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The Data Gister - Business Intelligence Insights Weblog
You're Invited SAS® Business Intelligence Hands-On Workshop
Discover how to help your organization soar to new heights with SAS® Business Intelligence (BI).
Join us for a complimentary hands-on workshop at a location near you! Don’t miss this opportunity to explore SAS BI capabilities and discover why no other software offers you more widespread access to organizational data.
Why attend? For years, organizations have been tapping into SAS for unmatched breadth and depth of analytics and data management to drive their organizations forward. Now, it’s time to find out how you can put that power – along with world-class analytic, data manipulation and reporting capabilities – at everyone’s fingertips.
Who should attend? Business analyst and business users will benefit from this workshop focused on business intelligence.
About the workshop We'll take you Beyond BI™ by letting you actually use SAS BI applications to solve real-world business problems. You will create insightful reports, explore relational and OLAP data, view and filter data directly from Microsoft Excel, and complete detailed analyses – while drawing upon a variety of SAS applications along the way.
During this complimentary workshop, you’ll gain a better understanding about SAS’ BI Platform and get hands-on experience with SAS Business Intelligence applications.
Access and filter data directly from Excel.
Create and modify reports.
Complete detailed analysis by running SAS Tasks.
Run stored process programs and include the results in a Microsoft Word document.
Explore relational and OLAP data.
Attend a location near you and select a morning or afternoon session. Rockville, MD -March 25, 2008 Irvine, CA - April 29, 2008 New York, NY - May 13, 2008 Dallas, TX - May 28, 2008 Denver, CO - June 17, 2008
Pinnacle Solutions and SAS Institute Presents: The Business Intelligence Executive Breakfast Series
"Optimize the way you see your data!"
Do you wish you could see your business from 40,000 feet to 10 feet with a few clicks of a button? If so, please join us for an in depth look at how you can optimize your business by utilizing one of your most valuable company assets - your data.
Establishing the Enterprise Intelligence Platform By integrating data from across your enterprise and delivering self-service reporting and analysis, IT spends less time responding to requests and business users spend less time looking for information. More time is spent on making better, more informed decisions.
Tailored for small and mid-sized businesses, the platform delivers a fully integrated and comprehensive suite of business intelligence tools that addresses the needs of IT management as well as business users.
Don't miss this opportunity to see the latest business intelligence solutions while networking with fellow decision makers.
Wednesday, November 28th Indianapolis, Indiana CONRAD INDIANAPOLIS 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. EST
Thursday, November 29th Chicago, Illinois SAS INSTITUTE TRAINING CENTER 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. CST
8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.
Breakfast and Get Acquainted Reception
8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Featured Presentation
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Roundtable Discussion
11:00 a.m.
Close and Departure
Note: All times local
Donald L. Penix Jr. (D.J.) President and CEO Pinnacle Solutions, Inc.
D.J. has over 13 years of experience in the design and development of business intelligent applications. With a focus in small and medium businesses, D.J. founded Pinnacle Solutions with the mission to empower clients the ability to analyze and interpret their data to realize a competitive industry advantage.
David Pope Technical Architect SAS Institute
David has worked for SAS Institute in R&D, in the US and internationally, MIS, and the Sales and Marketing departments. This unique combination of work experience over the last 16 years provides David with extensive knowledge of how to apply technology to solve critical business issues.
Wednesday, November 28th Indianapolis, Indiana CONRAD INDIANAPOLIS
50 West Washington Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
Thursday, November 29th Chicago, Illinois SAS INSTITUTE TRAINING CENTER
Two Prudential Plaza 180 North Stetson Street, Suite 1600 (16th floor) Chicago, Illinois 60601
Please RSVP by Friday November 23rd.
Wednesday, November 28th CONRAD INDIANAPOLIS 50 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46204
For more information on the Conrad Indianapolis property, please go to: Conrad Indianapolis Info
Thursday, November 29th SAS INSTITUTE - CHICAGO TRAINING CENTER Two Prudential Plaza, 180 North Stetson Street, Suite 1600 (16th floor), Chicago Illinois, 60601
For more information on the SAS Chicago Training Center, please go to: SAS Institute Info
SAS® Enterprise Miner Webinar –Unearthing true knowledge – profitable data mining results with less time and effort
Title: SAS Enterprise Miner Webinar Date: Thursday, May 25th Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT RSVP: Required (See options below)
What is SAS Enterprise Miner? SAS Enterprise Miner streamlines the entire data mining process from data access to model deployment by supporting all necessary tasks within a single, integrated solution, all while providing the flexibility for efficient workgroup collaborations.
Why is SAS Enterprise Miner important? It provides a powerful, complete data mining solution with unparalleled model development and deployment alternatives and extensive integration opportunities. Delivered as a distributed client-server system, it is especially well suited for data mining in large organizations.
For whom is SAS Enterprise Miner designed? SAS Enterprise Miner is designed for data miners, marketing analysts, database marketers, risk analysts, fraud investigators, engineers and scientists who need to play a major role in solving critical business or research issues.
