If there's anyone who represents the global nature of SAS software, it's Falko Schulz. He's a German who lives in Brisbane, Australia while he works for SAS R&D based in Cary, NC. Falko works on the team that produces SAS Visual Analytics, specifically the "explorer" portion of the tool. He
The farther you try to forecast into the future, the less certain you are -- how can you represent that graphically? One way is to draw a shaded/colored "confidence interval" around your forecast line, but this is something a lot of SAS users have trouble with. That's why I decided to create
Being so close before Christmas I thought it would be a good idea to see what route Santa Claus is planning this year. Not just because I'm living in Australia and Santa usually comes in t-shirts & shorts but also because it's a long way to get down here. So
George Bernard Shaw once noted that "England and America are two countries separated by a common language," or perhaps it was Oscar Wilde, or maybe Winston Churchill. At any rate, we find examples of this linguistic divergence in many areas. Automobile terminology seems particularly prone to differences: In the United States
SAS Visual Analytics is so easy to use – even a fifth-grader can do it! Take a look at Emily Short’s Visual Analytics demo that she put together for her school project. (Her dad, Nick Short, is a Sales Manager at SAS) Isn’t she adorable? Now that you see
We want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who donated their leftover (and excess) Halloween candy this year, you outdid yourselves!! We tipped the scales at more than 220 pounds of candy- 65 more pounds than we collected last year! Wondering what happened to all that Halloween candy?
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Last year a fractal made thee! O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, A heat map can display thee! O tree of green, adorned with lights! A trunk of brown, the rest is white. O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, A heat map can display
A standard joke among venture capitalists is that often the only well-developed section of the many business proposals they receive is the exit strategy. “We’re going to be acquired for $10-20 million by a Fortune 500 company within 6-8 years.” Exactly how they are going to achieve that $10M valuation is,
Creating a Bar Chart with a table of statistical data aligned with the bars is a popular topic. With SAS 9.4, creating such graphs gets easier with the new AXISTABLE statement in GTL and SG procedures. But some use cases can flummox the latest gizmos. Such is the case I ran into recently. Here
As I crossed the finished line, I could feel the tears welling up. “Don’t do it," I thought. "Athletes don’t cry." Somehow, I managed to pull myself together, but instead of my usual post-race celebration of high fives and cheering on other runners, I walked to the race result board
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” We all remember that famous quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and can probably relate to it. In the chaos of trying to find time for everything life throws at you
Drilling a well is costly, risky and fraught with hazards for both man and machine. So why does most well behavior surveillance rely solely on historical data? Why not include a data driven approach that can also predict what might happen next? One great example is wellbore breathing. Annular pressure
(Editor's note: The latest addition to our Spanish Video Library, La gente, is now available both within Curriculum Pathways and on YouTube.) ¡Saludos! Es un placer introducirte a nuestra serie de videos para aprender el español. Seguirás las aventuras del Profesor Miguel del Mundo y su amigo Sabo, quien quiere aprender el
Recently a SAS/IML programmer asked a question regarding how to perform matrix arithmetic when some of the data are in vectors and other are in matrices. The programmer wanted to add the following matrices: The problem was that the numbers in the first two matrices were stored in vectors. The
I have the good privilege to work with colleagues that represent all the best qualities of data-driven marketers. Jenn Chase and Matt Fulk lead our Marketing Services team, which has collaborated with me and my peers in dramatically improving our marketing results by using our own Customer Intelligence solutions. This "drinking
Data on punched-cards, SAS software delivered on tape, jobs in the queue on the mainframe, printouts on green-bar paper ... we really appreciate all our SAS users, but if any of the above are part of your "SAS memories" we especially appreciate you! I guess I'm a computer geek, because
Last week I covered some of the interesting graph-related papers presented at WUSS. There were quite a few, so I broke up the report into two parts. Here is the second installment. In the paper Creating Graphical Patient Profiles using SAS by William Garner of Gilead Sciences, the author describes how to create
When you value something, it’s worthwhile. It’s desirable, important or useful. An activity that’s worthwhile is one that creates value in some way, and therefore should be safeguarded. That’s the premise behind a landmark study commissioned by the DMA's Data-Driven Marketing Institute called, The Value of Data: Consequences for Insight,
On any given day, on an average, good programmers spend maybe about 10-20% of their time writing code. And the remaining 90% thinking, researching, and experimenting to find the best design. With so much thinking time, they need every bit of help to reduce the amount of typing time. Not-so-good
The following post originally appeared on the DMA Advance blog, republished here with permission and gratitude. It was written by Stephanie Miller, VP at DMA and Chair of the Program Committee for their conference, NCDM13: Where Marketing Meets Big Data. The secret glue between IT and marketing departments is big data.
Pomegranates are popping up everywhere and are in everything from ice cream and rice cakes to body wash and even candles! So what’s the big deal about pomegranates? Pomegranates have been around since Greek mythology and are considered a super fruit because they’re packed with antioxidants, vitamin C, fiber, polyphenols
A heat map is a graphical representation of a matrix that uses colors to represent values in the matrix cells. Heat maps often reveal the structure of a matrix. There are three common applications of visualizing matrices with heat maps: Visualizing a correlation or covariance matrix reveals relationships between variables.
The value of big data has less to do with the sheer quantity of the data, and is more about an opportunity to take a new view of the world. That's the thought that Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, the Oxford University Professor known for his expertise on big data shared in his keynote session at the
Maybe you already have big data plans, a data governance counsel and an advanced analytics platform. Do you still need a center of excellence for analytics or BI? Watch this video, or read the list below to find out if you could benefit from creating a centralized team to manage
When I was 3, my mom was trying to get dinner started (oh mom, how I feel you now!) and she popped a floppy disk in our Apple II with the game Facemaker. I was mesmerized. I added beards and noses to my little guy like it was my job. From that point
My oh my… It makes me happy to see that most of our blog readers have been very good this year. You know, the elves have been especially busy keeping track of predicting the probability that you will be naughty or nice. This really cuts down on the last minute
This blog shows several "graphical analytics" examples, using holiday-related data... Since we're in the holiday season, I thought I would pull together several examples of my SAS graphs & maps of holiday-related topics (similar to my holiday blog in 2012, if you're a "long term follower"). Some are nice/technical examples, and
My family always travels over the winter holiday so I spend lots of time planning to be away. My desk is littered with lists and notes. Things to do now. Things I mustn’t forget for next year. Special events and dates. Holiday schedules. Important bits of information to share with
When learning a new language, it is important to learn to interpret error messages that come from the language's parser or compiler. Three years ago I blogged about how to interpret SAS/IML error messages. However, many questions have been posted to the SAS/IML Support Community that indicate that some people
It is always a pleasure to attend SAS user conferences, regional conferences and in-house events. In addition to presenting papers, seminars and super demos to the attendees myself, my favorite activity is to attend presentations by users that include graphical data visualization. These include using SG procedures, GTL, Designer or SAS/GRAPH. This year
