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My Fifteen Minutes
Last year, I was fortunate enough to attend David Pogue’s dynamic presentation at SAS on Web 2.0. In addition to being a popular New York Times columnist, author, and CBS news correspondent, to my delight, Mr. Pogue is also a former Broadway conductor. Experiencing Mr. Pogue’s one-man show, combining technology, creative genius, and singing, was incredible. For a tech industry girl who used to choreograph dances for unwitting younger neighborhood kids and continues to make up ridiculous songs at home for her husband, his presentation was truly inspiring. So shortly after becoming a Twitterholic last spring, I began to follow (no, NOT stalk!) Mr. Pogue on Twitter (@pogue). When @pogue announced that he was going to pose 1 or 2 questions per day and eventually create a book based on contributions from fellow tweeters, it struck a chord. Each evening I eagerly awaited the newest questions and tried to respond with as much late-night wit as I could muster in 140 characters or less. I even persuaded my best friend from childhood (@sjacob09), who was new to Twitter, to join in. Scores of others followed suit and before long the holy grail of social media had been obtained—a genuine conversation between @pogue, participating tweeters, and others enjoying the ride. With over 500,000 followers at the time (and now over a million), Pogue’s concept for creating a crowdsourced book was indeed a hit. Out of 25,000 tweets, Pogue eventually whittled them down to 2,500, and the book The World According to Twitter was born to strong early acclaim (one of my tweets was even mentioned in the review: "I was crowned Miss Watermelon at local pageant as a teen. Parade, interviews ... embarrassment to last a lifetime!"). As a thank you, a personalized complimentary copy of the book was delivered to each contributor. I was so excited to have a few tweets included in this book and received my copy a few weeks ago. Even though the inscription reads “To Julieanne's mom” and I don’t have any children—all of course is forgiven (and can probably be blamed on fatigue from his book-signing marathon). If you do happen to know Julieanne’s mom, though, please let me know. Follow Shelly Goodin on Twitter: @sgoodin
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by John West, Acquisitions Editor, SAS Press
Last week I had the pleasure of representing SAS Press at the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference in San Jose, CA. As the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose is the perfect location for all things SAS to converge for an action-packed, three-day conference, including lots of pre- and post-conference SAS training classes. The conference got off to a great start on Tuesday with a thoroughly entertaining keynote by Michael Raithel titled, “It’s Not Easy Being a SAS Programmer!” For Wednesday’s SAS Customer Appreciation Luncheon, John Sall, SAS Institute co-founder, gave an enlightening presentation titled, “History of SAS—The Early Years.” Who knew that SAS employees consume twenty tons of M&Ms a year! SAS was invited to present a record number of paper presentations and demos this year. Many of the papers and demos were about the hot topic of ODS, which ranged from titles like “Customize Your Graphs with ODS Graphics Editor” by Sanjay Matange and “Getting Started with the Output Delivery System” by Dan O’Connor to “What’s New in ODS 9.2” by Eric Gebhart and “New SG Procedures in SAS/GRAPH Software” by Sanjay Matange. I’m always excited to reconnect in person with many of our SAS Press authors at conferences, many of whom attended this year’s WUSS conference: Art Carpenter, Ron Cody, Cynthia Zender, Kirk Lafler, Eric Gebhart, William Benjamin, Ginger Carey, Helen Carey, Lora Delwiche, Susan Slaughter, and Michael Raithel. In the SAS Press booth, we had an enthusiastic response to the many preview copies of books on display that are due to be published over the next six months or so. Here are just a few of them:
Kathy Council, vice president of SAS Publications, gave a very informative presentation on Wednesday afternoon titled, “Roadmap to Documentation, Training, Technical Support, and support.sas.com.” Kathy’s presentation highlighted all of the documentation, support, and training resources that are available to SAS users. Look for SAS Press at next year’s conference, November 3-5, 2010, in San Diego, CA!
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SAS Press has just delivered its first set of fraternal twins!by Stephenie Joyner, Acquisitions Editor
OK, maybe that's stretching things a bit. But we are proud to announce that we have just published two new JMP books at the same time (and, of course, we've already picked out their names): Analyzing and Interpreting Continuous Data Using JMP: A Step-by-Step Guide, by José Ramírez and Brenda Ramírez, and Jump Into JMP Scripting, by Wendy Murphrey and Rosemary Lucas. It has been exciting (and fun) to see these books develop over the last several months. From the authors' early ideas about what to include, to the growing volume of text as they wrote their drafts, to finalizing the manuscript during copyedit and production, the books have been a labor of love for everyone involved in these projects. José and Brenda Ramírez have been avid users and supporters of JMP and SAS for more than 15 years, and Jose won the SAS User Feedback award in 2002. As JMP Technical Support representatives at SAS, Wendy Murphrey and Rosemary Lucas have shared their JMP expertise with countless users over the last 10 years. It has been delightful working with so many experts who are so committed to providing JMP users with the information they need to do their jobs more effectively. We welcome these new books into the SAS Press library. We hope you'll be pleased with how much you can learn from our two newest deliveries!
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It's who you know (and a little of what you know)by Shelley Sessoms I'll let you all in on a little secret. I am not the least bit technical. Sure, I can set a clock, hook up a DVD player, use my BlackBerry. But that's where the technical skills end. When something happens to my computer at work I try the good 'ole standby method of turning it off, waiting 10 seconds, and turning it back on. If that doesn't fix the problem, then I know the numbers to Pubs Help by heart. This lack of technical knowledge did not deter me from editing the SAS Tech Report for nearly five years. I didn't know how to answer the questions that came into my inbox, but I made a lot of friends in Tech Support who I could forward those questions to. They were always more than happy to help out. And those same friends still help me to this day. When I receive a book proposal, I forward the material to my buddies in Tech Support, Education, R&D, etc., so they can help me decide if the material constitutes a viable book. They make suggestions, reorder chapters, suggest examples, and more to help make the book the best it can be. Through my association with these intelligent minds at SAS, I've gotten better with technical information. But I still don't consider myself a technical person. So, I've decided I want just a tiny bit more of the knowledge these SAS folks have. I recently decided to sign up for an Intro to Programming course, taught by SAS Education. I'm hopeful that it will give me enough information to tell a good program from a bad one. And allow me to help our SAS Press authors create the strongest proposal possible ... something that will wow the rest of the SAS folks into saying, "Yes, we need that book now." Wish me luck!
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Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond – Coming Soon!by John West, Acquisitions Editor
Many of you also know Lauren Haworth as the author of another SAS Press book, PROC TABULATE by Example, and as a frequent presenter at regional and national SAS User Group conferences. Lauren will be the chair of SAS Global Forum 2010 next April 11-14 in Seattle. Cynthia Zender is the ODS and Report Writing Curriculum Manager at SAS. A SAS user for over 20 years, Cynthia is responsible for the ODS curriculum development, including topics that range from introductory ODS to advanced topics such as ODS and XML. Cynthia divides her time between instructing and curriculum development. A SAS user since 1980, Michele Burlew is the author of four other SAS Press books: Debugging SAS Programs: A Handbook of Tools and Techniques, Reading External Data Files Using SAS: Examples Handbook, SAS Guide to Report Writing: Examples, Second Edition, and SAS Macro Programming Made Easy, Second Edition. Michele’s fifth book, Combining and Modifying SAS Data Sets: Examples, Second Edition, will be available this fall. The new book, Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond, will be available this October.