*** RSVP Option 1 - View the webinar on your own ***
REGISTER via form to view the webinar from the privacy/comfort of your home, office, or any other location where you have high-speed internet and dial-in capabilities. After registration, a separate email will be sent to provide you with the instructions and dial-in phone number.
*** RSVP Option 2 - View the webinar in-person
to dj.penix @ psiconsultants.com to confirm your physical presence at the Pinnacle Solutions conference center.
The webinar will be facilitated at the offices of Pinnacle Solutions in downtown Indianapolis. If you would like to view the webinar "in-person" and/or gather for social drinks after the meeting, feel free to come to the Pinnacle Solutions conference facility. The conference room will have the webinar and conference call set up for a group environment.
Pinnacle Solutions Conference Facility 120 E. Market Street, 9th Floor Conference Center, Indianapolis, 46204 Downtown Indianapolis, 1.5 blocks EAST of Monument Circle
In our continuing efforts to present you with the latest information on Business Intelligence technology and solutions, the focus now turns to Data Integration. A key component of the SAS Data Integration portfolio is ETL (extraction, transformation and loading). ETL is the process of integrating data from any distributed source, managing it, enriching it and transforming it into the high-quality information that drives decision making. SAS combines all these steps within an easy-to-use, metadata-driven warehouse management environment.
This webinar, recorded on March 14th, demonstrates SAS' comprehensive data integration solution that provides organizations with the flexibility, reliability and agility to respond quickly to new data integration requirements, consolidate vendors, standardize on one integration solution and reduce the overall cost of data integration.
During this webinar recording, you will discover how Data Integration can give you:
Direct and quick access to virtually any data source, regardless of hardware platform or operations system.
A single point of control for managing ETL processes.
Centralized metadata management that reduces development time and ongoing maintenance.
The power of integrated SAS analytics.
A consistent use and understanding of all your available data.
Intuitive interfaces for all types of users.
A high degree of confidence in your data.
SAS Data Integration Studio is capable of synthesizing corporate data from disparate “silos” of information in the most timely, cost-efficient manner. It also provides a single version of the truth that business intelligence and analytic intelligence applications require and deliver true ROI while reducing business risk.
Customer retention, sales force optimization, fraud prevention, customer product tailorization, insurance lapse management - these are just some of the high-profile business issues that Futrix is helping clients to manage.
Futrix is an Enterprise Business Intelligence suite that leverages the SAS Business Intelligence platform. Evolved in close consultation with business use in every major industry sector, the resulting product "thinks" as a business person would, with the flexibility to meet the most common business reporting requirements and much much more.
Futrix is a pre-packaged solution that provides business users with web access to deliver the information they need to make more effective decisions.
Please join Pinnacle Solutions in a webinar demonstrating how Futrix can leverage your existing Business Intelligence platform. Register Now.
Mark your calendars for the next Central Indiana SAS Users Group (CISUG) meeting.
Date: Wednesday, January 10th Time: 3:00-5:00pm Where: RCI 9998 N. Michigan Road, Carmel, IN 46032
Roger D. Muller, Ph.D. "Optimizing SAS® Versions 8 and 9 in a Windows or Unix Environment – from the User Interface to Automated Document Production"
ABSTRACT The presentation will revisit the version 8 capabilities and discuss enhancements provided by version 9 of the the SAS system. The goals for this presentation are to enhance the programmer's interactive programming experience and to take full advantage of output capabilities now available.
This year, the MidWest SAS Users Group (MWSUG) conference will be held at the Dearborn Inn in Dearborn, Michigan from October 22 through October 24. MWSUG Online Registration is now available!
MWSUG is pleased to announce that it will be providing up to ten scholarships to full-time college students to attend the 2006 conference with complementary conference registration for accepted applications. Only full-time college or graduate students will be considered. Proof of student enrollment must be submitted with application.
Futrix V5 is now available for demonstration on DataGister.com. Futrix is an ideal solution for SAS customers who have licensed either SAS BI Server or SAS Enterprise BI Server. Integration with and the leverage of SAS BI Server has been a major focus of Futrix V5 development, and this will continue with future versions. Initial focus has been on metadata integration, OLAP Server and Information Delivery Portal support.
Futrix is a suite of extensions to the SAS Business Intelligence platform, which provides administrators and users with the ability to make more informed decisions quickly and easily.
It is an easy-to-use interactive analytical OLAP and reporting tool powered by a comprehensive point-and-click management console, which integrates and harnesses a number of the most powerful business intelligence technologies. Futrix is ideal for organizations that have embraced SAS software as a strategic platform for information delivery. It also enables rapid start-up and long-term benefits to organizations that are new to the SAS environment.
For the month of July, SAS Institute is offering a 2-for-1 discount on their public training. In order to receive the discount, 2 co-workers from the same company must register and attend the course together. The offer only applies applies to public courses, Live Web classes, Business Knowledge Series, and the new Analytic Lecture Series.
The Central Indiana SAS Users Group is meeting every month. The group plans to present a diverse range of SAS related topics and the group is also interested in your opinion. Please help out by taking a few minutes to complete a short survey.
