Have you ever found a graph of some interesting information, but the graph was difficult to understand (or even misleading). I strive to fix those graphs - this time it's a graph of US immigration data... I found the following immigration graph on the flowingdata website - it's a screen-capture of
¿Cómo las empresas pueden gestionar adecuadamente su gran volumen de información? ¿Están los datos de su organización listos para convertirse en la clave para alcanzar sus objetivos empresariales? ¿Cómo tomar las mejores decisiones a partir de la analítica? No cabe duda, en un mundo cada vez más conectado el Big
When I am discussing my new Explaining Analytics course with analytic professionals, I frequently hear, “I have a co-worker that needs the class.” That comment is much more frequent than – “Hey I need that class.” The truth of the matter is we all need to continue to improve –
April 7, 2003 will go down in the history books for me. The streets of Syracuse, New York, were abuzz. I was a junior television major, and our men’s basketball team had just won its first NCAA basketball title. Our three-seed Orangemen had bested #2 Kansas in New Orleans, but the
With the upcoming appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice, I wondered just how liberal and conservative previous justices have been. I found some data, and tried my hand at creating a graph to help visualize it... In my quest for data, I came upon an article on the NYTimes
Data quality has always been relative and variable, meaning data quality is relative to a particular business use and can vary by user. Data of sufficient quality for one business use may be insufficient for other business uses, and data considered good by one user may be considered bad by others.
If you're a worrier, you know there's a chance you could get bitten by a shark, or hit by a piece of falling satellite debris - these events are both possible, but not probable. Getting injured by a lawn mower, on the other hand, is something that could easily happen. With
There's a lot of chatter about analytics in the information security space. That’s actually a massive understatement. Analytics is a common buzzword, and if everyone's talking it, but how do you cut through all the noise? Who is doing what when it comes to analytics? It can be difficult to tell. As part of
With many names, it's difficult to know whether the person is male or female. Let's use the power of analytics to determine which names are the most unisex, based on the number of boys and girls with those names. But, before we get started, here's a picture of my friend
Medicare payment changes are coming. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the intention of increasing the proportion of payments to providers based on outcomes and changes in health status, as opposed to delivery of services. At the January 11th, 2016 J.P. Morgan Annual Health Care Conference,
Medicare payment changes are coming. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the intention of increasing the proportion of payments to providers based on outcomes and changes in health status, as opposed to delivery of services. At the January 11th, 2016 J.P. Morgan Annual Health Care Conference,
When the Toyota Prius first came out, the gas mileage claims astonished everyone. But now that almost every manufacturer offers their own hybrid, is the Prius mpg really all that great? Let's analyze the data ... But before we get to the analytics, let me tell you a little about
A recent survey by Capgemini found that 78% of insurance executive interviewed cited big data analytics as the disruptive force that will have the biggest impact on the insurance industry. That’s the good news. The bad news is that unfortunately traditional data management strategies do not scale to effectively govern
Gerade lese ich mit großem Interesse die neue BARC-Studie "Advanced & Predictive Analytics 2016". Und ich bin sehr froh, dass der Nutzen von Analytics nahezu unbestritten ist. Egal, ob erfahrene "Best-in-Class"-Unternehmen oder analytische Nachzügler:
The World Health Organization recently declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency. This virus is spread by certain mosquitoes, and therefore if we know where those mosquitoes are located, then we've got a pretty good idea of where the virus might spread. Before we get to the numbers, here
Groundhog Day is one of those quirky bits of Americana that add richness and flavor to life. Everyone likes Groundhog Day. It’s a fun, light-hearted way to cope with the cold, dark days of winter. Taxes, on the other hand, are not so fun and light-hearted. Mention the word “taxes”
A honey bee can live for 8 years ... but a black garden ant can live even 20 years longer than that! Learn more details, and other interesting trivia, in this blog on "the longevity of things." I recently found The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, and was fascinated by
The East Coast of the US got quite a snowstorm this past weekend, but did your area get enough snow to brag about? Let's see what the data says... Before we get started, here are a couple pictures of the snow. The first one is from my driveway - we didn't
The East Coast is having lots of snow and ice storms today, and SAS headquarters is officially closed. But I thought it would be a great day to get a few things done! And among those few things is "write a snow-related blog". Hope you enjoy it! After 21 years of
“What keeps you awake at night?” my colleague asked me. At the time, I was a child protective services administrator responsible for thousands of at risk children on any given day. While there were many things that weighed on my mind, worker turnover created many sleepless nights, and days filled
The role of insurance is to bring some predictability, manageability and stability in what is in essence, a chaotic and uncertain world. So as we head into 2016, what are the big issues for insurers in the next 12 months? Below is just a selection of some of these issues:
Are you from Yankeedom, The Far West, or somewhere in between? In this blog, I use SAS maps to explore some fun data about regional cultures in the U.S. I recently ran across an interesting article about Colin Woodward's book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures
A successful energy savings program is a good thing for utilities, right? The truth is, that success can result in unintended consequences. One of our utility customers shared this example with me recently: "Let’s say we offer a free LED light bulb to every customer, and everyone removes an old bulb that used 75
A number of years ago I was driving home to Alabama for the holidays. Typical of the season the driving was not easy. It was getting dark early and the traffic was fairly heavy. I had the radio on to pass the time. A talk show was on and the
What if a reckless driver adopted a more responsible approach because the car insurance pricing was based on driving habits? What if the senior from next door had the insurance payments based on kilometres driven, resulting in significant savings? This may be reality sooner than you think. The Internet of Things will revolutionise
When SAS Scotland gave students 48 hours to build a prototype computer system to help increase police effectiveness, nine teams accepted the challenge. The venue was the University of Glasgow's Hackathon, one of the largest student hackathons in the UK, attracting 200 attendees. SAS Scotland has co-sponsored the event for the past three
What strategy do you use to pick your lottery numbers? Do you suspect that the future winning numbers might be somehow related to the past winning numbers? If so, this blog's for you! The Powerball lottery jackpot is up to about $1.4 billion - the largest lottery jackpot there has
I was reading through Deloitte University Press' 2015 Holiday Spending survey - the results were interesting, but their graph made you jump through mental hoops to understand the data. So of course I used SAS to create a simpler version of the graph, so you'll have more time for holiday shopping!
Der letzte Tag vor Heiligabend! Die Farbe an ein paar wenigen Geschenken trocknet noch, die letzten Geschenke werden verpackt und die letzten Schleifen gebunden. Ein letztes Mal setzt sich das Christkind mit seinen Auslieferungs-Engeln zusammen. Wird das Wetter mitspielen? Unsere bisherigen Themen: Business Analytics allgemein (1), Vergangenes analysieren – Künftiges
PharmaVOICE recently published an article: Analytics Driven Marketing for the pharmaceutical industry and I was fortunate enough to be interviewed. The article discusses the increased use of advanced analytics to make better marketing decisions, the progress that has been made and the challenges that still need to be overcome. Within