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Do you Believe in Magic?by Shelly Goodin, Marketing Specialist, SAS Press
Last weekend, I joined the merry band of muggles who descended on theatres across America to catch the opening weekend of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Although not strictly by the book, the movie captured the teenage angst and special brand of magic that makes this particular novel so powerful. (Confession: this sixth novel in J. K. Rowlings’s series is the only book that has ever made me cry—hard!) Yet, while the movie was certainly dazzling, it didn’t quite convey the emotional impact of the 600-plus-page tome. As delighted as my husband and brother were that I didn’t cry in public, I was secretly wanting the big cathartic cinematic meltdown from a book that has stayed with me long past turning the last page. While SAS Press books hopefully won’t bring any of our users to tears, we hope that they are also making a lasting impression on you. From statistical titles to programming guides to business essentials—we want to reach and satisfy the demands of our entire audience of SAS and JMP users. And I believe that our authors and our staff are casting a little bit of our own magic when everything comes together and we present the finished product to you. Okay, maybe this is a stretch, but I think one could say that SAS Press is a little like Hogwarts. We work with subject matter experts (think code instead of potion masters) to provide a gifted group of people (you) with life-enhancing tools.
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by George McDaniel, Acquisitions Editor
We talk a lot here about how we’re using social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook to publicize our books. I was a late comer to these applications and, like a lot of people of my generation, came to them with a high degree of skepticism. I won’t say that that skepticism has been entirely eliminated, either, since I’ve seen so many fads and fanaticisms come and go over the years. However, I can relate a recent experience that suggests the usefulness of social networking for persons and organizations with a product to sell and for individuals interested in products to buy. I have been a long-time (and I mean LONG-TIME) fan of the Scottish folk singer Al Stewart. (Those who remember Al from the sixties remember one song, “Year of the Cat,” and that’s about it. There have been lots more.) After I’d been using Facebook for a few weeks, I poked around and found a fan page for Al and signed up, joining another thousand or so fans. A thousand fans is not a shabby number but it’s still a small following by Facebook standards. From time to time, I would post a thought or two on the page’s wall, nothing very much, and while I listened frequently to his music, the Facebook page remained In the background, more or less forgotten. I was surprised, therefore, when in the past week, Al’s lead guitarist Dave Nachmanoff sent me a message (probably sent to all the fans or at least those who had posted) informing me of a new live CD that could be ordered from his Website. Visiting the site, not only did I order the CD, I also noticed that Al and his band would be coming to the Cary area this fall. I wrote back to Dave and he responded with a friendly note and we’ve exchanged a few since. That is a kind of interaction that was probably not possible until very recently. The upshot is that, come November, I can look forward to meeting my favorite singer and in the meantime, I can enjoy listening to his latest work. All thanks to Facebook. Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter can make possible a closer interaction between performer and fan, writer and reader, seller and buyer than has ever been possible before. This one small experience illustrates that. We here at SAS Press and SAS Publishing are working toward furthering that interaction, in our own way, every day.
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Author, author!by Stacey Hamilton, SAS Press Acquisitions Editor If you’ve visited our SAS Publishing Web page lately, you might have noticed some changes. Previously, SAS Publishing titles had a corresponding companion page that featured author biographies and sample code, among other book related items. But we thought: our authors are our best asset and should be the focus of our Web presence. This led us to create author pages, which bring the attention back to our valued authors and their expertise. On each author page you will find:
We hope you will find our redesigned Web site easy to navigate. Please let us know what you think!
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Technology and Patienceby John West, Acquisitions Editor, SAS Press
I’m a self-described bookworm who’s been a little slow on the upstart with cutting-edge technology and the social media that’s intertwined with much of how we go about our daily routines. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like technology, I love it and I marvel at how productive I can be with so many technologically advanced tools at my disposal, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, etc. It’s just that I’m in the generation gap where the first place I went for answers to any question was the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 26 volumes, and an atlas the size of a small Radio Flyer. The Britannica, housed in their own custom, brown bookcase in our living room, were revered in our family, as were all books. Fast forward a few decades and long gone are the days of having to look up anything in an encyclopedia. Just use Google and you’ll find an answer to just about any question that you have, which certainly makes work, and life, much easier. Instant access to information is an absolutely wonderful thing, as anyone who’s purchased a smart phone will attest to. I can also attest to this since I just recently bought an iPhone 3GS. I had no idea what I was missing out on! The iPhone has certainly changed my life for the better. And it’s so easy to use! With the flick of a finger, I have instant access to everything I need, the Web, e-mail, Google, YouTube, voice-recognition calling, 3-megapixel autofocus camera and video camera, compass, weather, clock, maps, and well, you get the picture. Access to all of this information is great, but it can be a double-edged sword, at least for me. In our 24/7 society, I’ve become conditioned to want everything fast, fast, fast. Why should we have to wait for anything? I grumble when I have to wait in line anywhere for more than a few minutes, which doesn’t help my blood pressure! But, as with most things, you have to find balance. I’m still working on the patience thing, but for once, I’m glad that I’m not behind the curve with my new smart phone.
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Two SAS® Press Books Win Awards of Excellence in the 2009 STC International Technical Publications Competitionby Mary Beth Steinbach, Managing Editor, SAS Press
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) recently announced winners in the 2009 International Technical Publications Competition. SAS entries included two books that received Distinguished Technical Publications Awards in the STC Carolina Chapter competition earlier this year. The Global English Style Guide also received a Best of Show Award in the STC Carolina Chapter Competition. I was very proud and happy to receive notification of these latest awards, and just looking at these two beautiful books sent me on a little trip down memory lane. When I joined the SAS Technical Editing group in 2002, John Kohl was one of my fellow editors. While working in that group, I learned many things from John because, well, he’s a really bright guy! But more than that, what John taught me had more to do with his passion for linguistics, a work ethic that never quits, and his total commitment to being nothing less than excellent. Ever. He’s the kind of guy who encourages you to pay attention to the details. And the details are what make his book worthy of the awards it continues to receive. Coincidently during that same time, Lora Delwiche and Susan Slaughter were writing the Revised Second Edition of The Little SAS Book. Having just joined SAS, their book was my first introduction to SAS Press and the first SAS Press book that I was assigned to edit. As is true for many people, that little book taught me the basics of SAS software. I was (and continue to be) impressed with Lora and Susan’s writing style and subject matter expertise. They are a uniquely successful authoring team, and are truly delightful to work with.
The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market By John R. Kohl, SAS Institute Inc.