Date: Thursday, May 11th Time: 3:00-5:00pm Where: RCI, 9998 N. Michigan Road, Carmel, IN 46032
Presentation Agenda / Topics:
* Old Business - March Meeting * New Business * Presentation - SAS 9.1.3 BI Tools: Dale Rierson from SAS Institute will provide an overview of the SAS BII Platform. Also, Dale will demostrate the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. Looking for a way to run SAS reports within Microsoft Word? Would you like to view SAS datasets directly in Microsoft Excel? Definitely make sure you attend this presentation. He will also showcase the use of Stored Processes to facilitate enterprise-wide deployment of data and reporting. * Conclusion - Attendees are welcome to meet at the 106th Street Bar & Grill immediately following the meeting for continued networking and appetizers.
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, has been writing a book on the Long Tail phenomenon he introduced in this article in October 2004. His blog chronicles the development of the book.
In Microsoft and the Long Tail of Search, Chris discusses the email he received from a former senior Microsoft manager (name withheld), who described the difficult time he had explaining the Zipf distribution to Bill and his executive team. The manager goes on to tell how he explained the curve, and provided a helpful rule-of-thumb for estimating the consequences of this distribution. I encourage you to read the entire post, found here.
BTW, the title of this post isn't meant to be a Bill-bashing. The point is that this distribution shows up practically everywhere in business, and even household names like Microsoft have a tough time grasping its implications. This Zipf thing isn't new in the tech world, either: Web page usability guru Jakob Nielsen was blogging here in 1997 about how Web use follows a Zipf distribution.
Are you the kind of person who expects your company's leaders to have all of the right answers? It's a common expectation among those who are led, so it's no surprise when the one who becomes emperor of their domain feels the need to project certainty and confidence at all times. Unfortunately, we all know that an excess of either trait can lead to the equivalent of the proverbial “emperor has no clothes” scene.
Next month's issue of Business 2.0 magazine includes a one-page article which makes a good case for periodically pulling the “I don't know” card. Columnist Jeffrey Pfeffer explains his theory on the origin of the I-know-I'm-right syndrome:
Nowadays there's great pressure to come off like a know-it-all. Maybe that's due to the additional scrutiny that comes from living in our media-drenched, blog-happy age. Or maybe it's a result of increasing job insecurity: People think any display of doubt or weakness might cost them their jobs.
As you might have guessed, the know-it-all can subject his/her organization to undesirable consequences. Pfeffer continues:
[The] habit of projecting certainty in uncertain situations can be quite harmful to an organization. Most important, not admitting to yourself and others what you don't know usually precludes asking for help, advice, and relevant information. [C]ommitments that are not open to change can leave an organization operating in fantasyland...If you become so attached to your course of action that proving it right becomes more important than your overall success, chances are you are not going to succeed.
The best approach? So-called fact based management: (1) Stay connected to reality as best you can; and (2) admit what you don't know and ask for time and the means to find out. As Pfeffer notes, “That's what good scientists do every day of their lives.”
The paper titled "SAS OLAP Cubes Made Easier, Faster, and Smaller" from the MidWest SAS Users Group 16 (MWSUG) conference proceedings was inadvertently left out of the CD. You may download the paper here!
Don't forget - MidWest SAS Users Group Conference starts Sunday October 9th through Tuesday October 11th. See you in Cincinnati! On-site registration is available.
While you are at the conference, visit the DataGister.com / Pinnacle Solutions, Inc. booth and register to win a portable 7" DVD Player. Winner to be announced on the DataGister.com website on Friday October 14th.
“Abstract, soft skills are out. Hard, analytical skills are in. This is a very turbulent time for marketing VP’s. With regards to the marketing function, there’s a growing mentality among CEO’s that “there’s nothing as devastating to an opinion as a number.” And marketing managers who don’t have an analytical bias and a multichannel orientation are at a distinct disadvantage.” Link: Marketing Skills in High Demand
His most recent posting on"expeditionary marketing" skills is worth a read as well. Link: Hard-to-Find Marketing Skills
Former Microsoft Internet Explorer program manager Scott Berkun has just published an interesting analysis of the mind games often played by a portion of the intellectually gifted population. He has published his views in a paper titled Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas at ChangeThis.
Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the paper:
[R]emember this one simple rule for defusing those who are skilled at defending bad ideas: Simply because they cannot be proven wrong, does not make them right. Most of the tricks of logic and debate refute questions and attacks, but fail to establish any true justification for a given idea.
[H]umans, given our evolution, are very bad at seeing the cumulative effects of behavior, and underestimate how things like compound interest…can in the long term, have surprisingly large impacts despite clearly low short term effects.
SAS recently informed Computerworld of plans for a first installation of a credit card fraud detection tool. Code-named Raptor, the tool will be used by London-based HSBC Holdings PLC to monitor activity among its customers’ credit cards. Get this: The SLA with HSBC requires SAS to process 1,000 anti-fraud transactions per second.
