Opening the 2015 Season in Saskatchewan

Where does the time go... well, that's a bit of a silly question I suppose. It marches on and on and on. But I must admit to being more than a little shocked when I realized I had not offered a new post here in almost a calendar year's time. I suppose it's appropriate that I'm doing so on April Fool's Day... but the only fool around here is me. Believe me, it's not that there wasn't anything going on in 2014 - the exact opposite to tell you the truth!

It was such a busy year that I found it a real challenge to carve out a few hours to sit back and reflect on the wonderful experiences I had at SAS user groups across the country. I do have many strong memories from last year... I suppose I'll have to let those trickle out bit by bit over time. At any rate, no sense looking backwards - I'd rather look ahead to a great 2015 SAS user group season, beginning in Saskatchewan.

Canada is such a wonderfully diverse country, one I'm fortunate to cross from coast to coast several times a year. It should then come as no surprise that SAS users in our country are just as diverse as the land itself. From programmers to Visual Analytics whizzes, from Enterprise Guide users to data mining practitioners... the spectrum of SAS usage is as broad as Canada is wide. Saskatchewan has distinguished itself (at least, in my eyes) as the province which is developing their SAS skills most quickly. They have a hunger for knowledge that borders on ravenous... and they are willing to share their skills and support each other more so than almost anywhere else. It's great to see!

Our first stop was in the beautiful city of Regina, where I was able to catch up with an old friend and a true SAS legend. Nate Derby of Stakana Analytics was to be our keynote speaker here in Saskatchewan and in Winnipeg as well. In addition to being a prolific presenter (check out his publication list here) he is a staunch supporter of the Vancouver SAS User Group and an honourary Canadian. His business interests in Seattle and an uncooperative holiday schedule had confounded us from catching up for almost a year and a half... and it was great to have some time to bring each other up to speed on our lives in the SAS world.

The user group meeting itself was really 'The Nate Derby Show'. Due to some unavoidable work conflicts we lost one of our local speakers for the morning. Fortunately, our other speaker - Rajib Sahaji of SGI Canada - was more than up to the task of representing his city. His talk on Analyses of Casualty Collisions During Statutory Holidays in Saskatchewan was a very interesting look at how insurance companies set rates and conduct due diligence to do so. For all of us who may wonder how and why our monthly payments are set as they are, it was an eye opener. I feel like a very small piece of the puzzle was revealed! As a new car owner, this talk was especially relevant (although I'm not doing much driving in Saskatchewan ever, let alone on holidays).

Nate then became the star of the show - delivering not one, not two, but THREE presentations! I'm amazed he still had a voice at the end of the morning. His talks are all posted on the Regina SAS User Group website as well as Rajibs, of course. Nate's talks pretty much ran the gamut - whether discussing optimizing statistical models, maintaining SAS formats in Excel, or getting the most out of PROC REG, he was able to bring an approachable perspective to some fairly complex topics. I think everyone in the room gained something from his knowledge.

Several hours later, Nate and I joined my colleague Matt Joyce (or, Matt West to my Matt East) for the drive up to Saskatoon. There was a recent thread on Reddit featured on CBC which was a tongue-in-cheek dissection of this exact trip. Personally, I LOVE the drive. Coming from the east I don't get that 'big sky' feeling that I do in the Prairies. Taking it all in while flying through the flat landscape like a bat out of hell is certainly a great way to spend an early spring afternoon... and great conversation along the way to boot.

Saskatoon is my spiritual home, I've decided. Certainly in terms of my work with the user groups - the first ever group I visited and ran some 7+ years ago now and many of the same, wonderful faces who still grace the meetings. I'm always made to feel so comfortable and welcome. I have my favourite hotels, my preferred restaurants, I get a smile and a nod from folks in places I frequent often. It's always nice to come 'home'.

