What Superpower Would YOU Choose?

This was the question which occupied the 42 attendees at the Golden Horseshoe SAS User Group meeting on Friday morning during their networking break. As I walked around the room speaking with people, I caught snippets of SAS-related conversations being discussed with as much passion as the icebreaking topic. Champions of a variety of abilities struggled to convince their peers that their power provided the most advantage, for example, the convenience of teleporting versus the majestic power of flight. At the same time, the utility and ease of use of macros was a hot topic in certain corners as well!

I myself argued for invisibility for my superpower... how great would it be to go anywhere, do anything? Hours of operation would be meaningless: I could hop a flight to Paris, sit in an empty seat unnoticed, and drive the poor security guards at the Louvre absolutely batty as I set off alarms on a self-guided, private tour of the museum after hours! Given my deep love of archaeology, paleontology and history, I might be there for quite some time.

While we couldn't agree upon a universally-desired superpower, one thing I think we all can acknowledge is that yesterday's meeting was extremely successful. I was so pleased to see members of the Golden Horseshoe community connecting with each other at the meeting, and even more pleased to find a few messages waiting for me in the Golden Horseshoe LinkedIn Group. I'm optimistic that I managed to hit some of the right notes during my 'SAS and Social Media: What's in it for Me?!?!?' presentation, given the feedback I've had already. Speaking of which, I've posted that presentation in .pdf form on LinkedIn: if you'd like it or have questions, feel free to connect with me!

I'd like to single-out Debbie Weisensee of McMaster University and Ron Kaine of Bell Canada for their amazing presentations as well. Debbie reprised the talk she gave at TASS, once again opening up the hood and demonstrating how McMaster is using SAS for reporting, analyzing and distributing information. The demo went extremely well, and I think more than a few people were impressed by what she was able to do! In his presentation, Ron Kaine made it clear that as a business user of SAS, he enjoyed leveraging the power of the analytical and reporting capabilities of Enterprise Guide. In what will hopefully be the first in a series of small talks, Ron demonstrated how a commonly utilized procedure - PROC FREQ - could be run through Enterprise Guide, and why. Great stuff, Ron! These presentations will be posted this week on the GHSUG website for those interested in more information. Better yet, join us at the spring meeting on April 15th, 2011! That gives you plenty of time to figure out which superpower would best suit you.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and I'll be posting mid-week to give you feedback around the highly-anticipated Toronto Data Mining Forum!