The Little SAS® Book: A Primer, Fourth Edition By Lora D. Delwiche, University of California, Davis, and Susan J. Slaughter, Avocet Solutions
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Rock On!by Julie Platt, SAS Press Editor in Chief
Our household has just welcomed another member—an electric guitar for our oldest teenager. Our teenager started taking guitar lessons this summer. We weren’t quite sure how the lessons would go, so we accepted a loaner acoustic guitar from a neighbor. All along, we knew our son was most interested in an electric guitar, but MAYBE he’d fall in love with the sound of the acoustic guitar and over time we’d listen to James Taylor instead of whatever it is that emanates from his mp3 player. Well, fate intervened. The loaner was reclaimed much sooner than we had anticipated and before the love of the acoustic guitar could take hold. We had to go shopping for a replacement. I asked his guitar teacher what kind would be good for us to consider. “Really, for what he wants to do, an electric guitar would serve him best.” “Oh. OK . . . Do we HAVE to get an amp?” “Yes.” “Oh. Hmm . . . Could we have some sort of volume control governor installed, like they do to limit the speed of school buses? That would be REALLY great.” Honestly, just between you and me, I held out as long as I could. This electric guitar has been on his bucket list for years. I guess I could take comfort in knowing that we successfully avoided the drum set that might have accompanied the guitar. You know what? The worry was worse than the reality. So far, anyway. What I’ve discovered is that he could not be more excited about the guitar, and we could not be happier for him. To my surprise, I am delighted to hear "Smoke on the Water" over and over again. It’s been a wonderful change for our household! So, I’m going to come clean about another worry that I’ve had. It’s about moving SAS Press content online. For years, our program printed books. Period. Slowly, but surely, we’ve come to recognize that online content is growing in popularity and, to some extent, is expected. Further, if the content isn’t online and readily available, SAS users who could benefit from it may not know it even exists. (If you do a Google search on a topic and don’t find the content, it must not be there, right?) Well, and then the iPhone hit the market, and who doesn’t want to read SAS Press books on an iPhone? Or at least use “reading SAS Press books” as another reason that an iPhone must be purchased. Although we still don’t know how the use and delivery of online content will continue to evolve, we do know that online content is:
The bottom line is that we want to be able to serve SAS users best. Providing options for accessing the content of SAS Press books serves them best and makes the books more available to them. The worry comes in the “what if?” And, I believe that the what-ifs we’re most worried about are, well, maybe it’s just one: unfair or illegal use of the content. Piracy. Having the books show up on Web sites where they don’t belong. We have seen this happen in a few cases, but so far, it’s been very isolated. So far, the worry has been much worse than the reality. Are we going to relax and not worry about protecting SAS Press content? No. We are going to continue to be vigilant about protecting the use of the content from SAS Press books. And, we’re going to continue to push to find better and better ways to serve SAS users with that content. We are confident that, although this picture will continue to evolve, our strong relationship with SAS users will ensure that it develops in good harmony and is a wonderful change for the SAS user community.
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George McDaniel, Acquisitions Editor, SAS Press, is our blogger this week. Last night I attended a reading and book signing at Quail Ridge Books, located a few miles from us here at SAS World HQ. Quail Ridge is a fine independent bookshop, which has managed to survive and even thrive in the age of big box national chains. They do this by knowing their customers and their suppliers, i.e., the authors of the books those readers like to read. And they bring those groups together by holding frequent, almost daily, events at the store. Last night’s event featured Alexandra Sokoloff, a California novelist who makes Raleigh her part-time home nowadays. Sokoloff has just had a new novel published entitled The Unseen, an entry in the supernatural thriller genre of which she is fast becoming a master. The novel is set on Durham’s Duke University campus and the J. B. Rhine Research Center. I just started reading it, but if the first five chapters are any indication, she’s got a winner.
Several members of the audience last night were not only readers and fans but authors themselves. Quail Ridge has been successful in both catering to a large community of readers and in helping to build a community of local authors. Bringing authors and readers together, and at the same time encouraging authors to read each others’ work and readers to sometimes become authors, is something we try to do at SAS Press. Sometimes we do this in real space and time, such as the authors’ dinners we sponsor at conferences. Increasingly, however, we are reaching an expanding community of authors and readers through our online and social networking efforts. This blog is one example. Another example is our individual presence on Twitter (follow me at http://twitter.com/georgemcdaniel). You can friend us collectively on Facebook or follow the lot of us on Twitter. If you’re a LinkedIn fan, you can join “Fans of SAS Books.” We’re reaching out to bring you news of authors and books and sometimes just our own particular slant on things. There’ll be lots more ways in the future that we’ll be working to bring authors and readers together—like Quail Ridge—to talk and learn about our books and about writing them. We hope to see you out there.
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Judging a Book by Its Coverby Shelley Sessoms, SAS Press Acquisitions Editor Last week I attended PharmaSUG in Portland, Oregon. My main responsibility was to answer questions about our books and recruit new authors and topics for the SAS Press program. I did that, and came away with a few new items to add to our “wish list.” I’ll blog more about that later. But I also found myself watching people as they looked at our books. Did they pick one up because of the title, the cover, the “New” sticker on the front? What did they do first: scan the front and back, look at the table of contents, open to a random page? I didn’t see a consistent theme, but I can tell you how I look at books. I scan the titles and then I look at the cover art. I am by no means an artist, but I know what I like. I like colors found in nature and landscapes. Put a picture or drawing of the beach or mountains on your cover, and I will look at it. I tend to ignore extremely modern book covers, or ones with geometrical shapes and stark colors. The content inside such a book might be wonderful, but I’ll never know. I don’t like the cover, therefore I don’t look inside. Our authors also know what they like. I’m not actually part of the cover design team, but I do hear the discussions. And I talk to authors about their ideas. Recently one author told me his favorite color was yellow, and asked if we could incorporate that into the design for his book. Well, certainly! Another author had a very distinct shade of green in mind; nine tries later we found it. Some people want specific images on their covers; others leave it to the designer to find an appropriate picture. Whatever the case, lots of thought goes into the design of our SAS Press books. I scanned our library today and saw a multitude of colors. Many were bright and eye-catching. The font was clear and easy to read. The back covers gave just enough information to make me want to open them and read more. This isn’t by accident; our production and marketing folks spend hours upon hours on each book. So the next time you look at a SAS Press book, just know that the outside and inside were both meticulously reviewed. We strive to give you the best product possible. And, one more thing . . . because I’m still curious . . . what makes you want to open a book and read more? Let me know at shelley.sessoms@sas.com.
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This quote appeared on the SAS intranet this past week. To me, it speaks to one of the reasons that SAS Press authors write books. Simply stated, they are trying to help SAS and JMP users. Their books centralize information for users, answer questions that the authors themselves may have had trouble answering, provide examples that will help another SAS user solve a problem and move on. We often hear feedback from you about how these books have an impact on you. Sometimes this feedback is in the form of a formal review published in a journal. Often, however, this feedback comes in the form of emails that you send us or conversations that you have with SAS Press authors at conferences and events. Scott Leslie, who has coauthored a chapter in the upcoming book, Analysis of Observational Health Care Data Using SAS(R), offered this comment recently: . . . just wanted to send a quick note to express how helpful the SAS Press publications have been in our workplace. I have noticed the large increase in publications in all areas (not just statistics) over the past few years. I believe publications keep SAS users engaged with the software and stimulate other uses of SAS. Wow! Our hope is that SAS Press books help you each and every day. So, tell us! How have SAS Press books been helpful to you? What SAS or JMP information isn’t there that you wish someone would write about? By SAS Press Editor in Chief Julie Platt
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Big or Small, We Welcome All!By SAS Press Editor in Chief Julie Platt
All content, that is! Remember the 24 April 2009 blog post from Shelley Sessoms about the topics that are especially high on our wish list for publishing through SAS Press? That post generated a lot of response and questions. It’s always so gratifying to see the SAS User Community spring into action to help other SAS users. Thank you, all! Posts like those also generate a lot of questions from would-be authors. One of those questions often asked is “How long does my book have to be?” Although some publishers prescribe a certain page count for books, we tend to be somewhat flexible and want your content to drive the length. As more and more content goes online and is delivered in different formats, “page count” and how to deliver the content has become even more flexible. If you’re thinking about writing a “book,” we do want to offer a few tips to guide your thinking as you plan the content.