The meeting in Saskatoon was well-attended and featured the second installment of the Nate Derby show, reprising many of the talks he delivered so well in Regina. You'll find a full list of all the presentations here. We were also very fortunate to have the very talented Meric Osman of the Health Quality Council of Saskatchewan offering a preview of his SAS Global Forum 2015 talk on SAS Solutions to Create Episodes of Hospitalization for Health Research. He's a great speaker with an engaging topic - I'm going to enjoy seeing in again in Dallas in a few weeks' time! The Saskatoon group also came together to form a brand-new Executive Committee. Special thanks to former President Mark Horseman for his leadership and congratulations to Meric for assuming the Presidency of the group! Nianping Hu also joins our team as Vice-President and Kavitha Ramachandran as the Program Chair. It's great to see the local SAS users step up to support their community.

I flew off to Winnipeg ready to close out a long week of travel happy to have spent so much time in Saskatchewan. I consider myself quite fortunate that this is part of my job - if travelling the country, connecting with colleagues and enjoying great conversation can be considered work!  Thanks as always for the hospitality, Saskatchewan... and I do look forward to the next time.

Coming up next: some stories about my trip to Manitoba.

Until then...

Sunrise In the Paris of the Prairies

Here I sit in my hotel room in Regina at 4:00am. I’ve showered and packed, ready to hit the road for my early flight back to Toronto. Yet I must admit, I’m more than a little wistful to leave this great city. The people and the weather have both been warm and delightful.

I’m pleased to say that some of that warmth is coming back with me, though. The great feeling of community which began for me with last Friday’s TASS meeting has carried on here in the prairies. We had great representation here from SAS Canada – I was representing the Toronto office, our keynote speaker (and good friend) Sylvain Tremblay from Montreal and Pre-Sales Specialist Jamie Peterson from the Calgary office. It’s a rare thing that so many offices are so strongly represented at a user group meeting – Regina, you’re certainly doing things right! The Executive Committee here in Regina also helps make that sense of community that much more real. Coming from a variety of backgrounds and industries, these volunteers give off the impression that they have known each other forever. Everyone works seamlessly together to ensure the highest quality speakers are available and that all the logistical details are taken care of without any hitches. It makes life that much easier when every question or request you could think of has already been answered or addressed.

One of the things I love most about this SAS community is how it has responded in great numbers to the establishment of the user group. Last May, we had two half-day meetings which each attracted around 30-40 people. This time, we had nearly 50 people show up… a sign that word of mouth is helping fire up the group! Two things stood out to me here. The first was that on the evaluation forms, several people indicated that they had NO SAS background at all – that they were in attendance to see what the meetings were all about and to support their teams. Now THAT is the spirit of community! The second thing which jumped out to me was that en route to lunch, Matt Spence of Farm Credit Canada – and the initial driver of the Executive Committee – mentioned to me that he had a goal of realizing a 100 attendee meeting. Outstanding. It’s great to see the group want to grow and excel, and goes that little bit further towards confirming why we elected to start this group up in the first place.

The meeting itself had an agenda designed to try and accommodate as wide a variety of SAS usage as possible – in terms of skill level as well as usage type. We began with some SAS programming basics: encryption and security settings courtesy of Sylvain. I’ve seen this talk a few times before, but I always come away with something new… this time, it was the ability to encrypt a SAS data set which really stood out for me. Great for ensuring that any FTP or email transfers wouldn’t be a vulnerability. Davendra Patel of eHealth Saskatchewan continued with the programming theme by scanning the log for notes and errors – a great habit for any SAS user to practice. The beauty of this talk was that Davendra actually modified code from a SUGI 31 paper and put it into production in his environment: once again, the SAS community shows its strength! Shaun Kauffmann of Farm Credit Canada closed off the programming elements of the meeting by taking the discussion to the advanced level with a thorough discussion of hash objects and hash tables. The strength here is certainly in optimization and time savings, and Shaun made that clear through his talk. Finally, I brought up the rear reprising an Enterprise Guide talk I have delivered over the years in a few cities around testing a hypothesis around the Titanic survival rates. You can check out all the talks here within the next few days.

I had the distinct pleasure of being ‘trapped’ in Regina for an extra 18 hours following the meeting – the flight schedule just worked out that way. The extra time allowed me to enjoy this city for what it is, a friendly, walkable oasis in the middle of the Canadian prairies. I’m hoping that I’ll be the one who returns for the Spring meeting. I have a feeling it will be even bigger – and better – than this one.

