This guest post was written by Andy Pulkstenis, Director of Advanced Analytics for State Farm Insurance. He leads a team of advanced analytics professionals providing statistical analysis and predictive modeling support for the enterprise across a variety of business units. His background includes more than a decade of experience improving
When I was discussing decision making and analytics with a colleague, he recommended I read the book Your Brain at Work by David Rock. I took his advice because I wanted to find out how the brain processes information and how it might relate to analytics. Rock (you gotta love that name) explains the importance of the
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half.” ~ John Wanamaker, U.S. department store magnate and merchandising / advertising pioneer. I’m not going to claim that I can pinpoint exactly which half of your marketing dollars are wasted in the space
I moved to Australia from Belgium two months ago for a short-term assignment. I am very concerned by the exchange rate. My dollars have lost over 15% of their value in euros and I share my frustration around me. People tell me, "Just wait, it cannot stay so low, the
I get several requests and recommendations for analyzing sports data. I'm not a big sports fan ... but when did I ever let that stop me! When I find interesting data, I like to graph it! Before we get into the nitty-gritty data analysis, here is a picture of my friend Jennifer's daughter
New York City is a pioneer in use of technology in many ways. For instance, the work of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics has been cited repeatedly as an example of smart city innovation. But the innovation doesn’t stop there. Two projects that used SAS data visualization and data
The need for fast and easy access to high-powered analytics has never been greater than it is today. Fortunately, cloud processing still holds the promise of making analytics more transparent and ubiquitous than ever before. Yet, a significant number of challenges still exist that prevent more widespread adoption of cloud
One question I get asked a lot is: What is the most exciting new statistical feature in the 14.1 release? And they get a bit frustrated when I say: It depends. But it does depend! SAS statistical software provides a broad array of capabilities that help users track disease outbreaks,
Along with the data scientist hype, analytics and the people who make them work have found themselves in the spotlight. The trend has also put an emphasis on the "science" aspects of analysis, such as a data focus, statistical rigor, controlled experiments and the like. Now, I’m not at all against adding more
Since our last VirtualOil update in May, oil prices have continued to take a beating. As the chart of the rolling five-year portfolio shows, much of our strip of options is now out-of-the-money and the average value per barrel of that optionality has sunk below $7. No surprise then that
I have been working on streaming analytics in conjunction with a project at Duke Energy, so a few months ago I was contacted by a colleague who wanted to look at the feasibility of applying what I’ve learned to our Internet of Things (IoT) initiative. In particular, we wanted to see if
The digital disruption phenomenon is redrawing the market map. New players, products and services are gaining competitive advantage, while traditional business and revenue models are being questioned. Gartner believes that by 2020, thanks to the Internet of Things, information will be used to reinvent, digitalize or eliminate 80% of business
I was recently asked why I would recommend my new class, Explaining Analytics to Decision Makers: Insights to Action. The answer goes back to some great advice, a lunch of eggplant parmesan and in another more twisted way, to what was ironically affectionately known as the “bomb plant.” Early in
With all the hype over big data we often overlook the importance of modeling as its necessary counterpart. There are two independent limiting factors when it comes to decision support: the quality of the data, and the quality of the model. Most of the big data hype assumes that the data
No matter where I go in the world, I’m constantly amazed by the similarities in business challenges facing organizations around the globe. One of the most common is getting business users to actually adopt and use the insights gained from the great work performed by analytics teams and IT organizations.
As a linguist, I am fascinated with words, their meanings and use. So when I recently saw the words “learning analytics” in a conference paper title, I started thinking about the prevalence of the word “analytics” itself. In the last decade, we have preceded “analytics” with many modifiers referring to
The intersection of data governance and analytics doesn’t seem to get discussed as often as its intersection with data management, where data governance provides the guiding principles and context-specific policies that frame the processes and procedures of data management. The reason for this is not, as some may want to
Today’s Medicaid environment is drastically different from that 5, 10 or 20 years ago. Medicaid enrollment has grown to monumental heights with recent CMS numbers (April 2015) at over 70 million. As enrollment rises, concerns about efficient management of care access, cost, quality, and effectiveness have become even more prominent.
¿Alguna vez ha pensado cuántas decisiones importantes debe tomar en la vida? Por suerte no son tantas: a qué colegio o universidad ir, casarse o no casarse, tomar un trabajo o no, en dónde vivir… etc. Nunca habrá una “penúltima” respuesta para estas decisiones, pero todas ellas necesitan de nuestros
The 2016 summer games are less than a year away, and British sports fans are hoping for a performance that beats Team GB’s record medal tally at London 2012. That’s never been achieved by a country directly after hosting the Games. And the pressure’s on us in the GB Rowing Team given
“Garbage in, garbage out” is more than a catchphrase – it’s the unfortunate reality in many analytics initiatives. For most analytical applications, the biggest problem lies not in the predictive modeling, but in gathering and preparing data for analysis. When the analytics seems to be underperforming, the problem almost invariably
There's a lot of buzz about Hadoop these days. I started checking into it, and there seemed to be a gazillion releases. So, being The Graph Guy, I decided to create a graph to make it a little easier to digest! During my search for Hadoop information, I found the
Jorge Luis Sánchez, Decano Facultad Ingeniería Universidad Javeriana La ciencia de datos se ha convertido en un concepto muy usado últimamente. No tiene una definición clara ya que varias organizaciones y personas lo han clasificado de diferentes maneras, incluso algunas lo han etiquetado simplemente como una ciencia más, pero esto
I enjoy watching TV crime series like Law and Order, Crime Series Investigation (CSI), CriminalMinds, Numb3rs, Person of Interest, as well as real-life mystery stories on shows like 20/20 and others. Obviously, the popularity of these types of shows means I'm not the only one who enjoys this type of entertainment. Here at SAS,
I've heard lots of people quote statistics about marriage & divorce, but the experts don't always agree on what the data means. So I decided to run the data through a SAS graphical analysis, and see what the numbers say ... Before we get into the numbers though, let's have a
I recently saw a cool graph showing the US import/export trade deficit. But after studying it a bit, I realized I was perceiving it wrong. Follow along in this blog, to find out what the problem was, and how I redesigned the graph to avoid it. I was looking through dadaviz.com
In the oil and gas industry, analytics are used to improve both upstream and downstream operations, from optimizing exploration and forecasting production to reducing commodity trading risk and understanding customer's energy needs. If you plan to derive value from the digital oil field, big data, and analytics, one of the first things
We are all modelers. Whenever you plan, you are building a model. Whenever you imagine, you are building a model. When you create, write, paint or speak, you first build in your head a model of what you want to accomplish, and then fill in the details with words, movements
In a complicated, fast-paced and connected world, you don’t succeed alone. SAS and Cloudera have a successful partnership that dates back several years. Our products are complementary and provide significant quantifiable value to customers who run them on the same cluster. Add Intel to the mix and you have a trio
July has been an exciting month for me. Not only because of the historic Tour de France this year... but even more because this month the new offering SAS Factory Miner was officially released! With SAS Factory Miner you can run predictive models in an automated model tournament environment to
