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 SUGI
Comes To Town! All Canadians will receive a 25% discount!
For the first time in its history, SUGI (SAS Users
Group International) will hold its 29th annual meeting outside of the U.S.,
selecting Montreal as the host city. Canadian users stand to benefit on
everything, from taking advantage of lower travel costs (e.g., exchange
rate, closer proximity) to getting the facts on SAS 9.1 to be launched
this spring, to networking with other Canadian attendees. What’s
more, SUGI has arranged for Canadian attendees to receive an automatic
25% discount off the registration price! This discount will
be applied to any of the listed fees on the SUGI
website – e.g. student rates, group discounts & more!
2004 promises to be the biggest and best year on record for Canadian SAS
users groups as well. Regional users groups led by local users
across Canada have really started coming into their own. With
recently established executive
committees in Ottawa and Montreal taking charge last fall,
and drawing upwards of 100 attendees at each meeting, unprecedented
numbers of users
are now attending locally organized users groups from coast
to coast. Activity-based costing professionals as well, are
getting into the act, with their first
meeting held in Toronto last November. The growing list of
locally managed users groups now includes TASS (Toronto), CPSUG
(Canadian Prairies-Alberta),
BCSUG (Vancouver and Victoria), OASUS (Ottawa) and MONSUG (Montreal).
Look for this list to grow in 2004, with the addition of Halifax
who held their
first executive committee meeting in December and are looking
forward to a successful first users group meeting in February.
Edmonton and Victoria are also in the preliminary stages of setting up
an executive committee and are already helping to organize their own events
this winter.
Finally, to better address the ever-changing needs of Canadian users,
we will begin conducting our customer satisfaction survey on
a quarterly basis. By randomly selecting different users in
each quarter, we can keep close tabs on your concerns, and
rectify situations where possible. Last
January, those surveyed indicated that they wanted greater
visibility from SAS, and for SAS to do a better job reaching
out to their company’s management. They also said they would like
to see greater functionality from SAS software. With the release
of SAS 9.1 this spring,
many of your software requests will be addressed (please see
Support.SAS.com for details on SAS 9.1). In terms of visibility,
we hope that the expanded
and increased users group activities, as well as the Celebration
tour and this e-newsletter, are providing you with the tools
you need to succeed
with SAS. Increased user initiatives in 2004, as well as taking
SAS 9.1 “to
the streets,” will help us all take a big step forward. Of course,
the only way we can know for sure is to hear back from you,
our valued customers, when the next satisfaction survey goes
out this month!
We look forward to seeing you at SUGI or one of the many regional users
group meetings scheduled in coming months. Please let us know
if the Customer Value team can help you with any of your SAS needs. Christy
Hobley, Martha
Casanova or Wally Thiessen can be reached at: cvp@can.sas.com. |
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Ottawa and Montreal Fall Users Group meetings a huge success!
Both Ottawa (OASUS) and Montreal
(MONSUG) held their first users group meetings run by the executive committee.
Both groups attracted nearly 100 users, and most said they are planning
to attend future users group meetings.
Here are some insights from the group presidents:
Jon Hagerman, OASUS president:
“You many be wondering ‘What is OASUS and what are their general
meetings?’ Let
me start by introducing you to the latest iteration of an Ottawa
SAS Users Group. We have called ourselves the Ottawa Area SAS Users Society
or OASUS
for a couple of reasons. Our members come from the Ottawa area
rather than just Ottawa and rather than call ourselves the Kanata/Ottawa/Gloucester/Hull/Aylmer/Gatineau/Nepean/Greely/Vanier
SAS Users Group, we settled on the Ottawa Area SAS Users Society.
We had
our first semi-annual general meeting on Nov. 12 and were glad
to see around 100 SAS users in attendance. These SAS users were treated
to an awesome
display of SAS knowledge, both from our partners at SAS as
well as from several members of the OASUS Executive Team. Christy Hobley
from SAS rose
several notches in my book when she was able to handle a difficult
technical question after her great presentation on ODS. John Ladds, Daniel
Stripinis,
Hing-Poon Chan and Greg McLean, all members of the OASUS Executive
Team, made insightful presentations which were very well received. I overheard
one attendee remark, ‘That was the best Ottawa SAS Users Group meeting
ever.’ I guess the name change will take some time to catch on, but
the comment was very rewarding and every member of the Executive
Team should take it to heart for their great individual contributions.
While we were happy with the turnout for the inaugural meeting, we are
determined to increase the attendance numbers for the spring 2004 meeting.
I know that SAS users at every level will get something from attending
an OASUS meeting, and that it is certainly worth the time.”
Please see http://www.oasus.ca/ for more details, and to access
electronic copies of the presentations.
