~Contributed by Debbie Buck, SAS Global Forum Conference Chair~ Today is the last full day of SAS® Global Forum 2011. Every year, I’m amazed at how quickly the days go by. I hope you’re enjoying the conference as much as I am. I want to thank you for attending and
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When comparing scores from different subjects, it is often useful to rank the subjects. A rank is the order of a subject when the associated score is listed in ascending order. I've written a few articles about the importance of including confidence intervals when you display rankings, but I haven't
What is data good for? Absolutely nothing without the right people and the right tools, says Angela Watson, Vice President of Analytics at Overstock.com, an online retailer that offers brand-name merchandise at discounted prices. It’s common for organizations to have “analysis paralysis” where not all departments use data, analytics to
~Contributed by Varsha Chawla, SAS~ What could a business analyst possibly like better than understanding the data in a database? Try understanding the metadata (data about data) and knowing how to access this in an ORACLE database. According to Carole Jesse, Senior SAS Analyst at Prime Therapeutics, databases have their
Contributed by Kirsten Hamstra, SAS Social Media Manager Prolific blogger and author of SAS for Dummies Chris Hemedinger knows maybe a little too much about his Facebook friends. Presenting his paper titled “Social Networking and SAS: Running PROCs on your Facebook Friends,” Chris shared basic techniques to analyze your friends
~Contributed by Elizabeth Ceranowski~ If you have ever visited SAS headquarters or if you work in Cary, you know that the speed limit on campus is 23 mph. This week the number 23 has taken on a new meaning. There are 23 papers being presented by students at SAS Global
Contributed by Karen Lee and Kim Darnofall, SAS Communications Thirty-five years ago, SAS changed the world of computing when it opened its doors for business in Raleigh, North Carolina. A lot has happened in 35 years, but one thing remains the same: SAS is still changing the world of computing,
~Contributed by Karen Lee, SAS Communications Director~ Open. In one word, that is how I would describe the communication environment at SAS Global Forum. Wide open. This is an amazing time for communication. For a long time, the only way attendees could find out what was happening at SAS Global
There are quite a few first timers at SAS Global Forum 2011, and I’m one of them. As a first timer, it can be tricky to navigate all of the opportunities that are available, but the First Timers’ Session, held earlier Monday, helped to plot ways for first timers to
The federal government is more aggressively pursuing health care fraud, and helping the states do the same, by proposing funding changes and investing in new technologies. A newly proposed rule would allow 90 percent Federal Financial Participation (FFP) for data mining initiatives in state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCU’s). Another
The federal government is more aggressively pursuing health care fraud, and helping the states do the same, by proposing funding changes and investing in new technologies. A newly proposed rule would allow 90% Federal Financial Participation (FFP) for data mining initiatives in state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCU’s). Another proposed
It was not your average stage entrance. With a full Roman entourage and a majestic portable throne, SAS Global Forum 2011 Chair Debbie Buck, smiled broadly as she made her way to the stage in front of 2,500-member crowd at Opening Session. Her message for conference attendees: “In the words
Contributed by Debbie Buck, SAS Global Forum Conference Chair SAS users from around the world are in Las Vegas this week for SAS Global Forum. Attendees are continuing to register, but the official count as of last night was 3,335 of whom 25% are here from outside the US. Why
~Contributed by Stacy Hobson, Director of Customer Retention, SAS~ While you are at the SAS Support and Demo Area, watch for the red vests. You are going to want to meet the SAS Customer Loyalty team wearing them, as they will have a wealth of resources available to you. The
Suppose that friendship is a 2-way relationship: Either two people are friends with each other, or they are not. (By this definition, X cannot be a friend of Y if Y is not a friend of X. Also, you cannot be a friend of yourself -- no matter how attractive
Contributed by Vince DelGobbo, SAS R&D Software Developer Rule #1: Keep your money in your pocket or your purse. With that settled, we can move on to more important matters. One key to success at SAS Global Forum is to be organized. Before you get to Vegas, spend some time
Yesterday I was in the Big Room for the rehearsal of the Technology Connection, the part of SAS Global Forum where SAS shows off its wares: what's been released recently and what's coming. I believe that customers are going to love what they see. And just about every product that
In my article on computing confidence intervals for rankings, I had to generate p random vectors that each contained N random numbers. Each vector was generated from normal distribution with different parameters. This post compares two different ways to generate p vectors that are sampled from independent normal distributions. Sampling
While talking to fellow SAS users at SAS Global Forum 2011 this week, I'll be discussing how SAS programmers can "play" with social media data that they can access on Facebook and Twitter. I always refer people to my blog for more information, and so I've prepared this blog post
This morning Rick Wicklin announced his (hostile?, nah...) takeover of the technical blog space at SAS. I'll admit that it took me by surprise when I awoke in Siberia this morning. It's so cold here; I can't feel my fingers as I type. This is probably a punishment for the
Editor's Note: This article was an April Fool's prank from 2011. The entire article is fake. Today, SAS, the leader in business analytics announces significant changes to two popular SAS blogs, The DO Loop (written by Rick Wicklin) and The SAS Dummy (previously written by Chris Hemedinger). The two blogs
Rick is another guy I've gotten to know through the SAS users group community, mainly through mutual work with the NorthEast SAS Users Group (NESUG), where's held various leadership positions, including that of conference chair. I wish I had his stamina and motivation. Wait until you find out what he
I've had the pleasure of knowing Andy Kuligowski for years through our mutual work with local and regional SAS users groups. He's a huge hockey fan, and he's not afraid of rats, snakes or alligators (more about that later). His sense of humor is also famous. Read on to learn
"Twitter, thou art nought but data." So sayeth the SAS programmer. Many data analysts now recognize Twitter for what it is: a tremendous source of data covering almost any topic, from Justin Bieber's hair to political uprisings to technical conferences to company brands. SAS offers sophisticated solutions to harness this
In SAS 9.2, internal accounts can be created and utilized within the metadata and then do not require host (or domain) accounts defined elsewhere. By default, the sasadm@saspw is one such internal account. Unless you specifically declare an exception, the server-level policies for routine password resetting and locking (such as
I’m happy to announce that Web Development with SAS by Example, Third Edition by seasoned SAS Press author Frederick Pratter will be available in June! Frederick has worked tirelessly to update the book, which has substantial changes from the second edition. In Frederick’s words, “practically everything has changed since the
This week, I posted the 100th article to The DO Loop. To celebrate, I'm going to analyze the content of my first 100 articles. In December 2010, I compiled a list of The DO Loop's most-read posts, so I won't repeat that exercise. Instead, I thought it would be interesting