As you probably remember, this innovation series is really Brainstorming 2.0. I've taken the Post-It Notes that SAS users put on the Innovation Wall and reposted them here to help spark new ideas for using SAS. I'm also adding posts here and there when I have an interview with a customer
Lots of the visitors to this blog arrive here by way of Google search (welcome!). Thanks to search engines and a few well placed keywords, the same older posts (let's call them "timeless topics") seem to attract the most traffic from year to year. I hope that the searchers find
When I give presentations on using the SG procedures, I try to describe how you can take simple plots and layer them to create more complex graphs. I also emphasize how you must consider the output of each plot type so that, as you overlay them, you do not obscure
2011 saw incredible change in the states as more than half of the governorships changed hands. As expected, that caused significant turnover at the State CIO level, as well. So while executive and technology policies changed in many ways, the dismal budget situation reinforced the need to allocate tax pay
In Simple maps can go a long way, we discussed some techniques to create simple outline maps from map datasets in the MAPS library using GTL. Now, let us take this a step further to do something more useful with this feature. For some graphs, the map information is an essential part of the
On the heels of the release of the popular SAS macro variable viewer from last month, I'm providing another custom task that I hope will prove just as useful. This one is a SAS options viewer, similar in concept to the OPTIONS window in SAS display manager. You can download
From the largest corporation to a small startup, data overload can be a crippling problem. Just ask this big guy ... Now you know. Happy holidays!
A few colleagues and I were exchanging short snippets of SAS code that create Christmas trees and other holiday items by using the SAS DATA step to arrange ASCII characters. For example, the following DATA step (contributed by Udo Sglavo) creates a Christmas tree with ornaments and lights: data _null_;
A new book from SAS Press, "Statistical Graphics Procedures by Example" co-authored by Dan Heath and I has now been published (phew!). For both Dan and I, this was our first foray into writing a book, so it was highly educational to say the least. The key idea behind the presentation
After my November blog post about achievement gaps between affluent and poor students, Newt Gingrich cast some renewed energy on the topic with his inflammatory comments about poor children at a Dec 1st GOP debate. In case you missed his remarks, here is the quote that sent the media into
My daughter's math lessons this year have included the concept of negative numbers (that is, numbers that are less than zero, not numbers that have a bad attitude). She has used number lines such as this one to help her while she completes her homework: Notice that in this number
Since this is a blog about statistical programming and analysis, I am always looking for data to analyze. As 2011 ends, I look back on the 165 blog entries that I published since 01JAN2011. This article presents the 10 most popular posts, as determined by the number of people who
On his SAS and R blog, Ken K. recently posted an example of a visualization technique called "small multiples". In this exercise, Ken shows the programming technique for replicating a particular series of pie charts in R as well as in SAS. It's a useful exercise to learn from, but
Charlie Huang recently posted an article on a new way to draw maps using SGPlot procedure. The basic idea is simple, just use the SCATTER statement to plot the (x, y) points from the data sets in the MAPS library. The GROUP option can be used to color the markers for each
Since joining SAS, I no longer run screaming from social media, blogs, etc. In fact, I embrace exploring different mediums to highlight how SAS is assisting today’s law enforcement. To that end, and in recognition that sometimes less is more, I give you this short intro. SAS continues to push
The SAS Output Delivery System (ODS) enables you to manage and customize tables (and graphics!) that are created by SAS procedures. I like to use the ODS SELECT statement to display only part of the output of a SAS procedure. For example, the UNIVARIATE procedure produces five tables by default,
The holiday season has just begun here in Cary, North Carolina. My favorite holiday is Christmas, but your's may be another. I'll try to outline some of the ones that are celebrated here and for some of my other global readers - I may miss an important holiday when I try
Some SAS products such as SAS/IML Studio (which is included FREE as part of SAS/IML software) have interactive graphics. This makes it easy to interrogate a graph to determine values of "hidden" variables that might not appear in the graph. For example, in a scatter plot in SAS/IML Studio, you
Calendar Heatmaps are an interesting alternative view of time-series data. The measured value is displayed as color mapped cells in a calendar. Calendar Heatmaps can be easily created with SAS 9.3 using just the HEATMAPPARM, SERIESPLOT and BLOCKPLOT statements in GTL and some simple data manipulation. The example below shows
In one minute (and 10 seconds, but are you measuring that?) you can add a custom measure (also known as calculated members) to your OLAP cube. Watch this video to create a simple calculation multiplying units * price. Remember that this mechanism is not just used for multiplications, you can
“Do you really serve M&Ms every Wednesday? Tell us the story!” clamored a wide-eyed class after sampling the M&Ms lighting up the breakout area. Seeing how hard they worked on their exercises, it seemed ok to have a slight diversion from technology. Besides as you’ll find out, the story has
Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy... - Franklin D. Roosevelt Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The very next day, America declared war. During a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, I discovered the results of
When viewing time series data, often we only want to see the trend in the data over time and we are not so concerned about the actual data values. With multiple time series plots, forecasting software can find clusters to help us view series with similar trends. Recently I saw a graph showing the trend of unemployment
Water and wastewater treatment plants are among the most complex facilities built and maintained by utility companies, whether public or private. Each facility contains thousands of pieces of equipment worth millions of dollars that must operate in concert for the many complex treatment processes to function effectively. The consequences of these assets
In simulation studies, the response variable is often a binary (or Bernoulli) variable. Often 1 is used to indicate "success" (or the occurrence of an event) whereas 0 indicates "failure" (or the absence of an event). For example, the following SAS/IML statements define a vector x of zeros and ones:
When I was a teenager in the 1980s I purchased my first computer: a TI-99/4A. (Wow, TI's version numbers are more confusing than ours!) I had several friends who had other brands of computers, including the TRS-80 (affectionately known as the "trash 80") and the Commodore 64. Despite our divisions
It's the holiday season again in the US. Every December, many of us break out the holly, mistletoe, fir and SAS software to ring in the Christmas spirit. What's that? Do you mean to tell me that you don't use the world's leading business analytics software to play Jingle Bells! Well,
Recently the "SAS Sample of the Day" was a Knowledge Base article with an impressively long title: Sample 42165: Using a stored process to eliminate duplicate values caused by multiple group memberships when creating a group-based, identity-driven filter in SAS® Information Map Studio "Wow," I thought. "This is the longest
The dimensions of your graph can affect the aspect ratio, which in turn, can subtly affect the perception of your viewers. When visual perception is of prime importance, the aspect ratio of the graph needs to be adjusted with care. This technique is known as ‘banking’, was introduced by William
On this blog, I've delivered a few tips about using SAS formats to stratify your data values "in place" without having to actually change your data. The most recent example addressed date and datetime variables. My previous examples included simple SAS programs that you can run in SAS display manager
