Yes, it’s a holiday week, which means Thanksgiving-related posts and people telling you what they’re thankful for. You know it, you love it. So here’s my shot: I’m thankful for new editions. That’s right—second editions, third editions—if it’s new and updated, I’m all for it. Go with me on this….

Being new to SAS, there are a few things that have struck me about the publishing program here:

1. SAS users have great resources at their disposal—from free documentation for specific products to online tips and tricks to a library’s-worth of books on all sorts of topics, users can find help in whatever format works best for them.

2. The books we publish for users are also by users. This means that what we put out there is a direct result of a programmer or analyst saying, “You know what? This particular process could use some extra explanation, and I have some ideas on how to do that.” That’s experienced people sharing knowledge, imparting ideas, and creating a collective good-user-experience for the SAS community as a whole.

3. We are continually improving the resources available. (This is where those new editions come into play. Yup, I just brought it back full circle, people.) When new software comes out or when there’s new knowledge in the field, our authors update their books, so users have the freshest examples, techniques, and general information possible.

This month brings the publication of Randy Collica’s new book Customer Segmentation and Clustering Using SAS Enterprise Miner, Second Edition. In it, Collica employs SAS Enterprise Miner and the most commonly available techniques for customer relationship management (CRM) to show readers how to segment customers more intelligently and to achieve the one-to-one customer relationship that today's businesses want.

The second edition has four new chapters that introduce new and advanced analytic techniques. It also has a new section on using the Imputation node in SAS Enterprise Miner, as well as business insights and motivations for selection settings and analytical decisions on many of the included examples.

Here you have a book that encompasses all of the great things about our publishing program: Users have a resource that addresses a specific need, written by an analyst with significant and direct experience, updated to include the newest and most relevant techniques possible.

Happy Thanksgiving indeed.