Although I’m flying home to Toronto today I won’t be there for long. Next week I’m headed to Quebec City for the Forum analytique d’affaires SAS with an all-star line-up of guest speakers. I’ll have more on that meeting once it’s done. But for now, it’s a big ‘thank you’ to Regina and ‘hello’ to my hometown.

Until then…

New Friends & Old: SAS in Saskatchewan is Super Solid

Following a quick stop off in my hometown of Toronto, I was off once again on a jaunt out to Saskatchewan… but this was no ordinary trip. I was launching a brand-new user group in Regina and I’ll admit to being both excited and a little nervous. Registration was tremendous for both the existing group in Saskatoon and for the new initiative in Regina, true… but it’s always a little nerve-wracking all the same. It feels a bit like throwing a party and not really relaxing until people have started showing up. Thoughts race through your mind apace: will people find it valuable? Will they enjoy the meeting? Will they like me? I really hope they like me….

Of course, I had no such illusions around the quality of the guest speaker for both meetings. Tara Holland is a SAS powerhouse and a good friend. As a native daughter of Saskatchewan, it’s always fun to return with Tara to her roots… it’s easy to see where her easy demeanor and wonderful personality come from, it must be something they put in the water throughout her home province.

First stop was a reliable, strong group in Saskatoon. Now, I must admit that my mood was somewhat… coloured for the first 48 hours of my trip. Why? Well, I’m from Toronto and an ardent Maple Leafs supporter. Monday evening was the last playoff game against the Boston Bruins, winner moves on to the next round. I don’t want to describe what happened – it’s too painful, still – but let’s just say that I was getting text updates on my BlackBerry while at dinner with Tara and some executive members the evening before, and it was a very glum end to the meal.

Fortunately, the meeting the next day went a long way towards perking me up once again. In truth it’s hard not to be cheerful in Saskatoon! The populace is so kind, so warm, and have become such good friends over time that I found myself shaking off the disappointment of the previous evening’s hockey game rather quickly. I really had to, truth be told: it was going to be a long couple of days!

Heading back to the University of Saskatchewan is always a treat for me. Our meetings have taken place here consistently over the past 5 years and it was the scene of my very first user group on the road. I’m always reminded of where I came from and how things have changed since then… and for the better, might I add.

The meeting itself was a good mix of programming techniques and newer SAS technologies. Tara led off with a really cool talk around building word clouds using SAS. While great on its own, the talk was a nice set-up for my own Visual Analytics talk which was to come later… or so I thought.  Significant technical challenges prevented me from connecting to the demo environment in North Carolina. Now, I’m a pretty good song and dance artist: I can procrastinate and delay with the best of them. But this was beyond even my considerable skill set. Fortunately, Tara came to the rescue once again with a video walkthrough of Visual Analytics which she had saved and was able to play and walk through. Thank goodness for technology… and at the same time, woe be to we who rely on it too often!

The visualization theme continued in the afternoon with a pair of ODS-themed talks: one giving an introduction to the layout options and a second bringing it into practical focus by demonstrating how it worked. Liying and Jacqueline were a great team here… and it was particularly great to see Jacqueline give a talk once again; she’s a real expert in delivering value from the ground-level up and she’s certainly become a good friend. I’ve missed her as she hasn’t been able to attend the past few talks. Always a pleasure to see you, Jacqueline!

We also had a very technical talk from Masud Rana on ProcMCMC which involved Monte Carlo simulations. I’m not a statistician, so that’s about all I could get out of it. It was a great talk to see, however, as it really demonstrated just how wide the SAS world can be. Thanks Masud for opening some eyes.

Finally, I had a chance to redeem myself from the earlier Visual Analytics disaster with a talk on some handy tips and tricks forEnterprise Guide. Thankfully I was only connecting locally, so this talk ran smoothly! I hope the attendees who were EG users picked up at least a little something here.

It would be remiss of me not to point out that Gopinath Narasimhan delivered a great talk around SAS Global Forum and building apresentation based on the proceedings. It can sometimes be a challenge to find local speakers and I hope that this presentation went a long way towards showing just how easy and fun it can be.

