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       Home  |  Academic Sections 

           Academic Sections


  Weekend Workshops

Debbie Buck, D. B. & P. Associates, Houston TX
Denise Kruse, Independent SAS Consultant, Atlanta GA

Weekend Workshops offer the bonus of an additional educational experience to SESUG Conference attendees.   We are looking for recognized, experienced, and talented instructors to share quality knowledge that is appropriate for a half day session.  SESUG is planning six 4 hour workshops for Sunday, October 19, 2008 covering a wide variety of topics and levels so a workshop will appeal to everyone interested in this exceptional in-depth training.

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please review the instructor information and complete the Weekend Workshop Proposal Form available on the SESUG website.  Please note: presenters are required to provide handouts for class participants in these fee-based workshops and to present a paper during the conference.

Please submit your proposals to Debbie Buck or Denise Kruse.  The submission deadline is April 4, 2008.

Presentation length: 4 hours

Weekend Workshop Proposal Form in PDF
Weekend Workshop Proposal Form in Microsoft Word

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  Business Intelligence

Ed Heaton, Westat, Rockville MD
Richard Phillips, Thotwave, Chapel Hill NC

The Business Intelligence (BI) section is an opportunity for practitioners throughout the intelligence lifecycle to share their experiences and best practices, as well as exchange tips and techniques with each other.  Suitable topics could include any subject related to BI – from data gathering best practices such as Master Data Management, data integration, and modeling, to OLAP exploitation, technical infrastructure and governance, Enterprise Application Integration, and Enterprise Performance Management.

We encourage submissions that emphasize business impacts and RoI for any SAS® technologies, especially leading-edge topics such as Operational BI and Real-Time Analytics.

Presentation Length: 20 minutes or 50 minutes

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  Coder’s Corner

Erik Larsen, Independent Consultant, Charleston SC
Gary Schlegelmilch, US Citizenship and Immigration Services

Ever discover a nifty way to solve a problem?  Or a neat new approach, which improves upon an existing solution? Come share it with everyone at Coders' Corner!  We are looking for ‘quick hit’ papers and presentations from any and every area of SAS®.  We’d love to see ten-minute papers from every kind of SAS programmer, analyst and user; share with us that interesting tip, technique or code segment that makes your life easier!

Presentation Length: 10 minutes

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  Cornerstones

Harry Droogendyk, Stratia Consulting Inc.
Janet Stuelpner, Left Hand Computing, New Canaan CT

Cornerstones is devoted to tutorial-style presentations that will cover a wide range of SAS® products and SAS programming techniques.  The Cornerstones section is comprised of "how-to", step by step presentations designed to equip attendees with practical knowledge they can take home and implement immediately.  We'll be covering Base SAS procedures, DATA step, macro, ODS, the Business Intelligence (BI) suite, SAS/Access, Enterprise Guide, some of the newer features of SAS, novel implementations of those features and most important, how to tie the pieces together.  Cornerstones will have something for everyone, from beginners to advanced programmers.  Most papers will be 50 minutes in duration, providing time to cover the subject matter thoroughly.

This year there is a concerted effort to coordinate consecutive papers within entire morning and/or afternoon sessions to provide methodical "mini-courses" in specific areas of the SAS System.  After taking in one of these sessions, attendees can expect to emerge with a comprehensive understanding of the session's focus.

Do you have a good handle on a slice of the SAS knowledge pie?  Can you present that knowledge clearly and provide attendees with something they can use in their day to day activities?  If so, we'd love to hear from you and invite you to submit an abstract outlining the presentation you have in mind.

Presentation Length: 20 minutes or 50 minutes

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  Hands-on Workshops

Marje Fecht, Prowerk Consulting LLC, Cape Coral FL
Stephanie Thompson, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY

Do you have a topic that you’ve wanted to present but feel that you need more than a verbal presentation to help people learn?  If you answered yes and you are an experienced presenter, then the Hands-On Workshop (HOW) section might be a good fit for you.

Hands-On Workshops focus on guided-learning, where the attendees follow your instructions and learn by doing.  HOW sessions are seventy-five minutes and participants expect to PARTICIPATE with hands-on activities throughout the session.  The room is equipped with PCs and can accommodate 2 attendees per machine.

Preferred topics are those that benefit from hands-on work to really understand the concepts.  Some sample topics that are ideal for this format include: Enterprise Guide, Tagsets, PROC REPORT, Graphics, and geocoding/spatial analysis with PROC GMAP.

Presentation Length: 75 minutes

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  Mining the Past, Seeing the Future

Ilene Brill, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham AL
Michael Hardin, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL

Many of us enjoy pursuing adventures which lead us to a mysterious place or involve a thrilling new experience.  We have an innate interest in exploring new horizons.  Similarly, we enjoy the field of data mining and predictive modeling where we can probe deeper into our data and examine the inherent relationships within the data.  More specifically, “Mining the Past, Seeing the Future” encompasses advanced analytical methods, including sampling, data preparation, exploration, missing value imputation, visualization, and model building and validation techniques.