Eric Lacombe, president of MONSUG:
“The first word that came to my mind when I was asked to write
about the first MONSUG event was: WOW! It was just pure magic
to see 102 people passionate about one single programming language, SAS.
I would like
to seize this opportunity to personally thank each and every
participant who made this event a real success. Also, I would like to thank
the MONSUG
executive committee volunteers for their fantastic efforts.
My special thanks also to SAS for their continuous support and to Yves,
J.C. and Luigi,
our event speakers. MONSUG is already planning the next users’ event
and we look forward to seeing you all there. Bring a friend!”
Please see http://www.monsug.ca for more details.
Winter/spring users group schedule now available
The following is
a schedule for the Winter/Spring users group meetings. Please
note that the CPSUG conference is currently looking for people
to present at the
June meeting. Please see the website for
details of submitting a paper. The following is a list of events and
locations. If you are interested in attending, please register
at this
link. (events
will be added to this Web site approximately 4 weeks prior
to date).
Date |
City |
Location |
User Group & Contact |
| Jan. 30 |
Toronto
|
Macdonald Block (2nd
Floor)
900 Bay St. |
TASS
- Carl Clutton |
| Feb. 5 |
Quebec City |
Hilton |
QCSUG - Andrea Pender |
| Feb. 12 |
Victoria |
Gov’t |
TBD
- Kathy
Walsh |
| Feb. 23 |
Edmonton |
Gov’t of Alberta
Training Room 1A, Main Floor,
Infrastructure Building, 6950-113St. |
TBD
- Arzina Merali |
| Feb. 27 |
Halifax |
Dalhousie |
TBD
- John Fahey |
| Mar. 30 |
Montréal |
Auditorium (Bell Canada)
1050 Beaver Hall |
MONSUG -
Eric Lacombe |
| Apr. 2 |
Toronto |
Macdonald Block (2nd
Floor)
900 Bay St. |
TASS -
Carl Clutton |
| Apr. |
Ottawa |
To be determined |
OASUS – Jonathon
Hagerman |
| June 11 |
Canmore |
Radisson |
CPSUG - Michael Tautchin |
| June |
Saskatoon |
To be determined |
|
| June |
Whitehorse |
To be determined |
|
| June |
Winnipeg |
To be determined |
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 When Carolyn joined the SAS Montreal in 1991, she originally
wore multiple hats, serving as both a systems engineer and a trainer. Today,
she devotes 100 percent of her time to the SAS Education Department, where
her language skills come in handy, conducting classes in both English and
French. During her 12 years with SAS Canada, she has demoed at SUGI, taught
SAS courses in locations ranging from Whitehorse to Halifax and worked
on course review teams (most recently for the SAS Enterprise Guide course).
Her current course load includes introductory and intermediate level classes
in Base SAS programming, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS/IntrNet, SAS/CONNECT
and most recently, SAS Strategic Performance Management.
Find out more about
Carolyn, including her “Techie Tip”. | |
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Title:
Web Development with SAS by Example
Author:
Frederick E. Pratter
Reviewed by: Bill Fehlner,
Principal Technical Training Specialist,
SAS Institute (Canada) Inc.
Bill Fehlner is a SAS instructor and has made numerous presentations
at users group meetings, as well as assisting on countless consulting projects
during his 14 years at SAS in Toronto.
Reviewer's
Opinion: This book is a standalone source for
experienced SAS programmers who want to get started in Web development and
for newcomers who need an introduction to both Web development and the pertinent
SAS tools. Published in 2003, this text is very up to date, using SAS 8.2
for all examples. To quote from author Frederick Platter, “The goal of this
book is to introduce the entire SAS Web development toolkit, to explain what
each component does, and to suggest when to use specific features and functions.” He
has succeeded.
Full
review...
If you would like to review a book,
please contact the Customer Value
team. For a complete list of the popular books
on our review list, click
here. |
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| –That SAS provides free, unlimited technical support to all SAS users?
SAS’ goal is to provide the resources you need to answer any questions or solve any problems you encounter when using SAS software. We invite you to read this white
paper, which summarizes our support philosophy, services and keys to our success.
–That you can get up-to-date technical and business information by subscribing to SAS' e-newsletters?
–That you can get details online for all of SAS'
products and solutions?
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Feb. 4
- DMN Conference: Campaign Management (Toronto) -
Attend this powerful seminar and you’ll learn an amazing technique
for the successful design and ongoing management of direct marketing
campaigns which can include mail, email and all forms of customer communication.
You’ll learn to operate faster, smarter and with better response
rates.
Toronto - Ontario Bar Association - More information can
be found here.
Feb. 12
and 13 - Alberta Power Summit (Calgary) - Alberta continues to travel
along the path of electricity market restructuring and new
government structures and policies were introduced to the
market. Learn how to succeed
under changing industry realities. Jim Joyce of RiskAdvisory
will be speaking on "How Are Utilities Managing the Ratepayers Energy
Price Exposure."