Following the meeting, Tara and I jumped in a rental car for the 2.5 hour drive down to Regina. I have to say, this was one of my favourite parts of the trip. Tara grew up on a farm not too far from Regina and she certainly knew the route very well. She was a great tourguide and I learned a lot: from grain elevators to farming techniques… to an embarrassing admission of my ‘Toronto-ness’ by realizing out loud that black patches I saw on the ground were the shadows of clouds, the trip was full of laughs and fun. And hey: in my defense, we don’t get to see cloud shadows in the city, there’s too much other stuff in the way! On the flat and empty prairies, however, this isn’t a concern.

For my first visit to Regina, I must say I was very impressed with the city. It has a really neat feel to it: modern and bustling, yet most people know each other enough to at least wave or nod hello. We were there for two meetings over two days and I was really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces who had offered to help spearhead the meeting from on the ground.

First up, we had a ‘traditional’ SAS user group meeting. This meant SAS usage tips and tricks from a variety of presenters. One of the many things which impressed me about the group was how two local speakers volunteered to give talks. In my experience, this has NEVER happened! Usually we need to form an executive committee, get people used to the format and flow of the meeting, and then we can start to see volunteers pop up. Not so in Regina! Shaun Kaufmann and Andrew Dyck of Farm Credit Canada both stepped forward with some well-structured, very engaging talks. Shaun talked about the new SAS DS2 programming language which will be rolled out in SAS version 9.4 and Andrew discussed using SAS for simulating portfolio growth at FCC. Both talks were great, drawing rave reviews from no less a critic than Tara Holland herself. Tara has certainly seen a presentation or two in her time and for her to offer up such high praise is truly noteworthy.

Of course, I myself had a pair of talks on the agenda; the same two I delivered (or tried to deliver) the day before in Saskatoon. Fortunately, the internet connection at the Delta Regina was much stronger and I was able to successfully demonstrate and run a Visual Analytics talk. I’m very glad I did as it clearly caught the room off guard: there was lots of praise for the product and for the power it brought to bear.

I closed out the meeting with an appeal for volunteers from the forty-strong attendees. User groups are only as strong as the people who help to plan them out and I do rely heavily on local support to find guest speakers. I was thrilled that Matt Spence – who must be singled out for lifting the heavy load of the sole user group executive committee member for the first few months – was quickly joined by six other individuals from a variety of organizations. I’m looking forward to working with this team! If our lunch conversation was any indication, the Regina group could soon be a model for others in terms of cohesion and effectiveness.

Our final day of meetings in Regina was more in Tara’s wheelhouse than mine: a ‘World of SAS Analytics’ day. The idea here was to try and dive deeper into what it meant to be analytical – both as an individual and as an industry. Tara’s expertise and experience comes from building analytical competency centres so she was certainly the right person to deliver these business-level talks. A good number of attendees had returned from the previous day to take in the meetings and I feel like none were left disappointed: in fact, I was asked for copies of Tara’s talks immediately following the meeting, always a very good sign! You can also find them posted on the Regina website.

I remain incredibly impressed with the good folks of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon offered their usual high level of hospitality and set the bar for collaboration as far as I’m concerned… and Regina has certainly proven itself no slouch with a strong executive committee forming right away with plans already in place for future talks. I can’t wait to get back out to this great province in the fall. Of course, if you weren’t able to attend the meetings you can still pick up the talks at either the Saskatoon website or the Regina website. I do encourage you to come on out in September and October to connect with your fellow SAS users.

I do need to thank Tara in particular for her invaluable help and kindness on this trip. Not only was a great sounding board on a personal and business level, but she went one step further than she had to: we went to her sister’s house as, in her own words, ‘you need a home-cooked meal’. It was so nice to just sit and chat with family in a kitchen, not a restaurant and not room service… and it really summed up the graciousness and general kind nature of the good people of Saskatchewan.

Tara and I had one more trip to take: this time to Winnipeg for their user group meeting. I’ll have more on that in an upcoming post.

Until then….