User:StaceyHamilton/BlogEntry: 2009 April 01 16:59:41 EDT

From sasCommunity

Learning from the Best

by 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?