is on as early as preschool and time moves so fast it sometimes feels hard to breathe, I’ve found meditation to be cheap therapy for my generally order-driven, perfectionist self. It’s during this time, I quiet the chatter, nurture my spirituality,
In my last post, I discussed some practical steps you can take to collect the right information for justifying why your business should design and implement a data strategy. Having identified weaknesses in your environment that could impede business success, your next step is to drill down deeper to determine where there may be
The World Health Organization recently declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency. This virus is spread by certain mosquitoes, and therefore if we know where those mosquitoes are located, then we've got a pretty good idea of where the virus might spread. Before we get to the numbers, here
Last week I showed how to use PROC EXPAND to compute moving averages and other rolling statistics in SAS. Unfortunately, PROC EXPAND is part of SAS/ETS software and not every SAS site has a license for SAS/ETS. For simple moving averages, you can write a DATA step program, as discussed
