Since deregulation, the energy and utilities industries have counted among the most complex, posing virtually insoluble problems thanks to a variety of trends and counter trends. That was the key conclusion of discussions in the Energy & Utilities insight session at The Premier Business Leadership Series, which was led by
In his introductory address, public sector session moderator Thomas Spiller of SAS neatly summed up some of the biggest challenges faced by national governments: dealing with the current economic climate and managing a crisis of confidence within their governments. In his experience, government responses seem to fall in to three
I've had a few conversations lately with friends and business acquaintances who expressed an interest in a job involving social media. I found myself giving all of them the same basic advice, so here it is. None of it is new or novel, and I'm not entirely sure I haven't
Seems like there are a lot of great folks writing social media books right now. Last week I learned that Amber Naslund and Jay Baer are writing a book aimed at small and medium-sized business, organizations and non-profits. I just heard on the Six Pixels of Separation podcast this morning
Here's a video interview with me, conducted by Deb Orton, where we talk about how we got social media off the ground at SAS, how to plan for some of the basic organizational issues and a bit about social media policies. It's an action-packed and fun-filled 14 minutes. Well, informative
I'm at the SAS Professionals Convention in Marlow, UK, where over 100 SAS users participated in one of the largest SAS certification events ever held. Also present at the event: a mother duck working to achieve a milestone of her own, by hatching a family of ducklings. According to the
Today I am happy to present a timely guest blog post from Toshi Tsuboi. Toshi is a SAS Customer Intelligence Product Manager, and is closely involved with the recently announced SAS and Sword Ciboodle partnership. When Toshi came to me to discuss a guest post on this topic, I couldn’t
“The Nuts & Bolts of Social Media,” is the title of the series of video interview segments we're producing, beginning with the Chris Brogan interviews, and continuing on with some of our internal social media champions, and when possible, with customers. Look for future posts tagged "The Nuts and Bolts
~Contributed by Steve Benfield, Senior Director of Corporate Communications ~ Need a translation? Here you go: What In The World Is Wrong With “SGF?” Make sense now? Surely I don’t need to spell out SGF for an audience of SAS users, do I? Well, a quick Google search will tell
Jeremiah Owyang led off the second day of the Ragan Cisco Social Media Summit with a talk entitled What’s Next? Social Media Trends for Corporations. I’ve seen Jeremiah speak before and I’m always impressed with the clarity of his vision. Here are my notes from his talk this morning. Jeremiah
If you send me an e-mail message next week, this is what you can expect in return. Thanks for your e-mail. I'm attending the SAS Professionals Convention in Marlow, UK. That's right, I'm in Merry Old England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Ginger Spice, and Doctor Who.
What do you do when you and your spouse are both SAS users, but one of you likes to point-and-click and the other really likes to write SAS programs? Is it possible to share a SAS environment, or are these irreconcilable differences that can lead only to a nasty custody
Len Devanna, Director of Digital Strategy at EMC, gave a presentation at the Ragan Cisco Social Media Summit that hit a lot of responsive chords with me. It sounds like Len and I have faced a lot of the same challenges and come to many of the same conclusions. Considering
I am pleased to announce publication of The Business Forecasting Deal: Exposing Myths, Eliminating Bad Practices, Providing Practical Solutions, available now in a convenient carry-everywhere size (approx 6” x 9” x 1”), or for download to your Kindle. Table of contents, sample sections (including the Prologue, Forewords by Tom Wallace
Michael Brito from Edelman Digital talked this morning at the Ragan Cisco Social Media Summit on the topic of “Brands Breaking Boundaries.” Michael came to Edelman from Intel and understands the issues that corporate social media communicators face. Michael, by the way, is a great guy and one of the
Jeanette Gibson, global director of social media at Cisco, kicked off the Ragan Cisco Social Media Summit with an outstanding and inspiring review of how Cisco is using social media tools including blogs, Twitter and employee-generated video. These are my more-or-less tidied up notes from her presentation. Cisco has 22
Wow, what a couple of days!! I was involved with the SAS Business Forecasting Conference the last two days and I am impressed with all that I saw and learned! F2010 brought 238 people together from 16 countries to share best practices around business forecasting. You have to take a
I'm using this post to share links to several SAS-related blogs created by others. This is me acting generous by sharing -- it's not me acting lazy by shirking an original post. Really. Datum Reparo! AnnMaria waves her SAS Enterprise Guide magic wand, utters a few (magic?) words, and makes
Like many people, I prioritize tasks based on expected results; specifically by evaluating the impact of each likely outcome on the future of SAS’ marketing efforts. Ensuring deliberate actions have purpose and meaning—today and tomorrow—is important, because a forward thinking mind-set keeps one moving in the right direction. There’s a
We’re getting ready for the third webinar in the SAS Applying Business Analytics webinar series. This webinar explores how to ensure the success of advanced analytic applications. It’s designed for line-of-business vice presidents, directors, managers and others who want to explore, develop, act and collaborate on making fact-based decisions. So
This week I'll be heading to Cisco in San Jose for the Social Media Summit, put on by Ragan Communications. I'm excited to be attending and even more so to be presenting. I attended a Ragan event at SAS about two years ago, before I took on the Social Media
A few weeks ago I posted 'Chris Brogan Talks About the Value and Measurement of Social Media', the fifth (of six) Chris Brogan videos taped when Chris was at our headquarters in Cary, NC. In this video, the sixth and final segment in the series, SAS' Deb Orton interviews Chris
"Less Wrong" is the name of the blog where I found this layman's explanation of Bayes' Theorem. As I've pointed out before, I'm not a statistician. But I can comprehend basic statistical explanations such as the explanation of the Monty Hall problem. Understanding the concepts and being able to apply
I was in a meeting this morning with some of SAS’ most active social media marketers: a solid group of smart folks who understand the value of social media and are integrating social into their campaigns in practical, measurable ways that add real value. It’s always an exhilirating discussion. We’re
More and more, executives have questions about social media, and recently they have turned to me for answers. It’s clear they’re moving along the continuum of interest from ‘I’ll let this fad pass,’ to ‘wow, I best get on board this train before I get left behind.’ Because I grapple
I've known Jim Cox for a long time. He's the SAS R&D manager for SAS Text Miner, and a gifted singer. We almost never talk about work stuff, because Jim is waaaaay too smart for me. That's why I was so pleased to discover Jim's series of blog entries about
I've always thought of myself as a doer. When other people are meeting and planning, I close my door, press mute and do things. For me doing means listening, experimenting, responding and writing - and it's nice to be recognized for what you do. I mention this because The Silicon
Like any good SAS professional, I subscribe to the SAS Samples RSS feed. The other day I found this sample that shows how to create a PDF report about the contents of a SAS Information Map. It's a nice example: it shows how to use the INFOMAPS engine and ODS
If you are a SAS/GRAPH user, you may have heard about the new Statistical Graphics ("SG") procedures that are new in SAS 9.2. These procedures are designed to make it easier to produce common statistical charts and plots. You may have assumed that the procedures are only for folks who
A few weeks ago I posted 'Chris Brogan Talks About Making Social Media Happen in Your Company', the fourth (of six) Chris Brogan videos taped when Chris was at our headquarters in Cary, NC. In this video, the fifth in this series, SAS' Deb Orton interviews Chris Brogan of New
