Someone once boiled down econometrics for me by explaining -- it’s all about answering the “why.” It’s especially important for companies wanting to know the answers to important questions like… Why are customers buying this product? Why are customers not buying my product? If you’re ready to start investigating the
We’ve talked in the first two posts about how the digitization of everything is disrupting marketing and changing the face of commerce. Organizations are having to change the way they operate, and that’s causing roles in the C-suite to evolve. The digitization of everything is doing three primary things: Increasing
Like every SAS procedure, PROC REPORT generates error messages that are specific to that procedure. Some of these errors are easier to understand and work around than others. In this blog post, I show six of the trickiest errors, explain what might be causing the error, and give advice for
Many geeky mathematical people celebrate "pi day" on March 14, because the date is written 3/14 in the US, which is evocative of the decimal representation of π = 3.14.... Most people are familiar with the decimal representation of π. The media occasionally reports on a new computational tour-de-force that
As you may know, we are expanding the SAS Press program. Are you interested in writing a SAS book, or do you know someone who should write a book for SAS? Please let us know if you are interested--or send us your author recommendations! Here are some ways we're hoping to meet
Got a smart phone? Just about everyone does these days. And that little rectangle of glorious technology is changing the way our attendees experience SAS Global Forum. Your smartphone helps you stay connected at the conference, but it’s also a great tool for having fun. This year, we’re challenging you
It’s 10:30 in the morning, and her Jawbone buzzes. Jane is notified that she’s been sitting too long, and her meeting is ending anyway. She rises up from her booth at the coffee shop, bids her associate good bye, and walks through the mall towards the parking lot. Her device
Did you know that this Friday is Pi Day? How are you planning to commemorate this special day? :) Next year's Pi Day might even be more special than usual, being that it will contain: March 14, 2015 - 9:26:53. And if you realize the coolness of that (3.141592653), you might be
Are you one of the users who upgrades to the latest version of SAS as soon as it comes out? Or are you like some and wait to upgrade until you’re jumping several versions? We’ve talked in previous posts about the benefits of moving to SAS 9.4, so today I’m
In my last post in the Ask the Statistician series, we heard statisticians at the Analytics 2013 conference discuss what types of statistical techniques they use to solve their business problems. Given that these concepts are technical in nature, I wanted to better understand some of their best practices for sharing
Shouldn’t you always "Enjoy the Taste of Eating Right?" Eating healthy, nutritious foods should never have to feel drab, plain, boring and tasteless. March is National Nutrition Month® and this year’s theme focuses on combining taste and nutrition to create healthy meals that not only taste good but are good
Last week I showed how to find parameters that maximize the integral of a certain probability density function (PDF). Because the function was a PDF, I could evaluate the integral by calling the CDF function in SAS. (Recall that the cumulative distribution function (CDF) is the integral of a PDF.)
How do they spell “SAS” in Japan? What does the Japanese version of the SAS Display Manager look like? How is a SAS programming class conducted in Tokyo? These may sound like pretty random questions, but I found myself wondering about them as I began preparing for my trip to
With the increasing emphasis on responsiveness, resiliency, flexibility and agility, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the “agile” concept caught up with strategy itself. While I may have hinted at this idea four years ago in two of my earliest posts for the Value Alley, “Strategy
In this tutorial video, you will learn how to read comma-separated-value (CSV) files with Base SAS using a DATA step. This enables you to create a SAS data set copy that transforms each field in the raw data file into a variable in the data set. Watch and learn how...
SAS Global Forum 2014 is only a couple of weeks away, and I wanted to highlight what conference leaders are doing for our campuses. This year’s renewed focus on content successfully allowed for academics and institutional research to be content areas. As such, these selections may be included as target
It is always important to continue to sell the value of analytics within your organization, especially to your leaders. Usually, these type of results are delivered via reports, dashboards, or emails. However did you know that analytics: Detects when expensive machinery like electrical submersible pumps (ESP) or oil platforms need maintenance before
For nearly a century, the buyer’s journey was relatively linear. Advertising messages distributed across a few mass media outlets were the primary method of spreading awareness. Purchase consideration generally occurred by reading product brochures and conversing with salespeople, friends and family. A purchase was made, and if the product did
We can watch games on TV, rent a movie from Redbox, and Google our favorite SAS procedures when we’ve forgotten how something works. There are a myriad of ways to get entertained or educated in a second-hand way. But, whether it’s being at the ballpark, in a theater, or at
On most Mondays I blog about a function, programming technique, or resource that is useful for programmers who are getting started with SAS software. Recently I learned that my colleagues in the SAS education division have been hard at work developing a series of short videos that explain basic tasks
Recently, I attended a symposuim hosted by the Calvin Institute with my wife. Some of the many sessions I attended focused on how to create an awesome worship experince. By hearing many of the different musicians perform live, I noticed how the art and science of music enhanced the message. Music brought the message
Customer intelligence (CI) is critical for companies today. It can help you stay ahead of your competitors by giving you the right information to attract customers. Dr. Christophe Muse can teach you how to adopt new analytical and data-mining techniques for advanced customer intelligence applications. I interviewed Dr. Muse at
The 2014 SAS Global Forum will be the launch pad I use to blast off for SAS exploration! Since being introduced to SAS software, I have been driven to continually evolve as a SAS programmer through the development of my abilities and the discovery of new techniques. Winning the SAS
Michele Burlew is the author of several highly regarded SAS books including her most recent SAS Hash Object Programming Made Easy. This week, I've selected a short excerpt from her latest book to share with our readers. If you like this week's free excerpt, be sure to visit Michele Burlew's
Here at SAS Curriculum Pathways, we are constantly creating content. In our latest update, we have everything from hover cars to dinosaurs! Check them out! La casa From our Spanish language video series, our newest installment is designed to build mastery of the language, introducing and reinforcing Spanish vocabulary about
Another year, another conference! This year I am really looking forward to attending SAS Global Forum 2014. I am, of course, looking forward to seeing familiar faces and making new acquaintances at the networking events. This year the session content is spectacular and I will be in as many sessions
Experiencing a major sporting event in person is a hard-to-describe experience for a fan. When your team is winning, a feeling of euphoria rolls through the stadium or arena. I have hugged and high-fived complete strangers when a game-winning shot goes in or someone scores a game-winning touchdown in the
SAS Global Forum starts for me in the fall of the prior year. This is when you submit your ideas for papers and then wait patiently for many months to learn if it was selected. I enjoy writing and presenting ideas, so here are my topics and what inspired them.
In the Breaking Bad TV series, Walter White has an impressive lab where he secretly makes the illegal drug methamphetamine (meth). Wouldn't it be cool to use SAS to show the locations of all the clandestine meth labs in the US?!? Let's do it!... In this blog, I show you
SAS programmers use the SAS/IML language for many different tasks. One important task is computing an integral. Another is optimizing functions, such as maximizing a likelihood function to find parameters that best fit a set of data. Last week I saw an interesting problem that combines these two important tasks.
