The SAS® Global Forum Technology Connection isn’t just an opportunity to show off what SAS has been working on. It’s a chance to meet the people behind SAS® technology, see the results of their relentless curiosity, and understand how the world is transformed by it. Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and
SAS has never been able to sit idle and watch from the sidelines as crises ensue. Why? Because we know that good can be made possible if data is put to work. SAS Global Forum opening session spotlighted four real-life examples of how SAS is showing up and improving the
Bright lights, a packed house, loud music and high energy – these are the elements that come to life every year in the SAS Global Forum opening session. But it’s not just about the entertainment and energy. Each year, the Sunday night opening session sets the stage for conference attendees.
Imaginar que a través de un comando de voz pudiera analizar escenarios de negocio y predecir rendimientos, o tomar cualquier acción de negocio, ya no son ideas futuristas e irreales. El hecho de que, en los últimos dos años, los ejecutivos de las 500 empresas de Fortune tengan inquietud sobre
Innovation labs were once hailed as the way in which established companies could “build in” innovation and ensure that it happened. For a while it was almost the default approach. However, in the last few years, several of these high-profile innovation labs have been shut down. It’s clear that not
Quando ero un bambino e mio padre comprava il giornale settimanale di enigmistica, lo aprivo subito a pagina 8, dove sapevo che avrei trovato un gioco che avrebbe stimolato, seppur brevemente, la mia curiosità e immaginazione: la Pista Cifrata, o “unite i punti”. Prima di iniziare a unire i punti
Enochlophobia. It means “fear of crowds,” and I have it. I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near Times Square on New Years’ Eve, and how did I ever endure the stadium-sized rock concerts of my youth? I’m thinking all this as I navigate the sea of people at the National
Hackathons - short-term programming events using data, APIs and analytics to solve real-world problems are great for team-building, recruitment, networking and experimenting. But there is a growing sense that they are also contributing to banking innovation. Here are my observations on the subject. Hackathons are a relatively cheap way to
July 16, 1950, Rio de Janeiro. Jules Rimet, the creator of the soccer world championship, walks through a long dark subway that runs under one of the most famous soccer fields in the world, loaded with poetry, energy and the magic of football: the Maracanà. Above his head, he can
Regular readers will be aware that in my last post, I made the case for a win-win approach for mature organisations to successfully deliver digital transformation. I think there are many ways we could explain this. Established organisations infrastructure may be old, or their work processes may be complex and
Exnovation – wissen Sie was das ist? Das ist das Gegenteil von Innovation. Nein, das wollen wir nicht haben. Wir wollen Innovationen, und die bitte am laufenden Band. Koste es, was es wolle. Gerade im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung. Innovation ist irgendwie zum Zwang geworden. Denn wer sich nicht innerhalb kürzester
Innovation and transformation of established companies needs to be through a collaborative model. Done right, it can be profitable for all players. I have always thought that human evolution and development is one of the most interesting and challenging processes in the world, especially in terms of innovation and investing.
Esiste una teoria filosofica molto profonda che viene definita "la legge del decimo uomo”, secondo la quale, quando dieci persone affrontano un fenomeno o una situazione, nove affermano la stessa cosa. È compito del decimo uomo investigare su quel fenomeno, col presupposto che gli altri nove siano in errore. In
How is it that some companies can come up with a big idea and implement that idea successfully in the market, while others never get past the idea phase? "In the case of innovation," says Jill Dyché, VP of SAS Best Practices, "big ideas aren't enough." It's also not enough
For many industries, big data analytics have opened numerous doors for more employees to be groundbreaking and to challenge the corporate status quo. Prior to big data technologies, risk taking behaviors were primarily reserved for provocative souls who stretched organizational boundaries to disrupt industries, such as airline revenue management. There were winners and losers
Back in 2007, the NY Times published an article about “The Google Way.” The premise behind the Google Way is to give engineers 20% of their time to spend on new company related ideas and projects that interest them. For a while this became the management strategy du jour as
The online dating website OKCupid recently posted the results of some real life experiments that they had performed on their user community. The experiments included three tests to evaluate the influence of certain user profile changes in compatibility matching (manipulating compatibility scores, suppressing user profile photos and the impact of
I had the opportunity recently to attend the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) “Masters of Marketing” conference. In almost every presentation, each CMO credited their success in the marketplace with an ability to take risks. With the stratospheric growth in digital marketing initiatives and a need for speed-to-market, rapid innovation
The No. 1 retail trend for 2014 will be innovation powered by advanced analytics. Why? Because retailers with the ability to surface and validate new ideas from customer data will be able to test new ideas faster, launch them faster in stores, and roll out profitable programs faster. Transformation today
The National Academy of Engineering identified fourteen "Grand Challenges for Engineering" that must be addressed in order to achieve a sustainable, economically robust, and politically stable future. (see the full list here) The challenges are a call-to-action for solutions to some of the most pressing issues in the 21st century:
It’s very telling that every Walmart greeter has an inviting phrase emblazoned across the back: “How may I help you?” That simple question and the presence of the greeters in the stores speaks eloquently to the customer-centricity of Walmart, which has been instilled in their organizational culture from the very
A question was recently put to me by everyone’s favorite futurist – Thornton May: “Most people don't put innovation and infrastructure in the same sentence. They simply tend to view savings derived from optimized infrastructure as a funding source for “other” innovation investments. My thoughts?” My thoughts initially circled in
At the beginning of a recent customer meeting I was involved in, I mentioned how easy it is to shut down idea generation by judging too soon or too harshly, to which a CIO at the meeting shared this story about five monkeys in a cage. You may have heard
As I write my first blog entry for SAS State and Local Government, I thought it would be prudent to provide a little personal background. I grew up in a family of artists- with 5 musicians, 2 painters, 1 sculptor, 1 dancer, and 1 composer. I studied business, became a
“It is the dawning of the age of the digital, age of the digital!” I couldn’t help humming the 1969 tune after attending Erik Brynjolfsson’s presentation at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference 2011 in Las Vegas. As Director for the MIT Center for Digital Business, Erik lives and breathes
Brian Whittington mentioned last month that government is innovating, and at great speed. Based on what I’ve seen in our line of work with state and local governments around the country in the past year, I have to agree. In the face of today’s daunting fiscal challenges, state and local
I have recently had the great opportunity to be a part of a very special project called the North Carolina Bio-Preparedness Collaborative (NCB-Prepared) It is a public-private partnership that includes the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), North Carolina State University, and SAS, with support from the US
Most people don’t think about government when they hear the word “innovation”, but it’s happening, and has been since long before “The Great Recession.” However, the current economic conditions have certainly moved things along. Government responds very similarly to private industry when faced with challenges. SAS manages to do relatively
In his introductory address, public sector session moderator Thomas Spiller of SAS neatly summed up some of the biggest challenges faced by national governments: dealing with the current economic climate and managing a crisis of confidence within their governments. In his experience, government responses seem to fall in to three
Twenty-four sessions, twenty-four speakers, twenty-four different topics over just two days, and I didn’t just sit through the convention as a participant, no, I moderated the entire two day event as its Chairman. The Financial Forecasting and Planning Summit, organized by the IE Group, and held at the DoubleTree Mission
