User Groups: WUSS meets in Hollywood this Year!

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Okay – not exactly Hollywood – but it’s only 30 minutes away – so you could visit during the evening or stay the weekend after the conference to do some star-sightings. Long Beach is outside of Los Angeles and close to Hollywood!

It’s not too late to sign up for the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference in Long Beach, CA the same week as Labor Day (Sept 5 -7). Early registration ends August 6, but for a few extra dollars you can register anytime this month.

I spoke with Scott Leslie, the Academic Program Chair, earlier this week and it’s excited about the conference and reminded me of all the great things going on. I had a few questions for him.

Will Captain Kirk be There?

Scott could not confirm if Bill Shatner or Leonard Nimoy would make an appearance but SAS Institute is sending some of their superstars. You can see complete details at the SAS Presenter’s page – here’s some highlights:

Diane Hatcher is presenting information about how to set up a report approval process using the new SAS® 9.3 Integration Technologies.
Allison Booth provides some tips for using Proc Report. She’s a great speaker and don’t forget to ask her about her purple obsession.
Justin Choy is a high-energy presenter! He will be talking about visualizing data! Justin is similar to Leonard Nimoy only he doesn’t seem to have any movie star background.
Vince DelGobbo is one of my favorites. He always has some good information about the SAS to Microsoft Excel link.
Chris Hemedinger shows some of the advanced SAS Enterprise Guide automation techniques in his entertaining presentation style.

Meet Angela and Me!!!

Angela and I are planning to present several papers in the Business Intelligence section. We have three titles planned:

Get Your Fast Pass to Building Business Intelligence with SAS and Google Analytics
We show you how to analyzed the Google Analytics data from this blog using the SAS BI toolset! Plus you can win a copy of our book, Building Business Intelligence with SAS.
Create Your First Stored Process
We will show you how to take a simple SAS program and turn it into three different stored processes. Plus we discuss the prompt framework and ways to make your stored process more error proof. You can win a copy of the 50 Keys to Learning SAS Stored Processes at this session.
Got a stored process question – we will save time at the end to address issues.
Do I Need a Report or a Dashboard?
This is a short discussion about why you might choose one SAS BI tool over another. We will share some examples from our blogs and past projects.
SAS Enterprise Guide: It’s More than Gift from Outer Space

There’s something for eveyone in this presentation. Learn some UFO trivia while picking up some tips about using SAS Enterprise Guide.

Steve Overton, who blogs here, will also present his award winning paper about how to build information pathways with the SAS BI tools that your users will love. It’s a great example of how to exploit the SAS BI toolset for more power. It’s a goodie! Plus start thinking of some tough SAS OLAP questions for him – he loves it!!

Will I be Discovered?

Scott said during the Networking Mixer on Wednesday night, but there was a good chance I could discover other SAS users. Bring plenty of business cards!

If this is your first conference, check out the First Time Attendee Session earlier in the day. It will help you learn how to navigate the busy conference with ease.

What Time Do the Shops Open on Rodeo Drive?

Scott advised it was better to visit this area on the weekend – since it could up my chances of being discovered. But here’s some other fun things going on at the conference.

Have some code that is driving you crazy? Bring it to the Code Clinic!
Check out the SAS Demo area. You can see some of the newer tools and also talk to the developers about issues you have or features you would like to see.
Learn how to be a SAS Nerd! On Thursday, Kirk Paul Lafler presents his humorous talk “You May be a SAS Nerd If” during the SAS sponsored user appreciation Lunch. Here’s an interview with him about the conference.

Will I See You There?

Scott will be there – let me know if you plan to attend. We should probably have a #WUSS12 tweet up on Tuesday night to get everything rolling. You can register here!

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