"…the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians…" That's a quote from Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist. It surfaced in an online interview months ago, but it's been getting a lot of play lately. Mr. Varian goes on to say: The ability to take data—to be able
English

What do men really want? What do women really want? If you seek answers to these eternal questions go watch Oprah or Dr. Phil – I don’t really care. They are not nearly as interesting as the question: What do forecasting software buyers really want? Organizations spend millions of dollars

This morning kicks off F2009, the fourth annual Business Forecasting Conference held at SAS world headquarters in Cary, NC. We are again hosting a broad mix of thought leaders, academic researchers, and industry and government practitioners. Pre-registration included 230 attendees spanning 79 commercial organizations, government agencies, and universities, from an

Did Hippocrates really say this? Probably not, for among other reasons he spoke Ancient Greek and not Modern English. However, such mere technicality should not distract us from the importance of this oath for forecasters. Please place your hand over your heart and say with me: First, do no harm.

Think of this as consumer protection for the business forecaster. The Business Forecasting Deal is a new blog exploring the dark side of the forecasting profession. Its purpose is to expose the snake oil and shoddy practices of those who either don’t understand the realities of forecasting, or who can’t
Just last week I posted about Jim Davis joining the blogging fray, and now here comes SAS Exceutive VP Mikael Hagström with his own blog, ominously titled "In the Final Analysis". If this keeps up, my entire SAS Dummy blog will be spent announcing other SAS blogs. Well, you don't

You might be the sort of person who loves to wait indefinitely. You visit the DMV regularly to tweak your auto registration. You queue up in the supermarket checkout line behind the customer most likely to require "price checks". You map your daily commute along the routes that offer the
Jim Davis, Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer at SAS: welcome to the SAS blogosphere. Jim is a great communicator and has a tremendous rapport with SAS customers; I'm sure that his blog will prove that out. I remember first meeting Jim way back shortly after he joined SAS. This
NCSU statistics students: welcome to SAS Hall, your new home for higher learning. I'm glad they named it SAS Hall; "Sall Hall" is a bit too rhymey and "Goodnight Hall" might encourage classroom sleepiness.
Question: What do you get when you cross your Facebook friends with SAS analytics? Answer: Insight, probably more about yourself than anything else. You can tell a lot about yourself by looking at your friends. And I'll bet that so can Facebook and those who advertise on it. Data from
AnnMaria artfully qualifies her use of the word "lovely" as she describes her experience with one of our SAS customer representatives. The whole reason for the encounter: AnnMaria needed to get the correct sort of software order so that she and her colleagues can run SAS 9.2 and SAS Enterprise

Recoding values is one of the most common data prep tasks that folks need to do before they can analyze and report on data. In SAS, the most elegant way to handle this is by applying a SAS format. A SAS format allows you to "bucket" a bunch of raw
The SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 tutorial is going global, with translated versions now hitting the SAS support site. First up, after the English version, are Italian and German. Other languages will soon follow. Update 22Apr2009: just added French and Spanish as well. This represents a couple of firsts for us:
The mainstream press never misses an opportunity to point out how our children are falling behind in math skills and won't be able to compete in the global marketplace. But I don't believe it, and I'll tell you why. For centuries, children have used counting rhymes to select a person
Elisa Priest, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of North Texas, was selected as one of nine SAS Student Ambassadors for 2009. She also won the "Best Contributed Paper" in the Statistics Section. Her presentation, Easier Exploratory Analysis for Epidemiology: A Grad Student How-To Paper, was very well
If you aren’t familiar with SAS-L, now’s a good time to take a look at it. It’s another information channel where SAS users go to ask and post answers. At SAS Global Forum 2009, SAS-Lers continued its tradition of honoring those who’ve contributed most significantly during the past year. “There
That's a wrap! Alan Hoffler provides a takes a last look back at SAS Global Forum 2009. We hope to see you next year at SAS Global Forum 2010 in Seattle. Find out more at http://www.sas.com/sasglobalforum/2010. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep33
Thanks for reading this far. I'm sure that you've realized it by now, but the "SAS on the Wii" announcement is my idea of a joke, as warped as that might seem. Happy April Fools' Day! As far as I know, SAS is not currently planning a new release for
Last week at SAS Global Forum, SAS demonstrated its commitment to bring powerful business analytics to customers wherever they choose to work, including on the desktop, on the Web, and on mobile devices such as the iPhone. In that spirit, SAS today announced plans to port its powerful analytics software
SAS Senior Software Manager and co-author of SAS for Dummies Chris Hemedinger talks about his experiences at SAS Global Forum 2009. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep32
SAS Research Statistician Rick Wicklin talks about the new SAS interface with R in SAS/IML Studio. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep31
SAS Software Developer Zach Marshall talks about the exciting new features in SAS 9.2 in Base SAS to call Web Services. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep30
Frank Capobianco talks about why Teradata is at SAS Global Forum 2009 and the excitement surrounding in-database processing. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep29
2009 SAS Global Forum Conference Chair Lori Griffin and 2010 SAS Global Forum Conference Chair Lauren Haworth talk about this year's conference and what's coming up in 2010 in Seattle. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep28

SAS Student Scholarship Winner Jenni Elion talks about her experience attending SAS Global Forum 2009. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep27
Senior Software Manager Rick Langston talks about what's new at SAS Global Forum 2009. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep26
Alan Hoffler talks with Blaine Byars about his experience as a first timer at SAS Global Forum 2009. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep25
SAS Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Davis talks about how Business Analytics are playing a bigger role within companies. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep24
SAS President and CEO Jim Goodnight talks about how SAS manages to stay profitable while other companies are laying off workers. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep23
SAS co-founder and Executive Vice President talks about what's new with JMP and the integration with SAS. Web Links: SAS.com:http://www.sas.com/apps/webnet/SGF2009VideoBlog/index.html?videoID=isgf09ep22