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|  Canadian
Regional Users Groups Take Flight!
Users groups have long been a mainstay of SAS culture.
The SAS Users Group International (SUGI) will hold its
29th annual session in May – and, for the first
time ever, this event will be held in Canada! SUGI will
meet in Montréal, attracting upwards of 3,000
users from all over the world.
But don’t wait until 2004 to take advantage of
a users group meeting in Canada. This fall’s line-up
includes meetings hosted by long established, new, and
re-launched regional users groups. In addition to existing
groups in BC (BCSUG—British Columbia SAS Users
Group), Alberta (CPSUG—Canadian Prairie SAS Users
Group) and Toronto (TASS—Toronto Area SAS Society),
the Ottawa-area users group is in the midst of being
re-launched as OASUS (Ottawa Area SAS Users Society).
Montréal is also getting in the act, with a new
executive committee poised to begin holding meetings
this fall. And SAS users in cities such as Halifax,
Quebec City, Winnipeg, Regina/Saskatoon and others have
shown interest in starting up users groups. We look
forward to working with interested users to make these
initiatives a reality! Join us at one of the upcoming
users group meetings listed below, or let us know if
you’re interested in helping us launch a regional
users group in your area!
More than just providing you with news, helpful information
and stories in an easy-to-read format, the Customer
Value Team also wants to ensure that we don’t
clog up your inbox with unwanted e-mails! We will only
send you this newsletter if you want to receive it.
Subscribe by clicking the attached subscription box.
If you have already subscribed, thank you for your interest!
We look forward to seeing you at one of the many regional
users group meetings scheduled for the fall. 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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Fall Users Group Meetings in Canada
The Customer
Value Team is gearing up to work with a number of regional
users groups to support their fall meetings. These meetings
will consist of a variety of presentations from SAS
users, as well as SAS employees. Please join us to find
out what other users are doing with their SAS software,
while learning some techie tips, best practices and
more. 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 |
| Sept. 26 |
Toronto
|
63 Gould St., Oakham House
Ryerson University |
TASS
- Carl Clutton |
| Oct. 7 |
Victoria
|
Victoria Conference Centre
720 Douglas St. |
BCSUG
- Tanya Kolosova |
| Oct. 8 |
Vancouver |
UBC Robson Square,
800 Robson St.
Room: HSBC Hall (C680) |
BCSUG
- Tanya Kolosova |
| Oct.
9 |
Edmonton |
Alberta Research
Council Auditorium
250 Karl Clark Road |
CPSUG |
| Nov.
|
Ottawa |
To be determined |
OASUS - Jonathan
Hagerman |
| Nov. 18 |
Montréal |
Auditorium (Bell Canada)
1050 Beaver Hall |
MONSUG
- Eric
Lacombe |
| Nov. 13 |
Quebec
City |
To be determined |
TBD - Andrea
Pender |
| Nov.
21 |
Toronto |
Macdonald
Block (2nd Floor)
900 Bay St. |
TASS
- Carl Clutton |
SUGI29
- Montréal, May 9-12, 2004 - First time in Canada!
SAS
Users Group International (SUGI) is a nonprofit
organization that is open to all SAS software users
throughout the world. There is no membership fee. SUGI
exists to provide a means for SAS software users to
exchange ideas, explore ways of using SAS software and
participate in activities of mutual interest.
More than
3,000 SAS users representing more than 35 countries
are expected to gather for three and a half days of
intense learning and networking. There are a variety
of sessions including Coders’ Corner, hands-on
workshops, statistics and data analysis, and much, much
more! To keep abreast of all the latest SUGI developments,
visit the official SUGI Web site.
Hear from past attendees on why YOU should
attend… We asked past SUGI attendees
if they would recommend that all SAS users to attend,
and why. Here are their responses:
“SUGI has allowed me to network with experienced
SAS users in all fields. Since many topics are covered,
I was able to take back solutions that help in my day-to-day
work. The popular workshops, especially those presenting
new stuff in SAS, are really interesting. Getting back
from SUGI with new ideas keeps me looking forward to
the next.” Yves Lapierre – Bell Montréal.
(Yves has attended the last two SUGIs.)
“As both a presenter and an attendee of several
SUGI conferences, I can’t express enough the importance
of this annual conference. Although the benefits from
a regular SAS course are evident, the knowledge gained
and the contacts made at SUGI cannot be truly measured.
I would strongly recommend this conference to any SAS
developer, manager, or user.” Greg McLean –
Statistics Canada. (Greg has attended seven SUGIs and
has presented at one.)
“SUGI is an invaluable experience. I especially
like the hands-on workshops. SUGI helps me understand
what is going on with other SAS users and keeps me up-to-date
with new SAS technology developments.” Helen Kim
– Helen Kim Inc. (Helen has attended SUGI twice
and presented once.)
