SAS Global Forum Ideas

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The SAS Global Forum planners are looking for your ideas! Please help them out by listing ideas for what you'd like to see, hear and do at future SAS Global Forum Events. The committee plans five years in advance so start now by listing and discussing your ideas. Click button to open template and add your idea to the list. Important: You must first be logged in. Click here to Log in or create an account. (It's quick and easy)

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Can sasCommunity.org be used as the Message Center?

Becky 17:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Great idea Becky. That's exactly what we have in mind for 2010. Stay tuned for more details, and please give us feedback on how it works out. --LaurenH 14:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A panel discussion on the SAS Macro Language

A panel discussion on the SAS Macro Language, past present and future. I would invite: Art Carpenter, Ron Fehd, Ian Whitlock and Michelle Burlew.

Frisco 20:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Frisco, This sounds like an excellent suggestion for 2011. (It's too late to include for SAS Global Forum 2010.) We definitely will follow up on this. Thanks! --DebbieBuck 21:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Eliminate Tickets

We are adopting a practice at our SUG meetings that we really ought to implement for SGF as well.

Given the ease of selecting random numbers in SAS, for door prizes as the closing session why would we give out tickets and then select numbers from a bowl?

Why not simply

1. assign each registrant a sequential number (starting with 0001)
2. order those number randomly
3. call off the numbers from top to bottom until you run out of prizes

The random ordering could be as simple as:

data numbers;
  do i=1 to 4000;
    x=ranuni(0);
    output;
  end; 
run;
 
proc sort data=numbers; 
  by x;
run; 
 
proc print data=numbers; 
run;

Art Art297 03:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Art, Thanks for the suggestion - we're always looking for ways to improve/enhance all portions of the conference. We'll consider this in our planning of the closing session for 2011. Debbie--DebbieBuck 12:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Voting for Best Paper

There was a large push this year to take more advantage of social media techniques. Interestingly, we didn't use those techniques for voting for the best papers.

Couldn't we let everyone who attends a session simply text their own evaluations immediately after each presentation?

For example, if we are rating 3 categories for paper 088, those attending that session could be asked to text their evaluation to 1-800-123-4567, with the following in the message: 088 567

where the first 3 digits represent the paper number and the next three digits represent their evaluations on 3 scales, where 1=way below average and 9=well above average.

Art Art297 03:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Art. We'll include this possibility in our team review of evaluation/judging methods for 2011 and future conferences. Debbie--DebbieBuck 12:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Panel Discussion regarding the continued need for DM-based SAS Access

A large part of our community was disappointed this year to see all of the effort SAS has put into EG, with almost nothing observable put into accessing SAS through, say, the Enhanced Editor.

While I'm not against change, and I'm sure that programmers, EG users, non-EG users and managers likely have different opinions, and may even differ amongst themselves I, personally, think that SAS would benefit from hearing the various opinions of key people from each of those groups.

What I would like to see is a panel-audience participation discussion on the topic of where SAS should devote more developmental engergy, with the panel comprised of the above mentioned groups along with key, influential members from SAS itself.

I would think that the discussion could easily fill a 90 minute slot, would be quite well attended and, if they are interested, could provide invaluable direction to SAS, quite possibly quell some unfounded user concerns and, in any case, help us all understand each others viewpoints on the topic.

Art Art297 03:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Art, We are planning on more panel-audience participation presentations at SGF 2011, and I think this topic is one that would definitely be of interest to many users. Thanks for the suggestion! This kind of input on papers and topics - especially early in the planning process - is very helpful. Debbie --DebbieBuck 12:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)