Gateway Area Users of the SAS System (GAUSS) Spring Meeting 2017

The Spring meeting of the Gateway Area Users of the SAS System (GAUSS) will take place on Thursday, June 8th, 2017. The meeting will be held from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM and is being hosted by Commerce Bank at their training facility at 1045 Executive Pkwy, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63141 (Note: There is no Commerce sign on the building, but the building is clearly labled "1045"). Check-in and lunch will begin at 12:15 and the meeting will start at 1:00 PM.

We have a host of great speakers lined up from SAS Institute and the St Louis area. Come prepared with your SAS questions and challenges for a “Random Access” problem solving session. This will be a great way to learn more about SAS and meet and reconnect with colleagues in the St Louis area.

The cost to attend GAUSS meetings is $25 for professionals, $10 for students and Tech Tip presenters, and no charge for full speakers or employees of our host organization. You can pay online or at the door.

Lunch, snacks and refreshments will be provided. We will have a few nice door prizes as well. We request that you please register early, to help us streamline check-in and better plan and prepare for the event. Also, please consider joining us at Houlihan's after the meeting to continue networking.

We look forward to seeing you at the Spring meeting!

AGENDA

12:15 PM Check-in and Lunch Open 1:00 PM Opening Remarks & Host Welcome 1:10 PM Help! My New Director of Analytics* Wants to Get Rid of SAS®! What Should I Do?
Melodie Rush, SAS Institute, Principal Statistician, Customer Loyalty 1:40 PM ISO 8601 and SAS®: A Practical Approach
Derek Morgan, PAREXEL International, Principal Statistical Programmer 2:10 PM Random Access Discussion
Ray Pass 2:40 PM SAS Puzzler
Jerry Kagan, IBM Watson 2:50 PM Break & Network 3:05 PM Tech Tips 3:35 PM Technology at Commerce 3:55 PM How to Select the Best Predictor Variables Using SAS® Enterprise Guide® and SAS® Enterprise Miner™
Melodie Rush, SAS Institute, Principal Statistician, Customer Loyalty 4:45 PM Puzzler solution & Door Prizes 5:00 PM Adjourn

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PRESENTERS

Melodie Rush is a Principal Statistician for the Customer Loyalty Team at SAS Institute. Melodie received both her B.S. in Statistics and her Masters in Science of Management with a technical option in Statistics from North Carolina State University. Before joining SAS in 1996, Melodie worked for Research Triangle Institute as a Statistician. Her responsibilities included implementing national and local surveys of various topics, such as health care, employee benefits, and drug abuse. As part of her research, she has published work for both the American Statistical Association and the American Public Health Association. After joining SAS, Melodie has developed presentations and methodology for doing many types of analysis, including data mining, forecasting, data exploration and visualization, quality control and marketing. She has spent the last 20 years helping companies identify and solve problems in each of these analytical areas.

How to Select the Best Predictor Variables Using SAS® Enterprise Guide® and SAS® Enterprise Miner™

This presentation will answer the what, why and how on variable selection. What is variable selection (sometimes called variable reduction)? Why is it important, and why should it be on your list of activities when doing predictive modeling? How do you do variable selection using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner? This presentation will include examples for both SAS products.

Help! My New Director of Analytics* Wants to Get Rid of SAS®! What
Should I Do?

How would you answer this question? Most of us struggle to articulate the value of the tools, techniques, and teams used to harness analytics. How do you help the new director understand the value of SAS® to you, your job, and your organization? In this interactive session, you will discover the components that make up total cost of ownership (TCO) as they apply to the analytics lifecycle. What should you consider when you evaluate total cost of ownership and why should you measure it? How can you help your management team understand the value that SAS provides?

*When appropriate, replace with Director of IT, Chief Analytics Officer, Chief Information Officer, or similar title.

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Derek Morgan is currently a principal statistical programmer at PAREXEL International. He has been a SAS user for over 30 years, and is author of the SAS Press Book, "The Essential Guide to SAS® Dates and Times". In his spare time, Derek plays bass guitar, and has performed with three members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

ISO 8601 and SAS®: A Practical Approach

The ISO 8601 standard for dates and times has long been adopted by regulatory agencies around the world for clinical data. While there are many homemade solutions for working in this standard, SAS has many built-in solutions, from formats and informats that even take care of time zone specification, to the IS8601_CONVERT routine, which painlessly handles durations and intervals. These built-in capabilities, available in SAS 9.2 and above, will streamline your code and improve efficiency and accuracy. This paper also assumes the use of SAS® version 9.2 and above.

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Check back soon for more details...