Featured SAS® Presenters at the
2010 South Central SAS® Users Group Educational Forum

 

Presentations | Stat Tutorial | Half-Day Seminars | Hands On Workshop

 

Presentations

 

Chuck Pirello

Effective Visualization Techniques for Data Discovery and Analysis

Bio: Chuck Pirrello is Product Manager for Visual Analytics at JMP, a business unit of SAS. He helps direct the development and marketing of JMP’s interactive data visualization and exploration capabilities.  He also contributes to the marketing of SAS Visual BI and SAS Visual Data Discovery, both of which include JMP visualization and analysis capabilities. Before joining the JMP division, Pirrello was responsible for marketing Business Scorecard and Dashboard solutions for SAS. Earlier, he worked for Hyperion and Comshare, vendors of financial and business intelligence software. He has more than 20 years of experience in finance, consulting and product management. Pirrello has an MBA from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Fairfield University.

 

Abstract: One of the best ways to understand data is through good data visualization.  The art of presenting data visually has matured from static graphs and dashboard widgets to interactive, animated graphs.  Adding advanced analytics in support of these graphs provides a competitive edge to companies by helping them better explore and understand their data, predict potential outcomes and decide with confidence.   This session will discuss the power of visualization for analyzing data and spotting trends you can act on.  Effective visual techniques will be demonstrated showing how users can better explore and understand their data, discover trends and patterns, and communicate their findings to a non-technical, non-analytic audience.

Vince DelGobbo

Traffic Lighting Your Multi-Sheet Microsoft Excel Workbooks the Easy Way with SAS®

Bio: Vince DelGobbo is a Senior Systems Developer in the Web Tools group at SAS. This group is responsible for the SAS/IntrNet Application Dispatcher and SAS Stored Processes. He has worked on the HTML Formatting Tools, the SAS Design-Time Controls and the ExcelXP ODS tagset, and is developing new Web and server-based technologies, as well as integrating SAS output with Microsoft Office. Vince has been a SAS Software user since 1982, and joined SAS in 1992.

 

Abstract: "Traffic lighting" is the process of applying visual formatting to data. This paper explains how to use Base SAS®9 software to create multi-sheet Microsoft Excel workbooks (for Excel versions 2002 and later), and then traffic light the values that lie outside a range. You will learn step-by-step techniques for quickly and easily creating attractive, multi-sheet Excel workbooks that contain your SAS output using the ExcelXP ODS tagset. The techniques that are presented in this paper can be used regardless of the platform on which SAS software is installed. You can even use them on a mainframe! Creating and delivering your workbooks on-demand and in real time using SAS server technology is also discussed.  Although the title is similar to previous papers by this author, this paper contains new and revised material not previously presented.

Kathy Council

At Your Service: Your Roadmap to Support from SAS®

Bio: As Vice President of Publications, Kathy Council oversees development and delivery of online and printed documentation and information products that support SAS products globally. Vice President since 1985, Council has headed the Publications unit since originally joining SAS in 1977. She has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master's degree in statistics from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

 

Abstract: At YOUR service. How to make the most of the products and services from SAS Publishing, SAS Education, Technical Support, and support.sas.com.  You have world class support from SAS at your fingertips. But where do you start? How do you navigate the sea of information available to you from SAS? How do you find the resources you need to do your job?  This paper will provide you with practical tips, tricks, and techniques to find exactly what you need to use SAS. You’ll save time, learn about upcoming content and, best of all, become a more proficient and expert user of SAS. This paper will benefit the new user and the seasoned SAS user alike.  The intended audience is anyone interested in learning more about how to effectively use the services available from SAS.

Mike Barnhart

Better Decision Making with SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence and Microsoft Outlook

Bio: Mike Barnhart is a Senior Software Developer in the Business Intelligence Clients division at SAS. He is currently the team lead for integrating SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office into Microsoft Outlook. Mike was involved in the initial design and development of SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Web OLAP Viewer for .NET. Mike has 25 years experience developing desktop business analysis tools and has a B.S. in Computer Science from Western Michigan University.

 

Abstract: The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office has new Microsoft Outlook integration capabilities that enable better decision-making, increase productivity and decrease cost by taking full advantage of SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence through the Microsoft Outlook environment. This integration of SAS BI and Microsoft Outlook increases informed decision making by giving users intuitive access to reports, stored processes and dashboards. These capabilities reduce the user learning curve and improve productivity, thereby increasing the return on investment of business intelligence implementations. Users obtain contextual information from SAS Business Intelligence while performing daily tasks in Microsoft Outlook. The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office user interface seamlessly integrates with the Microsoft Outlook look and feel. By leveraging the widely used Microsoft Outlook environment, SAS BI Outlook integration can make the rich functionality of the SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence server, reporting and analytics available to all employees within an organization.

