This post is a result of an intriguing question posed by a user on the SAS communities' page. How to create a bar chart where the category is a combination of two variables var_1 and var_2 (each with values of '+' and '-'), and get a X axis that shows each
As a marketer, one of the highlights of the SAS Financial Services Executive Summit has been the interactive session titled "Exploring and Exploiting Trends to Really Understand Today's Customer." The session involved all participants engaged in case studies, which included a facilitator and graphic artist from Matter Solutions. This session provided
Today's second annual SAS Financial Services Executive Summit included a great panel discussion moderated by Lori Bieda from SAS, and featuring Greg Holzwarth, SVP and Managing Director, Customer Information Management at SunTrust Bank, Harvey Koeppel, former CIO and SVP of the Global Consumer Group at Citigroup, and Joseph Grillo, VP of
SAS is hosting the second annual SAS Financial Services Executive Summit today at SAS global headquarters with executive leaders from the banking, insurance and capital markets industries. The theme of the show is "Ignite," which references coming together, sparking innovation and inspiring change. The keynote speaker is a very well known change agent
If you missed PharmaSUG - as I did - you still like to stay on top of the great information that comes out of the conference. I found the list of Best Contributed Papers and decided to post them here for you. There is a lot of other great information
Back in 2009, I announced that SAS was developing a version of its business analytics platform for use on the Nintendo Wii. I think I gave our legal department a heart attack with this news, until they realized that I had posted it on April 1. At SAS Global Forum
Conversations are dynamic and free flowing. One idea begets another. As people interact and knowledge is shared, perspectives can change … and with them, expectations. Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group a leading research-based advisory firm with a focus on disruptive technologies, and the author of the New York Times
If you're looking for some good stuff to read ... I mean great stuff for SAS users, I've had this list brewing in my head for a few weeks now. (The reason that I ask is because in the US, this weekend will be a three-day holiday to commemorate Memorial Day. So, many families will
In a previous blog, I showed how to use SAS/IML subscript reduction operators to compute the location of the maximum values for each row of a matrix. The subscript reduction operators are useful for computing simple statistics for each row (or column) of a numerical matrix. If x is a
On the SAS-L mailing list, a participant posed this question (paraphrased): How can I tell which date format my Windows session is using: European format (with day first) versus USA format (with month first)? I'm reading in output from a Windows file listing, and need to know how to interpret
We had the good fortune to have Ralph Thomas, Ph.D., VP of Strategic Analytics and Database Marketing from Seminole Gaming, participate in our integrated marketing management panel at the 2012 SAS Global Forum Executive Conference along with his colleagues from Office Depot and Best Buy. Each panelist presented a short
In August 2011, we expanded the scope of the SAS Global Forum blog and rebranded it as the SAS Users Group blog. Our goal was to create one vibrant and dynamic spot for content related to SAS users groups and SAS user presentations. The result has been terrific! Many new
The other day I encountered an article in the SAS Knowledge Base that shows how to write a macro that "returns the variable name that contains the maximum or minimum value across an observation." Some people might say that the macro is "clever." I say it is complicated. This is
At SAS Global Forum, and again at PharmaSUG, we had the pleasure of attending many papers and presentations on various topics that included graphs in the power point decks or in the papers. More often than not, the graphs exist along other text, and occupy a smaller part of the screen
It's Friday, and on SAS Voices they are posting fun stuff about dogs who work at SAS. I'm posting about PROC SQL and MySQL. You tell me - which of us knows how to ring in the weekend with style? I've been working with MySQL data sources lately, and SAS/ACCESS
There are no silver bullets that guarantee success for marketers. Betting on a single channel, technology, process or team is very much like betting everything on “Red” in a casino – there’s no more than a 50% chance of success – for each item. Make bets on each, without understanding
At SAS Global Forum, one of the most difficult areas for me to show to you are the poster presentations. This year, I asked Steve Polilli, a colleague who is great with a Flipcam, to video a few for me. I picked out three that I will use in the
Here is the last video from the last day at SAS Global Forum 2012. This one is great! Make sure you stay in there long enough to watch the outtakes: they are so funny!
PharmaSUG 2012 conference drew to a close today, concluding two and a half days packed with papers, presentations, posters, hands-on demos and super demos by SAS staff. While the weather outside was a bit chilly from time to time, the conference what hopping with many user papers on how to
Over the next few weeks, I will address the topic of where I see Customer Intelligence (CI) and Integrated Marketing Management (IMM) solutions moving over the next 3-5 years. I have been doing some work around strategy and really considering how our marketing strategy will align with our product vision
Annette Harris spends several minutes during this video extolling many of the high-performance virtues of Pete Lund, Information Systems Manager, Looking Glass Analytics. One thing she didn't mention (it was mentioned to me later) is that Pete is a long-time member of SAS-L. Do you know how many other SAS
I've been a fan of statistical simulation and other kinds of computer experimentation for many years. For me, simulation is a good way to understand how the world of statistics works, and to formulate and test conjectures. Last week, while investigating the efficiency of the power method for finding dominant
SAS users, by definition, do not embrace the mysterious. That's one of the main reasons that they use SAS: to demystify some data or process. And so, when you (as a SAS user) have gone to the trouble of designing a process flow in SAS Enterprise Guide, you like to
As a SAS fan, in a number of roles over the past 15+ years (programmer, statistician, data warehouse developer, business analyst, consultant, trainer, partner), I am also the Queensland Users Exploring SAS Technology (QUEST) chairperson, and I feel very privileged to be able to contribute to the wider SAS community
SESUG (Southeast SAS Users Group Conference) is an annual conference held in the Southeast US - typically in September or October. This year, the conference will be held at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center in Durham, North Carolina, October 14-16. According to Peter Eberhardt, SESUG 2012 Academic Chair, the
One of the first skills that a beginning SAS/IML programmer learns is how to read data from a SAS data set into SAS/IML vectors. (Alternatively, you can read data into a matrix). The beginner is sometimes confused about the syntax of the READ statement: do you specify the names of
Part of what captivated me about this paper and poster presentation were the presenters - these guys are high school kids using SAS to do a visual analysis of Internet use by high schoolers. The idea was so compelling that Anna Brown and Inside SAS Global Forum went to talk
I had the pleasure to sit in on a panel discussion at the the 9th Annual SAS Health Care and Life Sciences Executive Conference focused on the topic of understanding and managing customer behavior in the changing health care landscape. This panel was moderated by Dipti Patel-Misra Senior Manager in the Center for
I am at the 9th Annual SAS Health Care and Life Sciences Executive Conference, an extraordinary event that draws the best and the brightest leaders as both speakers and attendees from the pharmaceutical, health insurance, health care and related industries. One session featured speakers from Independence Blue Cross sharing their
In the previous episode, we built our own custom SAS function - a masterful trick indeed. Gordon Keener, a developer here at SAS, responded exuberantly "You think that's cool? - try THIS!" and proceeded to demonstrate prodigious powers with the SAS by using a custom function in a custom informat