What do you have in mind? Contact us and we’ll see what we can do!
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You may have noticed that we took a brief hiatus from blogging. But in the coming weeks watch this space for new posts from SAS Press Editor in Chief Julie Platt and Marketing Specialist Shelly Goodin, who will relate some fun and interesting experiences she has had recently on Twitter. But this week you are stuck with me, stuck in a post-vacation haze. I spent a week in Paris, where I almost ate pig intestines, drank a 10-Euro thimble-full of champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower, consumed all the Salade Niçoise I could handle, and visited where Marie Antoinette spent her last hours. One of my favorite spots was Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris's largest. Cemeteries are beautiful and (obviously) peaceful, but the residents of Père Lachaise didn't necessarily lead peaceful lives. We saw the Communards' Wall, where in 1871 147 holdouts of the Paris Commune were lined up and shot. And a visit to Père Lachaise wouldn't be complete without braving the crowds to pay your respects to Jim Morrison. Aside from the famous graves, I was also struck by those who at some point were disinterred and moved there after Napoleon I opened the cemetery in the early 1800s. Why, I wondered, would they move Molière there? He died in 1673. And Abélard and Héloïse, who were long gone by 1200? When I returned to my room that night, I did a quick Internet search, only to discover it was all a marketing campaign! Apparently the cemetery was so far out of town at that time that no one wanted to be buried there. So what do you do? Dig up some famous people, rebury them there, and voilà! Suddenly Père Lachaise is the place to be buried. Today the graves number in the hundreds of thousands--residents famous, infamous, and not famous at all. You might be asking by now: What does all this have to do with publishing? Nothing, really, but it does show the enduring power of celebrity. Maybe the story of Père Lachaise is an early example of the Oprah effect. As always, I welcome your comments, whether they be on publishing, travel, cemeteries, or even tripe.
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The list is getting longer and longerBy Shelley Sessoms A big part of my job is traveling and talking to SAS users about the types of books they want to see us publish. And those users aren’t shy about what they want to see. They tell me when they want a new edition, a new book, or just any type of information on a subject. We try to accommodate their wishes as best we can. My goal this year is to proactively search for authors. So, here’s my first attempt. We would like to publish books on the following subjects . . . but we need authors. So, come on. Take a look at the list. You know you want to write a book!
Are you ready to discuss a proposal on one of these topics? Not quite ready, but want us to add something to the list? We’ll take either. Send a note to saspress@sas.com and let us know what you’re thinking.
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SAS Global Forum Wrap-upBy Julie Platt, SAS Press Editor-in Chief Remember SAS Global Forum 2009? It was held last month in National Harbor, Maryland. You may have heard all you want to hear about the conference. I just have one more thing to say about it! After SAS Global Forum, I received an e-mail from a SAS author that just reminded me of the positive impact that the SAS Press program has had on the SAS user community. In the e-mail, he commented on how his company has purchased so many SAS Press books and that his colleagues use them every day to address issues they face as they are using SAS. His comment reminded me that the SAS Press program has had such a positive impact on the SAS user community. At SAS Global Forum 2009, many experiences illustrated this impact. Maybe it was the 42 SAS Press authors who attended the conference and spent countless hours preparing for it, helping to organize the event, preparing and presenting papers, getting involved in the SAS Press events at the conference. Maybe it was seeing SAS users browsing the bookshelves filled with SAS Press titles, seeking out the sections that would address their issues and recommending titles to their colleagues.
Maybe it was seeing SAS users meet their favorite authors for the first time, thanking the authors for their books, asking for autographs and photos with them. Maybe it was SAS users coming to us and suggesting other topics they’d like to see developed through SAS Press or asking if they could help with reviews. These impressions, together, emphasized to me how important the SAS Press program is to the SAS user community. Everyone likes to feel that the work they do matters, and it’s clear that the work to support the SAS Press program is valued by all. The SAS Press authors contribute countless hours to the development of the SAS user community, through the books they develop, the presentations they make, the consultations they offer to other SAS users, and the support they offer to the conferences. SAS users benefit from the SAS Press content, and in turn, give back through suggesting other topics and reviewing books as they are underway. Those of us who work for SAS Press want to continue to help strengthen and grow the SAS user community. I am grateful to play a part in this. What could we be doing through SAS Press that would better serve you? Drop us a note! saspress@sas.com
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Learning from the Bestby Shelley Sessoms What happens when you get 3,200 SAS users in one spot? The ideas start flowing! Whether it’s from people attending presentations or just networking in the halls, tips are shared and knowledge is increased. This is the 5th year I’ve attended SAS Global Forum, and each year I come back with a better understanding of how people use SAS. Even though I work for SAS, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with the changes and upgrades to our software. But the attendees never fail me. I can count on them to tell me about the latest enhancements to our products. One attendee told me, “I went to a 50-minute presentation this morning and I learned something that’s going to save me hours each month.” Many of our SAS Press authors are also presenters during the conference. Some of them share knowledge from their existing books and others create a new presentation that they often then turn into a book. We had a record number of SAS Press authors this year—42 attended the conference. And I think I talked to almost every one of them! We discussed everything from Enterprise Miner and SQL to histograms and dashboards. So you can imagine the information floating around in my head. All I can say is . . . thank goodness for notepads. I’d never keep it all straight without writing it down. As a result of the conference, I have a number of new book topics in mind. I’ll share the list with you in an upcoming blog entry. But before then, tell me what you want to read. What book should we produce next?
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Biblio ex machinaby George McDaniel So who says computers and machines aren’t taking over? In the past week I see that in Japan they’ve got a female robot they’re grooming as a model for the fashion industry. (She’s got a cute face, but the legs need a little work.)
Even more startling is a news item I happened on this morning. Some guy somewhere claims to have written no fewer than 200,000 books using some software he wrote. (Couldn’t he have gotten a computer to write it? Been a lot easier.) I think what the program does really, instead of actually writing, is compile stuff—from the Web, I guess—and compile so much of it, it’s not really plagiarizing. (Now there’s an antiquated term for you. In the Brave New World of information sharing, the concepts of plagiarism and intellectual property are rapidly becoming things of the past. But I digress.) The “author”—who would more properly be called the computer operator—then advertises the book as print on demand and waits for the orders to come in. Pretty slick, huh? If you’re reminded of Orwell’s novel-writing machines, I’m with you, though actual human authors like George Orwell are so last century. What I want to know is: what’s the next step? If authors can be made obsolete, why not readers? Why not write a program (or better yet get your computer to write a program) that reads all that stuff, so human beings can be freed up to . . . what? Flip hamburgers? Walk dogs? Write blogs? But how do you know my computer hasn’t already dreamed up a blog-writing program? Think about it.
