Phil Holland is another SAS Rock Star!

I met Phil Holland nearly three years ago at my first SAS Global Forum. Actually, he and I met on Twitter before the conference. Phil, as @hollandnumerics, talked with me many times on Twitter about his plans for attending SAS Global Forum. He and I were excited about SAS'; plans to host our first-ever Tweetup. That’s where I met Phil, he was the first Twitter user to show up for the Tweetup, so we had a couple of minutes to share the usual family secrets and “How’s your trip?” anecdotes. Since that conference, I’ve had a few short conversations with Phil that helped me to learn much more about him. This post is my way of introducing a great SAS user to you. Take some time to meet Phil – online or at SAS Global Forum 2011.

When I was learning to become a journalist, I was given some basic fall- back questions to help me loosen up an interviewee or ensure that I don’t miss something valuable. One of those questions that I almost always ask is, “Is there anything that you’d like to tell me that I may have forgotten to ask?” In this series, I’ve used, “Is there something else really cool about you that I'm missing?” In every interview, I’ve learned something about these old friends that I didn’t know. For instance, did you know that Phil has been a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) since 2005, when he passed their test? The IAM is a UK charity that promotes driving safety using volunteer observers to improve driver skills to the basic level of police drivers. Since 2008, Phil has also been a member of the committee of the Cambridge Advanced Motorists (CAM) Group, an affiliate of IAM, for which he runs a Squidoo web page and provides more general IT support. Read more about Phil.

Hi Phil. Tell me something I don't know about Phil Holland and Holland Numerics.

I own Holland Numerics with my wife Angela. I was made redundant from my mainframe capacity planning job at a UK bank's software house in 1992 and decided to set up the company so that I could work on SAS contracts until I found a permanent job. I haven't found that permanent job and probably never will now. Holland Numerics specialises in SAS programming contracts, but I also set up and support client computers running office software on Windows, Linux and OSX. In addition to this I have a passion for problem solving and learning new software languages, so my company website includes several examples of applications written in one, or a combination, of Javascript, Perl, Java and VB.

I know that you are active in social media - Twitter, sasCommunity.org, etc.- but the online universe is vast, and I don't want to miss anything. Can you tell us where you are online?

I occasionally write blog entries, but most of my social media activities were started by a need to advertise my SAS books - my first was published in 2007. This started with sasCommunity.org, where I was one of the early contributors. I now have a collection of my own pages on sasCommunity.org and pages related to the VIEWS International SAS Programming Community (VIEWS). I've also built a collection of content on Squidoo, which I have now linked together. I added Twitter to my social media channels shortly afterward as publishing pages to Squidoo had an option to tweet the update. I found that Twitter was not very useful until Alison Bolen (then Editor-in-chief of sascom Magazine and @alisonbolen on Twitter) started following me. Now, I tweet daily about SAS, beer, English football, photography and many other subjects, but most of my tweets still contain the word "Squidoo"! Finally, I am very active on LinkedIn. I'm still reluctant to connect directly to everyone who asks, so have created a LinkedIn group where anyone who is interested can join. It is called "SAS Author: Philip R Holland." There, I am happy to discuss anything.

How long have you been using SAS?

I was first introduced to SAS at the University of London Computer Centre in 1981, where I was a mainframe systems programmer. I became the SAS representative at Prudential Assurance in London in 1984.

Do you present, keynote, tutor or chair?
I have presented at SAS conferences in Europe, the US and UK since 1995, including training seminars in the UK. I have also been the Editor of VIEWS News, the quarterly newsletter of the VIEWS, since 2002. I've published two SAS-related books and am currently working on a third book on PROC TEMPLATE that SAS' Kevin Smith and I hope to publish later this year.

I know you have an unusual, but very interesting hobby that you share with your wife. Could you tell me about your hobby and give us a link to your diary?

My first SAS contract was a nine-week stay in Belgium in 1992. The first hotel I stayed in had a menu with a food list that was shorter than the beer list. On the third night in that hotel, after I had chosen the first meal and first beer, then the second meal and second beer, my third beer was pink! I'd heard about a Belgian cherry beer called a Kriek, so this was to be my first cherry beer. I don't like cherries, so from then on I made a note of all the beers I had to make sure I only drank beers a second time that I liked. That list, #Beer List, has grown since then to more than 1,000 tastings and can be found at www.squidoo.com/beer_list and more recently in an app I've developed for the HP Palm App Catalog. Please note that my wife's only contribution to my beer tasting is to take photos of me drinking beers! However, our three daughters all search out new and interesting beers to give to me as birthday and Christmas presents.

In 2010, after SAS Global Forum in Seattle, we were stranded for eight extra days due to lingering volcanic ash in Europe. Some of the Seattle bars have beer tasters (4 or 6 small glasses of different beers), so I was able to add a total of 47 new beers to my list during the total 15 days we were in Seattle (and without drinking too much!). These included a very nice Pike Monk's Uncle, an Abbey-style Triple Beer from the Pike Pub & Brewery in Seattle.

Which of your SAS projects was the most fun to work on? Why?

In 2000, I worked on a new SAS installation project for the risk management group of a credit bank in the UK. SAS was installed on an enormous UNIX server, with the users having SAS® Enterprise Guide® 1.1 to access the data. I built the data warehouse, developed the maintenance routines using SAS Enterprise Guide, and trained all the users how to create reports from the data. The "power trip" was amazing, but the fun really came from learning something new almost every day for more than a year. My love of SAS Enterprise Guide started there!

You travel a great distance to attend SAS Global Forum. Why do you attend and what are three tips you can give to young SAS users for learning as much as possible while at SAS Global Forum 2011?

For many years after turning freelance in 1992 I attended the SAS conferences around Europe, until they stopped being technical events. Since then I've been attending SAS Global Forum, and have presented at most of them. My reasons for going to any conferences are two-fold, to meet up with friends, most of whom I only see at conferences, and to learn about new SAS stuff by asking questions.
Therefore, my three tips for new SAS users would be:

Always split your time between the presentations and the Demo Room, because staying in one place will mean you may miss out on something useful.

If you don't understand something, or see something new, ask someone in the Demo Room about it, as it will be less intimidating there.

Relax and enjoy the experience!

Now you know a little more about Phil. Is there something more you'd like to know? Ask your question in the comments section and Phil will respond. You can also let me know who you'd like to see in an interview here. We still have some time before SAS Global Forum 2011. See you there!

Phil Holland is another SAS Rock Star! was published on SAS Users.