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 was about 14 years ago. He and I were both in a company-sponsored class about public speaking, titled something like "Power Speaking: Positive Thinking, Influence Others, Dominate, Succeed!" (The instructor was a tall man with lots of "presence" and a voice like a radio announcer. Just what you might expect...)

The class included lots of getting on your feet and speaking, and I recall that Jim did pretty well on that part. If you've seen Jim speak at SAS Global Forum and elsewhere, you know what I'm talking about.

If I remember correctly, Annette Harris, now VP of SAS Technical Support, was also in the class. Round out the roster with me, and we have a veritable Who's Who at SAS with the "power speaking" graduates...