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Shelly Goodin gets into the spirit of St. Patrick's DayEarlier this week, O'Reilly media sponsored a limerick contest in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. The prizes? Three lucky “poets” would receive O’Reilly electronic books. All participants who posted limericks (involving technology or O’Reilly themes) were entered into a random drawing. I did indeed submit my own limerick:
Alas, the luck of the Irish was not on my side. But you can't win if you don't compete, and here is proof that my name was in the hat (or cup, so to speak). My 15 minutes of Web fame!
Last month, a few SAS Publishing colleagues and I were fortunate enough to attend the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference in NYC. Two jam-packed days of cutting-edge discussions and directives for the ever-changing publishing industry. The conference was crackling with energy, and the buzz about e-books, content delivery methods, and social networking was apparent beyond the ballrooms of the Times Square New York Marriott. I left the conference feeling good about the direction in which SAS Press marketing has been moving for the past several months, while at the same time realizing that there are so many NEW opportunities to explore. Now fast-forward one month later. . . . I am looking at my Twitter account to see what people are saying about SAS Global Forum, scheduling podcast interviews with SAS Press authors who will be attending the conference, writing this blog, and wondering how O’Reilly convinced a dog to draw one of the winning names out of the red cup. Pretty cool stuff. And as new (and useful) opportunities for interacting with SAS users become available, I hope that you will join us for the ride. If you are tweeting, be sure to follow me at sgoodin.
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Keep repeating: “We are extremely fit . . .”by Stacey Hamilton Several of us here at SAS Press, including Acquisitions Editor George McDaniel and Marketing Specialist Shelly Goodin, have been taking part in the Extreme Fitness Challenge, which is organized by SAS’s Recreation and Fitness Center. For eight weeks, we are challenged to participate in group classes as well as complete individual fitness milestones. One week we climbed 300 flights of stairs, the next we jumped rope for 60 minutes, and so on. The group classes are sometimes brutal, sometimes comical. Our foray into aqua belly-dancing was I am sure something to see; I’m glad I was belly-dancing instead of watching myself belly-dance. Although we’ve done our fair share of grumbling about the requirements, I think that we all agree that exercising in different ways has been eye-opening. Some of us are committed runners who would never think about attending a body sculpt class, while others love aerobics but balk at having to run 12 miles a week. In fact, being challenged to rouse muscles long dormant and push ourselves by getting our hearts pumping in different ways has not only led to the discovery of hidden talents (Shelly Goodin is quite the belly-dancer) but has also brought us closer together as a team. In general, shaking up a routine can bring benefits—not only for a fitness program but in other aspects of our lives. Here at SAS Press we are shaking things up a bit too. We are experimenting with new ways to deliver content. Last week we told you about "Coming to SAS from SPSS," a nifty (and free!) guide for SPSS users who are ready to make the switch. Now I’m excited to announce that we are making available free of charge “Analyzing Quality Data with SAS,” an excerpt from Robert Rutledge’s Just Enough SAS: A Quick-Start Guide to SAS for Engineers, which will be published by SAS Press in April. The excerpt illustrates some of the SAS procedures that can be used in support of three phases of statistical quality improvement using SAS 9.2 and SAS/QC software, with particular emphasis on the use of PROC SHEWHART and PROC CAPABILITY to support the implementation of statistical process control. I’d love to hear what you think about Rutledge’s excerpt and about SAS Press’s new ways of delivering content in general. And if you ever have the opportunity to aqua belly-dance, I suggest you take it. Carpe diem!
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How do I say . . . ?by SAS Press Acquisitions Editor Stephenie Joyner If you’ve ever planned a trip to a foreign country, one of the first things you may do is buy a translation dictionary so that you can learn how to say some of the most useful phrases in the language of the country you will visit. You don’t need to learn the entire language, but being equipped with some new vocabulary and a basic understanding of the sentence structure and grammar in the new language can give you the confidence to navigate in all types of new situations. The same is true when you want to move from one software package to another&emdash;much of your knowledge will transfer, but you’ll need some new vocabulary and some usage examples to help you make the transition. With their guide, “Coming to SAS from SPSS: A Programming Approach,” Lora Delwiche and Susan Slaughter are helping users make an easy transition between SPSS and SAS. The authors of The Little SAS Book: A Primer provide “vocabulary” lists that show many of the equivalent terms, SPSS commands, and SAS statements. They also provide examples illustrating how tasks in SPSS can be performed in SAS and how SAS users can use SPSS data in SAS examples. If you’re an SPSS user, and you’ve been thinking about seeing what things are like in the SAS world, “Coming to SAS from SPSS: A Programming Approach” will be a great guide and traveling companion as you explore new territories. Download it free here. Enjoy the journey!
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Guest blogger Julie Platt continues the Tools of Change Conference discussion
The Tools of Change conference confirmed for us some of the ideas we’ve had to provide SAS users with even better access to SAS Press content.
Other publishers are thinking along the same lines. And, while it’s reassuring to know that great minds think alike, we need to be forging our own path and doing what is right for SAS users and SAS Press. How do you want to get content from SAS Press books? How can we be serving you better?
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Guest blogger Mary Beth Steinbach ponders the future of publishing
Today is Friday the 13th. Want to know what scares me? A world without publishing, that’s what! In recent years (and especially in recent months), many products and services in the publishing industry have been costing more and delivering less. I’m thinking about fewer pages in the daily newspaper, books printed on paper that you can see through, magazines that contain more ads than content, and so on. Those of us in the industry have become familiar with the phrase, “Do more with less.” So I’ve been wondering, “Will publishing as I know it cease to exist?” At the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York City this week, I found the answer and the answer is “YES! Publishing as I know it will cease to exist.” But what I also learned in NYC is that although publishing has been changing for many years, and some of those changes have been perceived as negative, there have been and will continue to be positive changes as the industry evolves. Think e-books, instant access to information, the ability to connect and tell your stories on the Internet in online communities, walls, pokes, tags, tweets . . . It’s a whole new, exciting world out there! But don’t worry, George, Printed Books Are Here to Stay. If I had to pick a single favorite presenter, it would be Nick Bilton (The New York Times R&D Labs).
His keynote The Narrative is Changing: Sensors, Social Editors and the New Storytelling was full of energy, enthusiasm, insight, and humor. His work is like a montage and his boundaries are seemingly without limits. This is how he sees publishing in the future. In his bio, he describes himself as “. . . a Designer, User Interface Specialist, Technologist, Journalist, Hardware Hacker, Researcher, etc. etc.,” which might give you some idea as to how he approached his topic. As of the time of this post, the full text of the presentation isn’t on the O’Reilly site yet, but Nick’s Twitter page might give you more insight into this interesting fellow. We'll provide details of other SAS Publishing attendee experiences in future posts. In the meantime, check out these sites for TOC 2009 photos, blogs, videos, and more.