“Although regular attendees of SUGI have different
reasons for attending, I think we all agree it helps
us to learn and grow as SAS users. At the first SUGI
I attended (Nashville), I picked up a tidbit in a Coder's
Corner session that has been a major time saver for
me. Every year since, I have found similar nuggets.
And the best reason for attending is that SUGI is fun.
If you are into serious fun, there is the fun walk/run.
For the less serious, there are the mixers and a kickback
party. See you in Montréal!” Peter Eberhardt
– Fernwood Consulting Group INC. (Peter has attended
six SUGIs and presented at two.)
SAS
Calgary Office ... New Faces, New Spaces
Over the
past year, the SAS Calgary office has undergone many
changes in order to better serve you. So much has changed,
in fact, that we've hired new people and grown out of
our existing office space. Our new address, effective
Aug. 15, is:
Suite 1801, Sun Life Plaza, West Tower
144 - 4 Avenue SW
Calgary, AB T2P 3N4
Our phone
number remains the same: 403 265 5177.
Our fax
number also remains the same: 403 265 4451.
Please
click
here for a quick introduction to the members of
the SAS Western Region team. We serve clients from Manitoba
to Vancouver, including the Yukon, North West Territories
and Nunavut. Please feel free to contact any of us if
we can be of service. And if you're in the neighbourhood,
please stop by and say, "Hi!"
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John Fahey – Halifax
Company: Reproductive Care Program of Nova Scotia
SAS History: I have been using SAS since
the upper years of my undergrad statistics classes in
the early ‘80s on CDC/Cyber, DEC/VMS, DOS, various
Unixen and every version of Win-Doze. For the past two
years, I have been using it exclusively as my reporting
and analysis tool, interfacing with an Oracle RDBMS
using SAS/ACCESS and relying on PROC TABULATE, SAS/GRAPH,
and sometimes SAS/STAT ( primarily PROC LOGISTIC ).
My latest project involves using ODS XML and open-source
XSL formatting tools to develop a 100-plus-page annual
report untouched by human (or Microsoft :-) hands, see
http://rcp.nshealth.ca/rcp_3047.html
soon for version 0.2.
For more about John, including his “Techie Tip,” click here |
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|  Laki Kourakis joined SAS Montréal in
software sales back in 1991. A few years later, he transferred
to Ottawa to assist in opening the Ottawa office and
oversee the education practice. Laki holds a bachelor’s
degree in computer science from Concordia University
in Montréal. After college, he began his IT career
and now has more than 25 years of experience, including
stints at companies such as Digital Equipment of Canada,
Hewlett Packard, and now, SAS. During his more than
12 years at SAS, Laki has successfully sold SAS software
and taught a diverse selection of SAS courses. He still
teaches the core courses (yes, even Macro), and has
worked with SAS World Headquarters to develop new courses,
most recently Programming III. Last year, Laki toured
the country as part of the team that introduced SAS
System 9 to our customers. Not only did he see breathtaking
sites in some of Canada’s finest cities (Halifax,
Whitehorse, Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina and
Quebec City), but he also got to meet hundreds of our
wonderful SAS users.
For more on Laki, including his "Techie Tip",
click
here.
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–Evaluation forms were collected at the Spring Celebration Tour. The following results will be used to help determine future presentation topics. Thanks to all who participated!
The following percentages are representative of people who said they would like to see a presentation on this topic in the future.
* 65% - Programming techniques and efficiencies.
* 44% - Report writing , data management and warehousing.
* 43% - Analytic intelligence.
* 34% - Web information delivery.
Users Groups - Nearly 80 percent of the people who attended the Celebration Tour said they would be interested in attending future Users Group meetings.
–BetterManagement.com
is the leading management information portal.
BetterManagement.com provides content from industry-leading
sources on performance measurement, profitability analysis,
cost management, business process planning and value
collaboration.
–You can get up-to-date
technical and business information by subscribing to
SAS' e-newsletters. Click
here for details.
–For details on all of SAS' products and solutions,
click
here
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| –Name That Photo contest
- Congratulations to Leon Schiebel! Leon
was the winner of the Name That Photo contest. The picture
at the top of the last newsletter was of Moraine Lake
just outside of Lake Louise in Alberta. Moraine Lake
should be familiar to most Canadians from its inclusion
on the back of $20 bills. It was named after the moraine,
or rock pile, deposited by the Wenkchemna Glacier.
Be the first to tell us where the picture at
the top of this newsletter is and win a prize!!!
E-mail your guess to cvp@can.sas.com
–The "Name the Newsletter
Contest" continues… To
date, we've received some good entries but we'd like
to continue the contest for another edition before making
a final selection. So, please send your suggestions
to the Customer
Value Team. If your idea is chosen, we'll send you
a special SAS prize!
–
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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John Amrhein has served as a statistical services specialist
at SAS for four years. 