The topics of papers in this section include a wide range of content.  For example papers can feature case studies highlighting business intelligence/data mining methods and how they are applied to help enterprises achieve their goals and help marketing analysts, database marketers, risk analysts, fraud investigators, engineers and scientists solve critical business or research issues.  The subject matter can vary from marketing applications such as profiling, response modeling or churn analysis to production applications like inventory optimization or call-center queuing.  We welcome papers which describe applications from a variety of industries - such as financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, energy, retail, government, environmental and life sciences, health informatics, institutional analytics, agriculture and others.  Our inclination for using the past to look to the future means this section explores methods for interpreting data using predictive and descriptive modeling, all facets of data mining, online analytical processing, and both new and novel approaches that can be used to drive decision making.  Moreover our futuristic tendencies encourage you to submit papers that utilize techniques for modeling large time series/forecasting applications and text mining applications.  Relevant papers preferably will highlight applications using SAS® Enterprise MinerTM, SAS/STAT® software, SAS/OR®, SAS/Forecast Studio®, or SAS/ETS® procedures, as well as other SAS solutions that enable user-friendly data mining and predictive modeling solutions.

Presentation Length: 50 minutes

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  Posters

Milorad Stojanovic, RTI International, RTP NC
Mirjana Stojanovic, Duke Medical Center, Durham NC

Posters are an opportunity for you to express current practical and theoretical achievements in a more graphical way.  The use of images, colors and tables allows you to emphasize your ideas in a creative and visually entertaining manner.  Posters are on display throughout whole conference, allowing people to review your idea in a quiet, self-paced environment, yet during the one hour "meet the presenters" session you will have the opportunity to talk to attendees in a relaxed one-on-one setting.  The required paper, in conjunction with the visual presentation, makes this a good place to display some technical insights or graphical skills that might be difficult to convey elsewhere.

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  Seeing is Believing

Diane Cunningham, Southern Company, Atlanta GA
Barbara Okerson, HMC, Richmond VA

Over the years SAS® has made significant advances in the tools available for data visualization and applications development.  Whether you use the latest SAS products such as the Business Intelligence (BI) suite or SAS Enterprise Guide or use traditional products like Base SAS, SAS/GRAPH, and ODS, here's your opportunity to share with us how you've been able to incorporate graphical interfaces and data visualizations into your applications.  Presentations can include:

  • Business intelligence dashboards/balanced scorecards;
  • User interface systems;
  • Systems that integrate Microsoft or other applications;
  • Full query, analytical and reporting systems;
  • Incorporation of data visualization tools into reporting systems;
  • Generation of either interactive or static reports and graphics that present data in new and innovative ways;
  • Customization of ODS output including ODS statistical graphics output;
  • Other creative ways that use SAS to solve business problems.

All papers MUST include a display of the system or results and should include some programming and code.

Presentation Length: 20 minutes or 50 minutes

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  Simple But Clever

Paul Dorfman, Independent SAS Consultant, Jacksonville FL
Lessia Shajenko, Bank of America, Boston, MA

Interested in sharing the most productive ways of using SAS®?  Then this section is for you.  Simple does not mean primitive: Simply clever solutions offered here can make your SAS life much simpler.  Topics in this section are not limited to adroitly carved SAS, SQL, or macro code miniatures.  They may also include efficient data and program design, tricks making graphics more visually palatable, tinkering with the Display Manager (DMS) or SAS Enterprise Guide (EG) internals for better productivity of the environments -- indeed, any concise SAS technique with high yield-to-effort ratio.

Presentation Length: 20 minutes or 50 minutes

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  Statistics and Data Analysis

Jeff Kromrey, University of South Florida, Tampa FL
Mark Litaker, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Dentistry

Presentations in the Statistics and Data Analysis section address processes of progressing from raw data to useful information.  For SESUG 2008, this section will consist of four half-day sessions, each comprising topics that will be of interest to a wide range of SAS® users, including statistical analysts, statistical programmers, statisticians and DATA step programmers.

Papers do not necessarily need to present new statistical methods, although such topics are welcome.   Innovative applications of established methods to new or unusual scenarios are also appropriate for this section.  In addition, presentations involving application of methods that many users of SAS statistics may not commonly see, such as methods for categorical, longitudinal or censored data, are of interest.  Methods to facilitate analysis of very large data arrays, such as those that can result from genetic studies or national surveys, are also sought for this section.

It is important to keep in mind that the audience will represent a broad spectrum of users of statistical methods, so the presentations can range from basic applications to complex analyses.

Presentation Length: 20 minutes or 50 minutes

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