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SAS Press wakes up in the city that never sleeps!
This week several of my colleagues at SAS Press attended the O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in New York City. Over the coming weeks, those who attended are going to share what they learned with us. First up is SAS Press Managing Editor Mary Beth Steinbach.
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We here at SAS Press are excited to announce the latest book to publish in the Wiley and SAS Business Series: Gary Cokins's Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics. Written by one of the gurus of performance management, the book, a compilation of media articles and blogs that Cokins authored over a four-year period, is a compelling overview of the current trends in performance management. Extremely readable, even addictive, Performance Management is written in an informal, conversational style.
Performance management, the process of assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals, assists companies in achieving their strategic objectives. Unlike other books on the topic, Performance Management is not a dry recipe book or "how-to" guide; it provides a detailed discussion of the relevant aspects of performance management—its integration of multiple management methodologies and behavioral change management to overcome managers' and employees' natural resistance to change. Global product marketing manager for performance management at SAS, Cokins is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author on advanced cost management and performance improvement systems. He is the author of five books, including Performance Management: Finding the Missing Pieces (to Close the Intelligence Gap), also part of the Wiley and SAS Business Series. Be sure to check out his informative, witty, and frequently updated blog. If you aren't aware of SAS Press's partnership with Wiley, read more about it here and also see a list of the other titles that have been published in the series. We welcome your comments and questions.
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OMG! Guest blogger John West discovers FacebookAt the behest of a good friend who said that I needed to get with it, I recently joined Facebook. I’ve always considered myself too old to join Facebook, that it was for a much younger demographic, though at 47, I’m not exactly ready for the old folks’ home. To my amazement, I’ve become addicted to the social media site. Well, with seven friends, I guess you wouldn’t exactly say that I’m addicted, but I have discovered that there’s a huge subculture where you poke, tag, write on walls, and generally tell the world, or not, about your life. A bit disconcerting at first, knowing that your life’s an open book, but the more I delve into the nuances of social media, the more I realize that “staying connected” has a whole new meaning, not to mention that it’s just plain fun. Facebook also reminds me that our appetite for all kinds of information 24x7 is insatiable, and all of that information can be accessed with hand-held devices that are changing the world as we know it. Nothing brought this point home more for me than, of all things, a TV show. In a segment titled “Media Is Changing, but Some Things Endure” on CBS Sunday Morning last week, senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield talked about how media has changed since the Sunday morning news magazine first aired in 1979: . . . When Sunday Morning was born—every kind of information came in a different form. If you read mail, it came in an envelope. If you wanted to listen to news, you had to buy a radio. If you wanted to play music at home, you needed a phonograph and records. You wanted to read a newspaper? You needed the paper. A movie? That was a trip to the theatre, or a VCR. A phone call away from home? A pay phone. Write a report? Get a typewriter, and find a copier and a mailbox to send it around the world. Now (to use the buzz word) "convergence" is here. Every conceivable kind of information—"information" in the broadest sense—comes to us on a raft of devices. Take the iPhone, which can be a newspaper, a TV screen, a camera, a theatre, a file cabinet, a radio, a Walkman, Yellow Pages, an edit room, and a travel agency. And at root, this revolution has shifted massive amounts of power away from the providers to the users of information. You don't want to watch a program when it's on? Hey, it's always on somewhere. You like one song, but not an album? iTunes will oblige. You don't want to buy a newspaper? Read it for free (one reason why newspapers as we know them may not be around much longer). At SAS Press, we’re working hard to stay ahead of the social media curve to deliver content to our customers when they want it and how they want it. No easy task in a digital age that’s changing by leaps and bounds!
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Guest blogger George McDaniel: Printed Books Are Here to StayLately here at SAS Press we’ve been discussing the New Media and the future of publishing. I am sometimes accused of being a little hidebound because I tend to favor the traditional over the new. For example, I have maintained for years that if, by some quirk of evolution, the printed book had appeared after online media instead of before, it would have been greeted as a giant step forward. At last, no longer are we to be held in thrall to power-hungry devices that are often ungainly, prone to theft and breakage, require either nearby electrical outlets or short-lived batteries, and are hard to read outdoors. With the coming of the printed book, we have a nonvolatile, easily portable, attractive, and ever so handy medium that can be read in almost any light and is at home in your office, living room, the beach, an airline seat, or under a tree in the great outdoors. It never needs batteries and you can find your place using a simple bookmark. O happy day, the era of the printed book is at hand! Of course, that’s not the way it happened. The printed book came along centuries before the Johnny-come-lately electronic gizmos and now the air is filled with hosannas announcing the coming of the New Media. And, admittedly, there are advantages. Storage, for one. You can pack zillions of words onto a tiny chip, words that would fill entire shelves of printed books. And you can carry all those words from here to there without incurring additional airline fees. Accessibility is another: a simple search across all those words can find what you’re looking for at the speed of light or thereabouts, while you would grow old trying to find the same thing in a library of printed books. Moreover, electronic books are at least theoretically cheaper to produce, cheaper to buy, and free and virtually instantaneous to deliver. Those are great advantages and they and other factors are the reason publishers are embracing the New Media. And even a traditionalist like myself can admit that that’s a good thing. What I hope, however, is that e-media never wholly replaces the good old printed book. There are qualities inherent in the old-fashioned book that its “virtual” rivals are hard put to duplicate. For instance, some of the books in my personal library have literally been my traveling companions. I have a weather-beaten copy of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums that went along with me on a long-ago trip out west. It lost its cover camping in the rain in Colorado but kept me company on a memorable journey and it has held a special place on my library shelves ever since. Electronic media will never replace such books for the same reason robotic dogs will never replace the living, breathing—if occasionally slobbering—puppy. The printed book is more than just a conveyor of information. It can be your friend.
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Stacey Hamilton blogs the inauguration (and more!):Thanks to a much-welcomed snow day at SAS headquarters in Cary, I was able to watch a lot of television coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Although I eventually had to abandon CNN for C-SPAN because the CNN commentators felt the need to constantly tell me what I was seeing (this ain’t radio, folks!), I enjoyed being a part of the festivities from the comfort of my warm, uncrowded home. My nonstop viewing was interrupted only by my husband’s insistence that we watch the Tennessee-Vanderbilt basketball game. Before I was forced to turn the channel, I watched coverage of the H.O.P.E. Inaugural Youth Ball. As the Obamas danced onstage, I was struck by the view of the crowd, nearly all of whom held their Blackberries or cell phones high in order to photograph the first couple.
