Orcas, Visual Analytics & SAS Dates: An Eye-Opening Trip to British Columbia

Two weeks ago I was soaring towards British Columbia for a bit of work… and a bit of play as well. To be fair, even the work seems like play for me sometimes. It’s truly a blessing to be able to travel all over Canada and connect with friends and acquaintances from the SAS world. Laughs are shared, tales are told and strong bonds of friendship are forged. This trip was to bring together the best of both of these worlds as my travelling companion was Marje Fecht. Marje will be a familiar name to many in the SAS world; not only is she a former SAS instructor and long-time SAS user, she’s also a frequent presenter at user groups across the country. She’s also be known to present more than a time or two at SAS Global Forum and in 2014, she’ll be one-upping herself by acting as the Chair of SAS Global Forum in Washington, DC.  Over the years Marje and I have had many great adventures together and have become strong friends as well as professional supporters. It was a real thrill for me to get out on the road with her again after several years… it had been too long!

Our first stop was the beautiful city of Victoria on Vancouver Island. Marje and I had been here four years earlier and we were looking forward to re-connecting with the city and our colleagues. Sure enough, we had a fantastic dinner with the Executive Committee of the SUAVe user group. The talk swung back and forth between politics, user groups, the SAS world, and a whole host of other topics. Marje and I both commented in the meeting the next day how it truly does feel like a load lifts off of the shoulders in Victoria. The casual, relaxed environment and warm, genuine hospitality really go a long way towards minimizing stresses and promoting relaxation. Given that my last five weeks had been spent on the road, this was sorely needed!

The meeting itself took place in the afternoon the following day and featured some great speakers and even better MCing. Peter Ott of the Ministry of Forests, Lands & NRO is not only a great SAS mind, but a really talented host. He connects with the whole room in a way that puts everyone at ease and really promotes dialogue and discussion. Of course, it’s the talks themselves which really stir the proverbial conversation pot… and with Marje offering up her significant experience in her favourite SAS tricks talk, an energized group was never in doubt. Marje also delivered a second talk all around SAS DATES: with so many options out there and so many exceptions to the rule, her talk certainly helped clear up some of the ambiguity and frustration around working with a variety of date forms and lengths. It reminded me of someone trying to learn English as a second language; almost more exceptions than firm rules! Thankfully we had a phenomenal teacher in Marje.

I myself offered a talk around SAS’ Visual Analytics solution… for what felt like the millionth time in the past month! It’s been amazing to see such positive reactions to this new SAS product across the country. It certainly has some fans, that’s for sure. I was more than a little nervous for a few reasons. Firstly, we had received some high priority notes from our IT department that there were some global connectivity issues – a horrible thing to hear when demo’ing from a virtual environment set up in North Carolina. Secondly, the strength and speed of connection makes a huge difference when demo’ing this particular application. Fortunately, everything went off without a hitch.

One of the strengths of user groups is always the local presenters. Victoria always outdoes itself here with a variety of presenters offering a range of techniques for the solution to the open problem. Mike Atkinson also delivered what can only be described as a hilarious talk about his SAS Global Forum experience (which included a karaoke performance in front of several thousand people) and Catherine Bealle Statland garnered high, high praise from Marje as a natural and gifted speaker as she discussed her experience taking an onlinecourse around PROC GLIMMIX.

After bidding some hasty goodbyes, Marje and I were off to the Helijet to take a small helicopter ride across the ocean to the mainland. It was her first time in a helicopter and she was certainly excited! It was great to see and a very enjoyable ride for me as well.

In Vancouver, once again, we met up with Executive Committee members for a spirited dinner session. One spilled glass of wine or someone’s white pants notwithstanding, this was another great example of SAS and customers working together for the benefit of all. Vancouver certainly has a knack for asking for the most support possible with an eye to better supporting their users… and in the spirit of community, I usually deliver. This executive committee of VanSUG is certainly innovative and dedicated; they produce their own newsletter, run a full-day session without a hitch, and really call upon the community of SAS users to support each other.

