Richann Watson and Louise Hadden
Whether you are first time conference attendee or a long-time conference attendee, this paper can help you in getting the most out of your conference experience. As long-time conference attendees and volunteers, we have found that there are some things that people just don’t think about when planning their conference attendance. In this paper we will discuss helpful tips such as making the appropriate travel arrangements, what to bring, networking and meeting up with friends and colleagues, and how to prepare for your role at the conference. We will also discuss maintaining a workplace presence with your paying job while at the conference.
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Carey Smoak
One boys’ dream of hitting a homerun in the bottom of the ninth inning has been realized in my career. My career started our as an epidemiologist in academia. My SAS® skills were pretty basic back then. My SAS skills advanced tremendously as I transitioned to working as a statistical SAS programmer in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. My career has been varied from strictly working as a statistical SAS programmer to managing statistical SAS programmer. My interest in statistics began with my interest in baseball. Little did I realize that my interest in statistics as a teenager would lead to a fulfilling career and, thus, fulfill my childhood dream.
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Aaron Brown
This discussion presents generic tips for the SAS® certification exams, as well as focused advice related to the Base Programmer, Advanced Programmer, Statistical Business Analyst, and Clinical Trials Programmer certifications. It also includes a discussion of why certification can be helpful and meaningful. The overall purpose is to inform SAS programmers of the certifications and encourage them to try for certification.
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Bob Hull
Through 20+ years of SAS programming I have had my share of tips, tricks, successes and failures. I'm here to share with you some of my favorite Base SAS programming tips and tricks which have helped me. In addition to this I will share professional development tips through the window of my past successes and failures. Communicating appropriately with others is a learned skill that can greatly affect your career. These are the things that you've either already learned or will learn the hard way like I did. For example, what radio station does everybody listen to? WIFM, "What's in it for me?" Talk and write so people know what info they need to get out of the message.
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Louise Hadden
As of January 1, 2018, SasCommunity.Org was set to "read-only". This meant that the 9, 514 users with 2,688,280 views on the wiki-based site need to find a new home for their content. Although the site is still available for now - even e-archives are ephemeral. Some of the older SAS collaboration tools are still relevant, and some have drifted into obscurity. I began moving my content to SAS® communities in 2018 to try and preserve some of my personal history - and discovered a few things along the way. This paper and presentation will serve as a "how to" for introducing new content and moving old content to SAS Communities and SAS's GitHub.
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Daniel Tsui
With the advancement of technology, the tech industry accepts more and more flexible schedules and telecommuting opportunities. In recent years, more statistical SAS programming jobs in the Pharma/Biotech industry have shifted from office-based to home-based. There has been ongoing debate about how beneficial the shift is. A lot of room is still available for discussion about the pros and cons of this home-based model. This presentation is devoted to investigate and discuss some issues and the pros and cons as home-based SAS programmers within the pharma/biotech industry. The overall benefits having been proposed in a Microsoft whitepaper will be used as beginning in our discussion. The paper was based on a survey, Work without Walls, which listed the top 10 benefits of working from home from the employee viewpoint, such as work/home balance, avoid traffic, more productive, less distractions, etc. However, to be a successful home-based SAS programmer in the pharma/biotech industry, some enemies have to be defeated, such as 24 hours on call, performance issues, solitude, advancement opportunities, dealing with family, etc. This presentation will conclude some key highlights of these pros and cons of being home-based SAS Programmer and some suggestions with ending up a healthy and successful role.
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