After getting past a distant memory of holding a cigarette lighter in the air and begging for “Freebird,” I, like previous posters Stephenie Joyner and Julie Platt, began to muse about how technology has changed in just the last ten to fifteen years. Everyone has a cell phone, and every cell phone has a camera. And even that is pretty low-tech in this day and age. If 1985 Stacey could be transported to 2009, would I even know what is going on in this picture? And I also wonder about the people taking the pictures. Is an event not real unless it is photographed, blogged about, e-mailed, and Tweeted? I am reminded of a recent visit to a fairly upscale restaurant. We were sitting in the bar talking when a group of four businesspeople sat down at the adjacent table. We watched in shock (and a bit of horror) as they never said a word to each other. Immediately their focus was on their Blackberries (or some other text-based phone). What an odd sight that was: in a dimly lit bar, four people were seated together but were a million miles apart, their grim faces illuminated by tiny screens. I read an interesting Wired article yesterday about a new iPhone app called WhosHere, which “helps you meet people near you with similar interests. . . . Simply fill out your profile and indicate the age and gender of the person you would like to meet. Whether indoors or outside, on a bus, in a car, at home, or in a bar, WhosHere will show you the people closest to you that match that description.” Ironically, I suppose, in some ways the same technology that is segmenting us as individuals and as a society is bringing us together. Are you the first one to buy a new gadget or do you just have a boring old Motorola cell phone like I do? Does an application like WhosHere frighten or enthrall you? I’d love to hear your thoughts about the role (or non-role) technology plays in your life.
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Guest blogger Stephenie Joyner tells the tale of the first time she was hired at SAS:The choice was clear: I could “bend” the truth and pretend to know more than I did, or I could run my first SAS job so that I wouldn't have to lie in the interview. In 1982, I applied for a technical writing position at SAS. I didn’t have the required SAS experience listed in the job description, but I knew I could learn quickly if given the opportunity. The weekend before my interview, I decided that I needed to become a SAS user—fast! In the days before laptops and the Internet, getting access to SAS was not nearly as easy as it is today. I wasn’t attending a university, and I didn’t have SAS where I worked, but I had a friend who did. I invited him to my house, and he brought with him a remarkable piece of hardware—a TI Silent 700—that would enable me to run a SAS job.
The TI Silent 700. A terminal with an acoustical modem and a printer for output. It was a kind of portable teletype. See the things that look like cupholders? That’s where you placed the telephone receiver to use the modem! Using this “miracle machine,” I wrote a SAS program, dialed into the mainframe computers at TUCC† to access SAS software, and ran the SAS job remotely. WooHoo! I had just run my first SAS job! During my interview the next day, the hiring manager asked if I had ever used SAS. I nonchalantly (and truthfully) replied, “Oh yes, I have run a few jobs on my own, and I think SAS is great software and it’s really easy to use." I’m pretty sure that statement helped me get my first job at SAS. Although lots of things have changed since then, SAS is still great software and it’s still easy to use. We’d love to hear about your first experiences with SAS. How did you get access? Why did you use it? Did it help you get a job? Share your stories with us. †Triangle University Computing Center at the Research Triangle Park, NC. In the dark ages, when computers took up entire rooms and required several people to maintain them, many companies bought computer time from TUCC (and places like it) rather than purchasing and maintaining their own computers.
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Guest blogger Julie Platt writes:Faster, Sleeker, and Easily Accessible We just welcomed into our family a new laptop computer! I have to say that this has been a life-changing event. It’s FAST. It’s sleek. It has more memory and power than the hulking desktop model we bought in 2002. Check out the difference in bulk, alone:
Isn’t that amazing?! This is the first computer we have bought in about seven years. Our old system was a desktop model. The model was huge. The hard drive was slow and small. We dedicated a desk to it and had to walk upstairs to use it. This new laptop is sleek and FAST--five times faster! It has five times more memory on the disk drive. The screen of the laptop monitor is about the same size as the large monitor screen of the old computer. In preparation for the new arrival, we called AT&T, our Internet service provider. “We’re getting a laptop! We need wireless access at our house.” They came right over with the router and set it up for us. In just a few years, we’ve been able to get a system that really works for our lifestyle. We can take the computer anywhere in the house and connect anywhere there is wireless Internet access. This transformation makes me think about how SAS Press has transformed itself over the years and the new things we’re planning for the future. Our publishing program originally focused on print media, primarily. We publish books and, for several years, published the Observations journal. Announcements about new books revolved around postal mailings and printed collateral. Authors were people you might meet at a conference if you were lucky. As we think about how we want to offer SAS Press books to become part of the everyday lives of SAS programmers, we need to think about how you get your information, how you might connect with SAS Press authors, and how we can keep you informed of content from SAS Press that can help you in your everyday work. Here are some of the ideas that SAS Press is looking to deliver to you in 2009: • Provide the content in any way that you want to access it. We’d like to find additional ways to make SAS Press books accessible electronically so that the content is more searchable and portable. Perhaps you’d like to be able to access smaller “chunks” of the information and we should experiment with making chapters of books available. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to download a copy of a SAS Press book onto your iPhone? Sounds great, doesn’t it? Of course, all of these methods require carefully planned infrastructure to prepare and deliver the content, so this won’t happen overnight. We are working with many groups at SAS to prototype these approaches and will keep you involved in that process. • We want to be involved in the conversations that you’re having over the Web. Conversations around SAS are happening all over the Web--SASCommunity.org, Facebook, LinkedIn, technical bloggers. We want to be sure that as you’re looking for answers to your questions about using SAS, we can point you to content or examples that could help. Of course, we always want our content to evolve so that it best serves you. If we don’t already have a book that would answer your questions, perhaps that indicates a topic that needs to be developed. We want to develop content that will help make your jobs easier, and we want you to be involved in helping to shape the evolution of the SAS Press offerings. • Learn from the expert. Podcasts and webinars on SAS topics are very popular. Through podcasts and webinars, you have an opportunity to hear tips or lengthier discussions on a topic, similar in length to presentation you might attend at a conference. View the presentation live or refer back to an archived version. The podcasts and webinars will be available when you need them. Of course, these initiatives are above and beyond the twenty-plus books we’ll be publishing for you this year! We’ll keep publishing the information you rely on. We are so excited about the promise that these initiatives hold, and we want to involve you as part of the team that helps SAS Press continue to evolve--becoming faster, sleeker, and easily accessible to you in your everyday work. Contact us and tell us what you need and want to help you use SAS even more successfully!
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Guest blogger Shelly Goodin writes:As 2008 closes, I’m contemplating my New Year’s resolutions. Besides giving up caffeine, those extra 5 lbs, chocolate, whining (so says my husband), and sleeping in until 10:30 on the weekends, I’ve decided to also focus on what I can add to my life in 2009. Here’s a beginning . . . 1. A camcorder: Last winter Chris Hemedinger (co-author of SAS for Dummies and SAS Senior Manager of Software Development), Marty Tomasi (Director of SAS Research and Development), and I created a short video for an internal SAS contest. Our video was a top-five finalist and now resides on YouTube. Check it out and please post your comments! I’m really excited about exploring future ways to promote SAS and SAS Press through videos in 2009. 2. An iPod: While most business professionals listen to podcasts via their computers, having my own iPod would be nice. Especially since I’ve been heavily involved in podcasting this past year. To date I’ve interviewed SAS Press authors and SAS insiders for more than 20 podcasts, as part of The Cover Story: SAS Publishing’s Podcast Series. I’m looking forward to expanding the series in 2009 to include interviews with SAS users about our books. In the meantime, drop me a line at shelly.goodin@sas.com about interviews you’d like to hear. 3. And, finally, a bigger 401(k)! I hope that all of you enjoy the last hooray of 2008. I will certainly indulge my bad habits through the end of the month. Chocolate would be much appreciated!
