Last month I shared the idea of fostering better communication and understanding between the SAS users and the IT organization by visiting each other at your places of work. A variation on that idea is for both parties to share a visit to a safe, neutral, inviting location where there is a lot to see and learn and where there’s a chance to network with thousands of others who use SAS or who support the use of SAS. I have the perfect place in mind: SAS Global Forum 2014!
This year, SAS Global Forum is being held from March 23-26 in Washington, DC at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. The theme of this year’s conference is Potential of One, Power of All – which nicely sums up the benefits gained when the SAS shop and IT work together rather than operate independently.
The conference offers over 500 presentations, workshops and networking sessions. SAS employees and SAS users from around the world share a wide variety of topics – coding, application development, infrastructure and support. There’s something for every level of user and every user role to get the imagination flowing and the brain cells buzzing.
You’ll even have a chance to meet me, the IT Whisperer, in person. My presentation, “A Guide to SAS for the IT Organization,” is on the schedule for Wednesday morning at 10:00 AM.
The benefits of sharing the conference experience with your IT or SAS user colleagues are enormous. Not only will you both get caught up in the energy and excitement of the event, but you’ll each learn a great deal to bring back to the office and put into action right away. You will also have a common language to use to discuss what you heard and experienced.
Available this year is a conference scheduler which lets you coordinate your schedule around the sessions that will be of greatest interest to you. A great idea is to “divide and conquer” when it comes to attending sessions; cover twice the ground by splitting up which sessions each of you will attend. This tactic also provides a reason to discuss the conference and debrief afterward, thus motivating additional communication.
Besides the scheduled sessions, there are also keynote addresses, training courses, the SAS Certification Exam, and a whole lot of parties and mixers. These are a great place to network in an informal and fun environment.
Running concurrently with the technical conference is an Executive Conference that focuses on the strategic partnership between SAS and you, our customers. Be sure to share information about this event with your management. SAS Global Forum is a terrific way for the decision makers to learn more about SAS too.
Consider attending SAS Global Forum with your SAS user or SAS support colleague. You can register online. If you need help justifying your attendance, the conference website can help with that, too. Attending the conference will be time well spent! And please post to this blog about your experiences – I’d love to hear them. Hope to see you there!
