In my statistical analysis of coupons article, I presented a scatter plot that includes the identity line, y=x. This post describes how to write a general program that uses the SGPLOT procedure in SAS 9.2. By a "general program," I mean that the program produces the result based on the
Have you written a popular SAS Global Forum paper? Have you shared a winning case study with your colleagues? Have you talked about a cool, new feature you found in SAS? Well, share it with the world! SAS Press can help you share your knowledge and expertise worldwide. We’ve published
Contributed by Bob Messier, Senior Director of Business Analytics, SAS Last week I participated in the SAS Power Series event in Minneapolis. It included about 23-30 folks representing a broad range of industries. Analytics was the central topic of the event. What is analytics? How do you get your organization
In Base SAS you can use the DATASETS procedure to determine the SAS data sets in a library, and you can use the DELETE statement to delete data sets. Did you know that you can do the same operations from within the SAS/IML language? The following DATA step creates four
About a year ago (wow, has it been that long?), I posted an example program that lets you report on the contents of a SAS information map. Using my example, you can see the data items, filters, and folder structure within a given information map. Last week a reader posted
As a marketer, we must constantly think about engagement and conversion strategies with our customers and prospects. Specifically, B2B digital marketers have been holding some of their best content hostage behind registration pages. Even though conversion numbers continue to dwindle, this tactic is still the cornerstone for lead generation. We
Readers' comments indicate that my previous blog article about computing the area under an ROC curve was helpful. Great! There is another common application of numerical integration: finding the area under a density estimation curve. This article provides an overview of density estimation and computes an empirical cumulative density function.
Many of you may be familiar with SAS Press author and consultant Don Henderson. Besides being the author of Building Web Applications with SAS/IntrNet: A Guide to the Application Dispatcher, Don is very active in the SAS user community--including being a frequent paper presenter and contributor to sascommunity.org. So, not
Contributed by Thornton May, IT Futurist On June 15, 2011 twenty plus analytic pioneers from twelve different vertical markets convened to explore the current state and future trajectory of enterprise analytics. Each participant in The SAS Power Series event brought with them intellect, energy, curiosity and a challenge. During the
Our friend Martha Rogers recently blogged about her trip to Arkansas for a Walmart Analytics Day. She says, "I can tell you that up close, the folks here believe the customer is number one. It's even part of the 'cheer' that the hundreds of people here did. Loudly." You should
I have recently discovered “mind mapping.” Mind mapping is not a new concept, but since I (re)learned it, I’ve found it to be an excellent tool for analyzing business problems and processes. I thought you might find it interesting too! Here’s an example: The other day, I was thinking about
This is Part 4 of my response to Charlie Huang's interesting article titled Top 10 most powerful functions for PROC SQL. As I did for eaerlier topics, I will examine one of the "powerful" SQL functions that Charlie mentions and show how to do the same computation in SAS/IML software.
Is SAS doing the right things when it comes to multichannel campaign management? In a nutshell, this is the question Gartner asked and recently answered by naming SAS a leader in their latest research report: Gartner’s Multichannel Campaign Management Magic Quadrant. The report highlights our advanced optimization and analytical capabilities,
Today marks the first day of summer and the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. While I can't join the summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge, I can pay homage to some of our sizzling sellers. Many of you are probably familiar with or use some of these
As far as numbers go, the number zero is rather mysterious for data. Is it something or is it nothing? What happens when you have missing data but enter 0? This topic triggered an intriguing discussion in my recent Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques class. In this post I’d like
We sometimes take it for granted, but the concept of the "SAS library" is just about one of the most awesome aspects of The SAS System. You can give your library a name (a library reference, or libref), tell the system how to get to your data (options on a
A reader commented to me that he wants to use the HISTOGRAM statement of the SGPLOT procedure to overlay two histograms on a single plot. He could do it, but unfortunately SAS was choosing a large bin width for one of the variables and a small bin width for the
The SAS office in New York City has one of the best views in the city. Sitting on the 47th floor of a skyscraper on 7th Avenue, the Executive Briefing Room overlooks Central Park and it has a highly distracting view – especially on such a nice sunny day. What
Recently Charlie Huang showed how to use the SAS/IML language to compute an exponentially weighted moving average of some financial data. In the commentary to his analysis, he said: I found that if a matrix or a vector is declared with specified size before the computation step, the program’s efficiency
I had the pleasure to be the host of the Risk and Finance Insight Session on the second day of The Premier Business Leadership Series, where we discussed the subject of enterprise risk management and financial stewardship. With global, political and financial upheaval becoming the norm (and during the conference
SAS Press has published 3 popular titles dedicated to demystifying PROC SQL. Today, I've selected Katherine Prairie's book The Essential PROC SQL Handbook for SAS Users to excerpt. One often cited highlight of Katherine's book is that it contains 300 examples of PROC SQL code. Katherine really knows SAS--she's been
The moment you (the expert) start to think a topic is boring is the moment when the average person is just starting to become aware of that topic. As soon as I'm bored with a topic, I know it's time to write about it at least five more times. It's
SAS-based processes are critical to many organizations, but sometimes the trickiest part of your job falls into one or both of these activities: Getting stuff from the outside world "into" SAS. (Once it's in SAS, as many of you know, the world is your oyster.) Getting the output of your
In the world of technology, 2011 is unremarkable in some ways. As with every year, there are hot trends – hype, buzzwords and “must-have” technologies. Some might even assign analytics to the trending category this year. 2011 marks the 35th anniversary of the founding of SAS. For the past 35
Each Sunday, my local paper has a starburst image on the front page that proclaims "Up to $169 in Coupons!" (The value changes from week to week.) One day I looked at the image and thought, "Does the paper hire someone to count the coupons? Is this claim a good
Organizations have become good at finding answers to questions. Where they need to improve is in asking the right questions, according to Dries Van Nieuwenhuyse, General Manager Performance Management USG People Interservices NV. “IT people tend to be applied scientists whose job is to answer specific questions but in analytics,
The Premier Business Leadership Series focused largely – and rightly – on the business benefits of analytics. But driving those benefits requires a serious analysis of the business environment and what is going to deliver most value to the organization. Looking at what was done in the past won’t cut
At the Insight Session on Business Performance, Processes and Systems, George Ioannou, Professor of Operations Management at Athens University of Economics and Business said truth resides in data. But finding that data is like trying to find a pirates’ treasure buried on a desert island. It takes more than
The year of leadership Recently we taped a short video titled Developing Marketing Leadership - 3 Tips From a Pro. In that blog post I mentioned I have made 2011 the year of leadership. I’m taking every opportunity to learn, mentor and become a better leader—by any means possible. My
Jim Davis, CMO at SAS reckons he has seen more change in business and economics in the past two or three years than in the previous 20. “To succeed in business you have to innovate, you have to do brand new things. Only problem is, that brings risks,” Jim said