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Guest blogger Mary Beth Steinbach writes:In March 2008, SAS published a book written by our own John R. Kohl. This news, in and of itself, is not out of the ordinary. After all, SAS has been publishing books for many years. (You might recognize the name of the Books By Users program, which is now known as SAS Press.) The books that we publish have typically been written by authors from the community of SAS software users, some of whom are SAS employees but most of whom work outside of SAS and are experts in various fields. While John is certainly an expert in his field, his field is not SAS software. He has worked at SAS as a technical writer, technical editor, and linguistic engineer since 1992. For the past several years, John has devoted his time to terminology issues and to refining the Global English guidelines. John’s expertise has been a tremendous asset to our company’s commitment to a corporate-wide terminology management program. Given this level of in-house expertise, we were thrilled to work with John to publish his book and share his Global English guidelines with a larger audience. We know his book is a gem, but were thrilled to receive the following notification from the Society for Technical Communication earlier this week: “I’m pleased to tell you that The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market has won a Distinguished Award in the STC Carolina Technical Publications competition. The judges who evaluated the book were in unanimous agreement about the quality, and were highly impressed with the readability and the numerous examples. “On December 4, the STC Carolina Chapter met to review the entries that won Distinguished Awards for the Technical Publications, Technical Art, and Online Competitions. The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market was up against four other very fine documents, and the group spent a long time coming to a final decision. “The vote for the Best of Show Award for the STC Carolina 2008-09 Technical Publications Competition went to The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market. “Congratulations from the STC Carolina Competitions Committee!” Betsy Kent Technical Publications Committee Chair
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Guest blogger Shelley Sessoms writes:What happens when you go to seven conferences in the span of three months? You talk to a lot of people. And those people tell you what they want to read. After attending different types of conferences over the past few months, we’ve created a “wish list.” This is a quick look at the new books our readers are requesting: • Practical uses of SAS Activity-Based Management • Practical uses of SAS Financial Management • Forecasting or ETS • Text mining • Custom nodes • Missing data • Java object programming • Enterprise Miner • Implementing boot strapping • Bayesian analysis • Application of data standards • Adaptive clinical trials • Operations research • Building tables using data null and Proc Report What topics do you want to see us publish? Add a comment to this blog and let us know!
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Yesterday I received in the mail a catalog that I'd not received before, something that I thought was impossible because it seems I get more than 100+ catalogs a week. But there it was, peeking out from under three different versions of the LL Bean catalog (home, women's fashion, men's fashion; why can't they just put out one big version?): the Back to Basics toy catalog. As I thumbed through, fondly remembering my own Stretch Armstrong and set of Lincoln logs, I thought, "Why don't they make toys the way they used to"? More to the point, why does a toy have to be plugged in to be fun? Apparently my receipt of the Back to Basics toy catalog was no accident. According to a 24 November 2008 Raleigh News and Observer article, in tough economic times people become nostalgic for the toys they played with as children. So this holiday season retro toy makers like Hasbro expect to do well, as parents turn to Nerf footballs and G.I. Joes as presents, not only because they are less expensive but because they remind mom and dad of simpler times. All of this got me to thinking: What gift is more retro than a good, old-fashioned book? It doesn't require batteries, electricity, a wireless router, or an Internet connection. All that is needed to enjoy a book is time, attention, and a willingness to get sucked into a good story. I know I'll buy books for my friends and family this season, and books are at the top of my wish list. Perhaps your favorite giftee is a SAS user. How about a Ron Cody book for that special someone? Or maybe Howard Schreier's PROC SQL by Example? Check out all the offerings from SAS Publishing this holiday season.
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Guest blogger John West writes:I attended the 16th annual WUSS conference November 5-7, 2008, at the Universal Sheraton in Universal City, CA. In addition to helping users find the right SAS book and talking to prospective authors, I had a great time connecting with many current SAS Press authors, including Ron Cody, Art Carpenter, Lauren Haworth, Kirk Lafler, Susan Slaughter, Lora Delwiche, Eric Gebhart, Ginger Carey, Helen Carey, and Charlie Shipp. Since I don’t often get a chance to meet one-on-one with many of our authors, it’s always exciting to get updates from them in person on their families, jobs, travels, as well as new book ideas. And considering how busy many of our authors are with jobs and families, I’m amazed at their dedication to and involvement with the SAS regional user group conferences; their enthusiasm and passion for SAS software really shows. I’m fortunate to work with such a dedicated group of authors.
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Guest blogger George McDaniel writes:Is this a busy time of year or what? I represented Publications at SESUG in St. Pete Beach in October, selling books and talking to assorted SAS fans and prospective authors. The conference was great and the venue couldn’t have been better. But don’t let anybody tell you it’s not hard work scarfing down hors d'œuvre and tossing back adult beverages on the hotel’s beachside deck! Oh well, somebody has to do it. There was some real work involved, too, of course, setting up the booth and selling books and talking all day, but all in all it was a lot of fun. Since this is the busy season and I was also trying to get myself ready for the Chickamauga Battlefield marathon on November 8, I had to get up in the morning before the sun to run on the beach. It’s kind of adventurous running through pitch-black darkness on an unknown beach. You never know what might pop its head up out of the sand or swoop in from the gulf, but I survived it. I survived the marathon, too, as it happened, although I’ll admit that turned out to be kind of a near thing! Anyway, the traveling’s out of the way now and I’m back at my post in Building J working with authors and their book projects, busy season over. Uh-oh, I think I forgot something. Did I mention it’s NaNoWriMo time . . . ?
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Guest blogger Shelley Sessoms writes:As an Acquisitions Editor in SAS Press, I routinely talk to people interested in writing books. Some have written for us before; others are new to the publishing world. Some have a very clear idea of what they want to write; others have a vague concept or notion. But one thing is the same in both groups…these people love books. So do I, so we get along famously. The best way for me to do my job is to attend conferences. My latest stop on the conference circuit was in Las Vegas for M2008 and The Premier Business Leadership Series(PBLS). I met lots of people during these two conferences. M2008 was all about data mining, so we talked about models, text mining, decision trees and neural networks. PBLS was an invitation-only business event, so those conversations focused on leadership, sustainability, and social networking. Sure, we sell books at these events. But, more than anything, we talk to people. We find out what they like about our books, what topics they want to see us cover, how our books are used in their organizations (or classrooms), and much more. And we form relationships. I’ve spoken to one attendee twice already since returning to Cary on Nov. 3. That’s more than I talked to my family this week! Traveling the country can be tough sometimes (especially when the venue is Vegas…I’m not a fan of the city), but it’s also rewarding. So the next time you see me or one of my colleagues at an event, say hello. Start a conversation. Maybe it will lead to a new book. Or maybe to a good friendship. Either way, it will be worth it.
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Greetings! Welcome to the SAS Press Editors' Blog. The goal of this blog is to keep SAS users and SAS Press authors (both current and future) informed of what is going on at SAS Press. We are a diverse and fascinating group, if I do say so myself. So in addition to letting you know what is new at SAS Press, we'll post from time to time about our adventures at conferences, visits from authors, or anything else that we think you might find interesting. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions.
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