"Bad data does exist," says Sunil Gupta, SAS author and Global Corporate Trainer, Gupta Programming. Gupta is an expert in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, but he volunteered this week to speak to an audience of SAS users in the insurance and financial services industries about minimizing the impact and
The smallest aircraft I’ve ever flown on was the one I took from Raleigh to Hilton Head, South Carolina to attend my first PharmaSUG – the Pharmaceutical Industry SAS Users Group. That was in 1997, and it’s been my pleasure to work with this great group of volunteer SAS leaders
Are you a SAS professional working in the insurance or financial services industry? Are you looking for a place where you can talk with others who work in the those industries? Would you like to get together and network, face-to-face, or share ideas and best practices for using SAS? There is now a SAS Users Group just for you;
~Contributed by Rex Pruitt, IFSUG Chairman One of the newest SAS users groups has settled on a date, time and place for its first formal get-together. IFSUG (Insurance & Finance SAS Users Group) will meet March 4-6 in the new SAS Executive Briefing Center in Cary, NC. The IFSUG Summit will
I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of the US through my work with SAS users groups. My latest trip was to Fort Worth, Texas, where I saw my first rodeo and attended the South Central SAS Users Group (SCSUG) Educational Forum.
SAS said, "Hello, San Francisco!" for the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference October 12-14. The conference was chaired by Kathy Valdes, from SRI, and Ginger Carey, from Carey Consulting, two long time SAS users. With no time for Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay, we kicked off the event -
In a production environment, where dozens of SAS programs are run in sequence, often monthly or quarterly, and where logs can span thousands of lines, it’s easy to overlook the small stuff that can cause data hangovers. Recognize any of these? A temporary data set finds its way into subsequent
“I really wish someone had shown me this function in SAS sooner, because it’s saved me a ton of time and effort,” said Brandi Rhoads as she opened her presentation at the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference in San Francisco.
I've been very fortunate to meet a lot of SAS users during my scant 3 year tour at SAS. I've met them while attending SAS Global Forum 2009, 2010, and 2011; NESUG 2009, 2010 and 2011; and SESUG 2010. Of course, like you, I want to go to all of the
If you've been to a SAS Forum, US SAS Regional or local SAS event, you know that it is impossible to see and hear everything that is on your list. Imagine how disappointed your SAS colleagues are who are sitting at home. They would love to hear about what you
~Contributed by Paul Gorrell and Warren Stinson, Conference Co-Chairs There were 384 attendees from 23 states and 6 countries gathered at the Holiday Inn By The Bay in Portland, Maine for three days to present, discuss, code, blog and tweet, using both familiar and new ways to share SAS expertise. There
With data standards rising in every industry, there’s a high demand for analysts and an unfortunate shortage of analytic talent. Many organizations are turning to student internships as a low-cost way to hire support, train potential new employees and provide real-world experience for students.
The premise of the modern portfolio theory (MPT), proposed by Harry Markowitz in 1952, is diversity. Murphy Choy says that means you should “never put all of your eggs in the same basket.” According to Choy, the theory was never meant to be used with complex investment products because they
Ready for some fun facts? These tidbits were all shared during the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference held in San Francisco this week: 1. How many million dollars did a simple Excel spreadsheet error cost TransAlta? Answer: $24 million 2. What percentage of mobile phone users older
At the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS)conference this morning, I witnessed my first Super Demo, taught by SAS’ own Andy Ravenna covering the major improvements to the latest version of SAS® Enterprise Guide®. The coolest new new features: Mouse over tooltip – gives you help right in the program editor
~Contributed by Melissa Perez, SAS Customer Loyalty~ Making sure our customers have a great experience with SAS is the goal of the US Customer Loyalty team. SAS has a wealth of resources available to our customers and the loyalty team is a dedicated resource to provide support and act as
The Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) have the best acronym ever, and they're putting on an amazing conference in San Francisco this week. The conference kicked off today with conference chairs Kathryn Valdes and Ginger Carey’s announcement that the Pacific Northwest Users Group is merging with WUSS next year, adding
Users groups and users group events are a great way to get the most from the software that you use every day: learn new coding and analysis techniques, gain efficiencies and productivity, and meet other SAS users. The final months of 2011 will fly by. Don’t let them escape without
In 1979, my ninth-grade teachers named me "Most Likely to Replace Rona Barrett" on TV's Good Morning America. Although the prediction never came to pass, it did at least stoke my enthusiasm for "conversation" and my passion for "sharing." So, yeah, I can be a real talker sometimes. Up for some spirited, banal chit-chat? Give me a call! Delighted by the meandering
Most SUG presentations are written in PowerPoint – they may even be written in Word first, and then fancied up a bit in PowerPoint – but they are rarely written in SAS. But Louise Hadden, from Abt Associates Inc, had a need to produce a lot of PDF presentations. She
The Obama Administration and subprime lenders agree on one thing: Borrowers with bad credit lack the clout - both financial and political - to rebuild their lives without help from somebody ... somewhere. Where they disagree - royally - is over how. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of
With a combined 62 years of experience using SAS and JMP, consultants Kirk Paul Lafler and Charles Edwin Shipp have authored countless papers, articles, books - even puzzles - about analytics. Over the years, they've pretty much seen the world more than a few times during their travels to international,
More than 175 users attended the recent one-day conferences sponsored by the Pacific Northwest SAS Users Group (PNWSUG). Conference chairs Sara Beck and Mark Thompson, supported by the PNWSUG Executive Committee, created another great learning experience for SAS users in Seattle (Sept 19) and Portland (Sept 21). However, change is
Metadata is data about data. For the purposes of his NESUG 2011 presentation, Frank DiIorio defined metadata more precisely as data about data and data that describes workflow objects and processes. DiIorio wrote his paper because organizations are challenged more and more today to do more with less. Metadata can
Contributed by Sara Jones, CMP, User and Customer Marketing at SAS So many papers, so little time. Looking at the SAS users group conference schedule and deciding what to attend and how to get the very most of your day can be overwhelming - in a good way of course. So many
Telecommuting is not always a matter of working from home. Virtual team workers are often located in a satellite office, in another country or are temporarily out of the office. Today, many managers have no choice but to incorporate telecommuting members into their team structure. Mary Varughese, Mei Dey and
Kathleen Harkins, Carolyn Maass and Mary Anne Rutkowski, from Merck Sharp and Dohme, collaborated to write T.I.P.S: Techniques and information for programming in SAS® for NESUG 2011. These three women are highly experienced programmers: Harkins has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and aerospace industries; Maass has
My first trip to Portland, Maine, gave me more than I had expected - it was a touching, heartwarming experience that was not what I thought I'd signed up for. Let me explain: While planning my flight and other travel arrangements, I realized that I would arrive in Portland early
Did you know that the Pacific Northwest SAS® Users Group (PNWSUG) is the oldest regional SAS users group in the U S, offering conferences since 1981? This year PNWSUG updated their usual multi-day, one location conference. They'll offer two convenient one-day conferences: one on September 19 in Seattle and one September
Academic Chair Barbara Okerson and Operations Team Lead Marje Fecht are chairing the 2011 SouthEast SAS Users Group (SESUG) conference. This year's conference will be held in another wonderful historical city slightly north of the 2010 Savannah location; it'll be located in Alexandria, Virginia, October 23 - 25. The format