Calgary - The Fairmont Palliser Hotel - More information
can be found here.
Mar. 1
and 2 - Calgary Energy Show (Calgary) - Tim Simard will be speaking
on SAS’ Risk offerings and 'Understanding Your Corporate Commodity
Risk Profile' - concerns with current corporate risk measurement, techniques,
employing the cash-flow-at-risk approach, beneficial disclosure policies,
and current industry practices.
Calgary - More information can be found here or
contact Kathy Walsh at 403 303
3352 for more information.
Mar. 14 – 16
- IPPSA Annual Conference 2004 (Banff)
Banff Rimrock Hotel - Contact Kathy
Walsh at 403 303 3352 for more information or have a look at the
IPPSA website.
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| –NEW!
APPLIED CLUSTERING TECHNIQUES
SAS is pleased to add a new two-day course to our statistical curriculum. One
of our local statistical and data mining instructors, David Yeo, Ph.D., wrote
this course.
Applied
Clustering Techniques examines the theoretical and practical
implications of a wide array of clustering techniques currently
available in SAS.
The techniques considered include cluster preprocessing,
variable clustering, K-nearest neighbor clustering, K-means
clustering, hierarchical clustering, fuzzy clustering and
(optionally) Kohonen clustering. After completing this course,
students should be able to identify relevant factors that
lead to the generation of reliable segments. The audience
is intermediate or senior level data miners and statistical
analysts who have a SAS background to the SAS Programming
1 level and a statistical background at the graduate level,
or have completed STAT1. View
the complete course outline or register for upcoming dates.
–SUGI
ATTENDEES TRAIN IN MONTREAL (SUGI 29)
While attending SUGI 29 (May 9-12) in Montreal, take advantage
of the additional training available at our Montreal SAS training center.
Specific courses have been added to the schedule to accommodate attendees
either before or after SUGI.
View the course schedule at: http://support.sas.com/training/fyi/mo.html
–EPTO
Administrator – NEW online features to make your life easier
There is no doubt that an EPTO is
the best way to save on training, but now SAS has added new features
to our training Web site to make managing your EPTO even easier. Need
to register multiple students in a SAS training course? A new online
Multiple Registration Form is now available. Want to check the status
of your EPTO account? Request an EPTO account usage report. This report
will contain your current EPTO status, including the number of remaining
EPTO units available, a usage summary with students’ names, classes
taken, the class dates and number of EPTO units used. Please note that
this report will be e-mailed only to the EPTO account administrator
we have on file.
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–SAS acquires RiskAdvisory, amplifies
leadership in energy risk management TORONTO
(Dec. 9, 2003) – SAS has acquired Canada-based RiskAdvisory, a leading
provider of risk management consulting and software to energy companies
such as EnCana Corporation, SaskEnergy Incorporated, Suncor Energy
Marketing Inc. and Portland General Electric Company. With this acquisition,
announced today, SAS further extends its risk management domain expertise
and software offerings through the addition of a team of dedicated
risk experts and technology that complements existing risk management
offerings. Read
More…
–RBC Harnesses SAS To Reduce Risk
and Protect Reputation Toronto (Nov.
18, 2003) – SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today
that RBC Financial Group (RBC) has acquired SAS® data management software
to help the bank’s global operations comply with the many anti-terrorism
and anti-money laundering regulations in effect worldwide. Read
More…
–SAS Acquires Marketmax Toronto
(Oct. 6, 2003) – With a customer list that reads like a "who’s who" of
the retail industry, including The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Marks & Spencer,
Marketmax is the leading provider of advanced retail planning and merchandise
intelligence software. Read
More…
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–Name That Photo contest - Congratulations
to Martin Pomaranski who was the first person to send
in a response to the Name That Photo contest.
The picture at the top of the last newsletter was
Château Laurier in Ottawa, Ontario. The landmark Fairmont Château Laurier
is a magnificent limestone edifice with turrets and masonry reminiscent
of a French château. Two films have been shot at the hotel, including Captains
of the Clouds, starring James Cagney, and the more recent 1982 made-for-TV
movie Little Gloria: Happy at Last, featuring Christopher Plummer. Be the
first to tell us the locale featured in the picture at the top of this
newsletter and win a prize! Please e-mail your guess to cvp@can.sas.com.
–
Suggestions/Comments
If you have any comments or suggestions for future editions of
this newsletter, please let the
Customer Value team
know!
–
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Company: CGI
Company: Bob is now in the doctoral programme in marketing
at Schulich School of Business, York University. There have
been a couple of banks in his past, and he’s in the process of launching
a consulting firm called InterValidity that will specialise in advanced
CRM.
