Sold-out conference reaffirms SAS' place as data mining leader 

Thought leaders, visionaries and users gather at M2002 Data Mining Conference

Standing Room Only 

Measured simply in numbers of attendees, M2002 was a resounding success. Attracting individuals from all over the world, the conference was a complete sellout, with more than 400 attendees gathering at SAS world headquarters in Cary. Perhaps most impressive was the diversity of the audience, which included more than 180 individual business, government and academic organizations from 38 states and 14 countries.

Co-chaired by Will Potts, chief statistician for Data Miners, and SAS Analytical Strategist Anne Milley, M2002 boasted four internationally recognized keynote speakers and 22 session speakers. Session topics included statistical data mining, Web mining, customer valuation, optimization, data mining in the financial services and new frontiers in data mining. Each session contained three talks aimed at giving everyone in attendance, from the novice to the most experienced data miner, new ideas, best practices and a glimpse at what the future might hold in that area.

"The conference has opened a whole new world for me," said Rachel Alt-Simmons of Hartford Life Insurance. "In the area that I work in, we don't do any data mining or any analytics, so the conference has allowed me to explore all the possibilities and get a broad overview of what data mining can do for our organization. I hope that what I take from the conference can help us develop a process that we can bring immediately into our business."

Others were drawn to M2002 because of the specialty forum sessions, where discussions often transcended basic theory and addressed best practices and implementation. Daryl Berry from Seattle, Washington, attended M2002 largely on the strength of the speakers in the optimization track. Berry's company, T-Mobile US, has followed the trend in the credit industry to pursue multiple solutions to fulfill the company's primary mission of reducing bad debt. Hoping to discover how to apply data mining to integrate multiple models aimed at increasing revenue and controlling cost and acquisition, Berry was not disappointed. "The stuff I've learned is right out on the edge," beamed Berry, a longtime SAS user. "This conference is definitely a must. Not only for the information, but for the opportunity it provides to exchange ideas and learn from your colleagues."

Victor Alonso, with Zurich Insurance Co., also appreciated the educational and collegial environment the conference fostered. "The information I got from the presentations was great, and it was nice to talk to and exchange experiences with professionals who are pretty much doing the same thing."

Session speaker Brij Masand of Data Miners appreciated the intimacy of the SAS campus setting. "This was my first visit to the conference, and what really impressed me was the sense of community that normally isn't present at conferences of this size."

Robert Blattberg, Director of the Center for Retail Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, delivers his keynote address, "The Brave New World of Marketing."

M2002 also saw an impressive participation from partner organizations, garnering sponsorships from Acxiom, IBM, Sigma Marketing Group, Inxight Software, Network Appliance and Platform Computing. Rick McGraw, attending as a representative of Acxiom, one of the conference's platinum level sponsors, commented on the deep discussions he had with attendees and his desire to return in 2003. "The conference allowed us to identify a number of joint opportunities with SAS that we undoubtedly will begin to work with shortly."

Looking ahead to M2003 

Long before M2002 concluded, SAS had begun planning for M2003. Scheduled for the week of Oct. 13, M2003 will offer a similar lineup of world-renowned industry experts discussing the latest data mining trends, theory and best practices. Conference co-chairs have already been chosen. They are SAS' Terry Woodfield, a senior statistics instructor in the Irvine office, and Jaideep Srivastava, professor of computer science at the University of Minnesota and former chief data mining architect at Amazon.com. Given the tremendous success M2002 enjoyed, SAS Education plans to hold M2003 in Las Vegas.