If you’re like me and the rest of the conference team, you’ve probably attended more virtual events this year than you ever thought possible. You can see the general evolution of virtual events by watching the early ones from April or May and compare them to the recent ones. We
Over the past 37 years I've had the good fortune to be able to attend and present at hundreds of in-house, local, regional, special-interest and international SAS events. I am a conference junkie. I've not only attended thousands of presentations, Hands-On Workshops, tutorials, breakout sessions, quick tips, posters, breakfasts, luncheons,
I started young. Since I was 9 years old, I’ve always loved cooking delicious, tasty and healthy food, and feeding friends and family. My aunt still remembers the delicious chocolate soufflé that trembled and shook but would never collapse that I made for them when I was 18! Word spread.
I started out as a Psychology major. During my third year as an undergraduate, I was hired on as a research assistant for my advisor in her cognitive psychology lab. Through this and progressively more complicated psychological research experience, I quickly grew to love statistics. By the end of that
When I attended my first SAS conference in 2003 I was not only a first-timer, I was a first time presenter. Needless to say I was a bit nervous. I did not know what to expect. Was my topic good enough for these savvy programmers and statisticians? Well my first
To kick off his presentation at MWSUG2015, SAS’ Chevell Parker flashed a picture of an old-school phone booth and asked the audience where he could find the nearest one. Met with several seconds of silence, he smiled. “Don’t all answer at once!” The point of his question was obvious: as
Good news SAS users; you are a hot commodity. That’s the primary message Kirk Paul Lafler from Software Intelligence Corporation and Charlie Shipp of Consider Consulting Corporation delivered to a room full of users at MWSUG 2015. Citing figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a recent CNN Money
The Midwest SAS Users Group (MWSUG) 2015 conference is almost here and there’s a lot to get excited about. The event takes place October 18-20 in Omaha, NE. If you haven’t already registered, regular registration has been extended through October 13th. The full conference agenda is now available. We hope
Support for SAS Users is everywhere! Starting in September, Regional SAS Users Groups host their annual conferences. Through presentations and hands-on workshops, fall regional conferences expose users to new ideas, best practices and innovative ways to use SAS. Attendees also have the opportunity to attend classes and network with hundreds
The Chicago weather cooperated for MWSUG 2014 with nice crisp fall temperatures, clear skies and beautiful sunrises over the lake. Aside from the weather, here are my five favorite memories of MWSUG 2014: 1. Location-location-location. The location and venue were fabulous! Not only were we along the Chicago River with a beautiful
This fall, you’ll be swept off your feet in the Windy City: The 2014 Midwest SAS User’s Group (MWSUG) takes place in Chicago from October 5-7. With 135 presentations in 11 different sections, you’ll have the chance to expand your SAS know-how and network with fellow SAS professionals.
Really! I did a double-take last week when a conference chair told me that there’s grant money available for students, faculty and SAS junior professionals but few have applied. In one case, there were no applications submitted. We're hoping this is just a temporary glitch, a holdup resulting from too-busy schedules
Congratulations to Best Paper Winners from MidWest SAS Users Group conference! You'll want to read these, and check the MWSUG 2013 proceedings for other useful papers from the recent conference. Start planning now for MWSUG 2014 in Chicago.
Do your SAS programs read extra-large volumes of data? Do they run multiple DATA steps and procedures one after the other for hours at a time? Two papers from MWSUG 2013 show how you can speed up those long-running SAS jobs. Although their approaches and environments differed, both authors made
Although she’s an analyst, Anca Tilea estimates that she spends 80% of her time cleaning data. Tilea and co-author Deanna Chyn shared seven of their favorite methods for checking, cleaning and restructuring data. Attendees at MWSUG 2013 got a bonus tip: Ask SAS peers in one of the SAS Support
I’m here at MWSUG 2013 soaking up the regional experience. After spending a couple of days in Columbus, I’m seeing first-hand how much users care about working with SAS software and about being part of the SAS community. It’s been a great conference so far—-presentations are packed! Walking through the
With registration for the Midwest SAS Users Group well underway, I reached out to conference chair George Hurley to get the scoop on what makes MWSUG a can’t-miss event for SAS users. As a veteran MWSUG attendee, he’s an absolute expert in what makes it such a rewarding opportunity for
The MidWest SAS Users Group (MWSUG) 2013 call for papers closes on June 15. If you’ve submitted a paper or have been thinking about it, why not sign up for the MWSUG Presenter Mentoring Program? Students, first-time paper or poster presenters or anyone who wants guidance with abstract submission, paper
Congratulations to all of these winners in the MWSUG Best Contibuted Papers! I hope you have all submitted your papers to the 2013 SAS Global Forum. The deadline for submissions ends soon! Here's a list that I know you have all been waiting for:
I chose this Post-It note this week because it reminded me of a MWSUG paper presentation that I listened to and wrote about. Patricia Hettinger presented "New vs. Old - Under the Hood with PROCs CONTENTS and COMPARE" in the Data Management and Data Mining section. I didn't do it justice in my
If you remember Andy Kuligowski for nothing else, you probably remember that he was the SAS Global Forum conference chair for 2012. I remember that he has a wonderful sense of humor, which he used more than once during his Hands on Workshop at the MidWest SAS Users Group conference
Chris Hemedinger is not the only person who’s excited about the capabilities of SAS Enterprise Guide. Tom Miron, from Systems Seminar Consultants, a SAS author with more than 35 years of SAS experience, shared some great advice for using SAS Enterprise Guide.
There are five short, simple, quick rules to help you take advantage of indexes. An index lets you retrieve information from SAS data sets or tables. And according to Kirk Paul Lafler, if you keep these rules in mind, your information retrieval will be more efficient. Lafler is the Senior
Are you just starting out in your career? What if you think you’ve been around the block and there is nothing new you can do in your career? Everyone has their own perspective on what career planning is, but Bill Donovan from OckhamSource has a plan to help SAS users make a career
Every fall (fall in the US, that is), I try to attend as many SAS Users Groups events as humanly possible. This year, I’m starting with the MidWest SAS Users Groups conference in Minneapolis, then SouthEast SAS Users Group conference in Durham, NC (my home base) and finishing the season
“It’s the age of the search engine! I remember people ‘Yahoo!’ing during the late 90's and ‘Google’ing till the late 2k's and now ‘Bing’ing. I just wondered, ‘Why not SAS?’” wrote Pramod. R on his blog SASopedia. This was the beginning of a quest and a MidWest SAS Users Groups
There are times when programmers need to know the source of the data sets used in a program. This macro, designed by Prasanna Murugesan and Sushant Thakare from Quintiles Inc., will help you extract the lib names from various programs and put them in an Excel file.
I know that for every SAS user event there are many people who aren't able to attend or who have to choose between two or more great sessions. So a couple of days ago, I started a discussion on several SAS users LinkedIn groups asking those of you who are attending SAS Users Groups
Last time on our road trip, I headed out West for the WUSS Conference in Long Beach, California. Now, I’m going North — to the Midwest, to be precise! Minneapolis, Minnesota is the home of this year’s Midwest SAS Users Group (MWSUG) Conference and the next stop on our virtual
As summer comes to an end, I find myself getting excited about some of the regional user group conferences that take place every fall. This year, I’ll be presenting a paper at WUSS (Western Users of SAS Software) in Long Beach, CA, in early September. About one week later, I’m