Once again, Marje was the star of the show in the morning session, delivering her DATES talk and her favourite SAS tricks once again. We also had a ‘surprise’ presentation from Charlotte King of Edmonton who happened to be in town and offered to deliver a talk around a macro solution to dates: a nice bookend to Marje’s in-depth talk and a great example of how SAS users across the country can support each other. We also had a student volunteer to present some work around Facebook data, which as a social media junkie, was interesting to see.

The afternoon session really featured three talks: VisualAnalytics was once again trotted out by yours truly – with some vigorous debate, no less! - and Paulus Mau of BC Hydro offered a really great talk on using Enterprise Guide as an SQL Querying interface. There was also another EG-themed talk which really seemed to resonate with the audience.

I’ll admit to being absolutely exhausted by the time the meeting had concluded. It had been a very long five weeks. I’d been to San Francisco, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Victoria and now Vancouver… and I was ready for a rest. First, however, I was able to celebrate another successful meeting with great friends.

I then high-tailed it out of town for a few days of rest and relaxation on Quadra Island with Marje and her husband Rob, the perfect end to a hectic trip. We ate some amazing seafood, had a very close encounter with a pod of playful orcas, marveled at the size, noise and very strong smell of sea lions, and just enjoyed scenery I don’t ever get to see here in Toronto. I was on pins and needles the entire time as I waiting for news from home from my brother and sister-in-law who were due to deliver my niece into the world at any moment… and what a courteous young lady, she waited until I returned before arriving! I couldn’t have asked for a better end to the trip.

I was thrilled to be able to spend so much time with such great SAS users in British Columbia and I can’t wait to get back in the Fall, albeit in chillier weather, but with the warmth of my friends to help cut through the cold.

Before that, though, I still had a few meetings left to attend beginning with the Montreal SAS User Group (MONSUG). But more on that later.

Until then….

Quarterly TASS Meeting Hits All the Right Notes

Last Friday saw the return of TASS... and my premonition that it would be a well-attended, well-received meeting proved to be accurate. Almost 250 people attended the full-day session and it was great to see so many familiar faces after a few months absence. I even had the opportunity to wish many a long-overdue happy New Year!

The reason the meeting was so well-attended isn't a mystery, of course: it has everything to do with the strength of the agendas of both Classic TASS and TASS Interfaces. The groups are very fortunate as there is a very strong contingent of willing and able presenters that enjoy presenting at TASS who are globally recognized for their SAS knowledge. In fact, many of the talks we enjoyed in the morning session were 'dry-runs' for the upcoming SAS Global Forum taking place April 22-25 in Orlando, Florida.

Leading off was Barry Hong, Past-President of TASS' sister group, the Golden Horseshoe SAS User Group (GHSUG). The talk centered around the ODS Graphics Designer, and it really did peel back the layers of mystery which seem to often surround graphs and graphing procedures. As Barry explained, 'it's pretty intuitive once you open up the code'. Perhaps not to this humble author and admittedly amateur-ish SAS programmer, but the majority of the audience certainly appreciated the step-by-step approach towards creating and sharing graph templates. It was quite compelling stuff: Barry took a significant amount of quite complex code and broke it down in layman's terms bit by bit. Such was the interest that one of the open breakout session spots was co-opted by Barry and a hardy group of graphing enthusiasts a little later in the morning. This talk definitely had SAS Global Forum all over it... perhaps you'll update and submit it next year, Barry?