Renee Harper

Discovering the Road Less Travelled to SAS Information: A Guide for Your Journey

Bio: Renee Harper has been employed at SAS for over 15 years.  She worked as part of the installation documentation team, then on various SAS products including SAS/IntrNet and SAS Integration Technologies.  However, her focus moved to supporting SAS customers through online channels. She now works exclusively with SAS' online customer support Web site -- support.sas.com.

 

Abstract: SAS users are as diverse as the offerings from SAS. The trick is for you to find the content and delivery mechanism that fits the way you work and provides what you need when you need it.  We can help you explore options on the Internet, show you tricks for searching and aggregating content, and help you influence content and content delivery.    With a new bag of tricks, you will get more out of your investment in SAS. This paper explains how to use notification tools like RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds and aggregation sites like Netvibes, MyYahoo®, and iGoogle™.  We will briefly explore collaboration tools like discussion forums, Orkut groups, and sasCommunity.org. The goal of this paper and accompanying presentation is to arm you with the tools necessary to locate information when you need it, no matter the site on which it lives.  We intend to open the window into online resources, but also hope that you bring your own ideas and suggested resources for the question and answer session.

Bari Lawhorn

Using SAS® Output Delivery System (ODS) Markup to Generate Custom Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts

Bio: Bari Lawhorn has been a Technical Support consultant in the BASE Product group at SAS since 1996. Bari has supported ODS since its inception and has been using SAS for 14 years. 

 

Abstract: This paper illustrates how to use ODS markup to create PivotTable and PivotChart reports. You can use these reports to help your organization with business requirements such as analyzing expense trends over time or planning for inventory. Users of all experience levels will learn how to specify options in an ODS statement that enable them to perform the following tasks:

Bob Derr

The Next Generation: SAS/STAT 9.22

Bio: Bob Derr became a SAS-user in 1988 while employed at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  He received his PhD in Statistics at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1999.  He has been employed at SAS since 1994 and currently develops software for logistic regression, categorical data analysis, and multiple comparison tests.

 

Abstract: Caught up with SAS/STAT® 9.2? Want to add even more statistical tools to your arsenal? Then get ready for the 9.22 release of SAS/STAT software, which works with Base SAS® 9.2 to deliver methodological advances as well as customer-requested features. New functionality for postprocessing equips the modern linear modeling procedures with comparable capabilities, including the latest techniques for testing complex research hypotheses. The new SURVEYPHREG procedure fits Cox regression models to survey data. The EFFECTPLOT statement uses ODS graphics to create plots of effects from models produced by the GENMOD, LOGISTIC, and ORTHOREG procedures. Exact Poisson regression is one of several new exact methods for categorical data analysis. Other new features include updated spatial analysis capabilities, classification variable support in the ROBUSTREG procedure, and model averaging in the GLMSELECT procedure. This talk provides an overview of these exciting new enhancements to SAS/STAT.

 

Stat Tutorial

Bob Derr

Introduction to Logistic Regression

Bio: Bob Derr became a SAS-user in 1988 while employed at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  He received his PhD in Statistics at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1999.  He has been employed at SAS since 1994 and currently develops software for logistic regression, categorical data analysis, and multiple comparison tests.

 

Abstract: Logistic regression is one of the basic modeling tools for a statistician or data analyst. This tutorial focuses on the basic methodology behind logistic regression and discusses parameterization, testing goodness of fit, and model evaluation using the LOGISTIC procedure. The tutorial concentrates on binary response models, but direction for handling ordinal responses is also provided. This tutorial discusses numerous ODS graphics now available with the LOGISTIC procedure, as well as newer features of SAS 9.2 such as ROC comparisons and odds ratios with interactions.  The tutorial includes numerous examples. 

 

Half-Day Seminars

Presenter TBD

SAS® Platform Administration

Abstract: This seminar provides demonstrations using SAS Management Console to administer the platform for SAS Business Analytics.  Demonstrations include:

Mark Jordan

Untangling the World Wide Web

Bio: Mark started his SAS programming career at Newport News Shipbuilding in 1994, then managed the internal SAS support team at Capital One.  In 2003, Mark came to SAS where he immensely enjoys his work as a Technical Trainer.  He co-authored the SQL1 training course and teaches the core SAS programming classes.  Mark lives in Cary, NC and in his "spare time" enjoys fiddling with his home computer network, playing with his six grandchildren, hanging out at the beach and playing with any toy that flies.

 

Abstract: This seminar will demonstrate using SAS® to acquire data from the internet.   Participants will learn how use SAS® software to:

 

Hands On Workshop

Marje Fecht

SAS® Enterprise Guide®:  It’s for Programmers Too!

Abstract: Have you been programming in SAS® for a while and just aren’t sure how SAS® Enterprise Guide® can help you? It isn’t just a pretty face! This workshop demonstrates how SAS programmers can use SAS Enterprise Guide as their primary interface to the SAS system while maintaining the flexibility of writing their own customized code. Included are:

We will also share best practices for working in a server environment. SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 is used. This presentation is appropriate for SAS users who understand the basics of SAS programming and want to learn how to use SAS Enterprise Guide.