Not to be outdone, the always entertaining Peter Eberhardt delivered a talk which he'll be giving in Orlando in about seven weeks' time. Known for his humour, his energy and his deep knowledge of all things SAS, Peter's presentation certainly didn't disappoint in any respect. His 'One Guy On Hash' talk was a scaled-down version of his SAS Global Forum talk which he'll be delivering with a collaborator. Although I did learn more about hash objects and why they're so useful than I thought I ever could in 45 minutes, I can't help but to be reminded of the image of Peter which led off the slide deck. Featuring Peter in the 1970s on a Disneyland visit, it even more shockingly featured Peter with shoulder-length hair. I was stunned... and impressed! Those of you going down to Orlando would be well-served by attending the extended version of this talk... or catching Peter at some point as he expertly chairs the Enterprise Guide section of SAS Global Forum. In fact, if you're interested in volunteering your time to help him out, send him an email and tell him I sent you; he'll be very grateful for your interest!

As I alluded to earlier, the break-out sessions at this past TASS meeting were something special. Michael Lerner has traditionally offered compelling, consistently interesting discussion in the 'Statistics' group. This meeting was the first time during my tenure at SAS that he wasn't leading this session. We were privileged to have Bob Saarimaki of DatamaApp who walked through some 'whens & how's' of statistical processes for the purposes of modeling. His room was literally bursting at the seams: standing room only was definitely the order of the session... I'm sure new friendships were forged due to forced proximity more than any other reason! Of course, TASS President Art Tabachneck wasn't about to surrender his title of 'most attended breakout session' without a fight. Explaining that he had recently had a third presentation accepted for SAS Global Forum as a 'back-up', he was more than happy to try it out on a willing audience in his Coder's Corner break-out session. His presentation around unusual date formats and how to handle them was incredibly full as well. I'm very pleased that there were only a few individuals who weren't in one of these two talks: clearly, they were just what the Doctor ordered (and the Health User Group isn't taking place until April 13th).

The afternoon session was extremely well attended and featured at least one nervous presenter. Yes, it's true: for the second TASS meeting in a row, I delivered a technical talk... with the added pressure of a live demo this time. Given the amazing level of expertise of the SAS users in the room, I wasn't sure if my talk on how I used Enterprise Guide to help set my darts team's line-up to best advantage was going to go over well. At the very least, I hope the attendees were amused as I walked the room through the high and lows of how I strategized for a darts match on a semi-professional level. It was a lot of fun to deliver, and to be honest, I hope I encouraged others to consider giving a talk as well. It's amazing to see how one can extrapolate and correlate examples which may seem simple to more complex, real-world business issues... in this case, using darts to illustrate an operational research problem.

New TASS Interfaces President Laurent Josso also delivered a great talk around SAS Graph NV. There's something about the ability to visualize and manipulate relationships which the vast majority find fascinating... including myself. Laurent demonstrated how this type of manipulation of data can be both informative and intuitive from a micro and macro perspective. The meeting's presentations concluded on a high-note: SAS Canada Training Specialist Barb Crowther walked us through a DataFlux presentation and demonstration which really showcased the importance and power of data cleanliness.

The last item of note for the afternoon session was the SAS User Exchange. Led by Jim Burkhardt, this new element is actually an old feature from the TASS meetings of yore. Users are free to bring their general SAS issues, questions and comments and direct them to the group. The executive committee and fellow attendees then try and help walk through these problems in a collaborative fashion. Nothing says community more than group collaboration!

As we say goodbye to TASS until the early days of June, it would be remiss of me if I didn't thank and acknowledge the work of Past President of TASS Interfaces, Craig McCulloch. His efforts helped grow this group through the first two years of its existence from a concept to a vibrant community of Enterprise Guide, Enterprise Miner, JMP and DataFlux users. Craig will be taking a well-deserved break from the leadership function, but it's important to note that his contribution to the group's forward momentum will be a lasting one. Many thanks, Craig.

As always, there seems to be another meeting just around the corner... and in fact, one managed to slip by me (due to a bout of illness) that I haven't yet blogged about; the Halifax SAS User Group took place just a few weeks ago! I'm going to try and catch you up on the wonderful dialogue and presentations which took place then and look ahead to the Health User Group taking place in about a month's time. Stay tuned!

Until then...