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Interview with Author Randy Collica
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Authorline catches up with Randy Collica as he eagerly awaits the publication of his new book
CRM Segmentation and Clustering Using SAS Enterprise Miner .
- Authorline (AL): What was your motivation for writing your book?
- Randy Collica (RC): My main motivation was to have a book that clearly gives a how-to-do-it approach to segmentation and clustering in the
context of Customer Relationship Management. There are many data mining texts and a good number on clustering. However, the practical issues of how to
accomplish customer segmentation and clustering are typically not covered to a satisfactory extent.
- (AL): Who are you targeting with your book?
- (RC): My audience will be business analysts, database marketers, and marketing and sales analysts. Any business group or individual
desiring more customer insight from customer or prospect data should find the book useful. No prior knowledge of SAS or SAS Enterprise Miner is needed,
but knowledge of how to build process flow diagrams with Enterprise Miner will be helpful.
- (AL): What features of the book are you especially pleased with?
- (RC): The book has step-by-step examples that demonstrate the guiding principles while at the same time show what options and menus
should be used in SAS Enterprise Miner nodes. I included process flow tables for each exercise that show the steps needed to complete the exercise, and
these steps are referenced throughout the work.
- (AL): How will your book benefit SAS users?
- (RC): Any SAS users or even users with no SAS experience will want this book because it is one that actually shows how to place customers
into meaningful customer segments in a simple step-by-step fashion. The chapters progressively get more difficult as additional topics in segmentation
and clustering arise.
- (AL): What did you learn while writing this book that would be important for other authors to know?
- (RC): I learned that writing a how-to book on a SAS application that has mostly a GUI interface is a lot different from writing a book using
SAS procedures, macros, or programs. I also learned a lot about how to design examples that clearly demonstrate the topic, and this takes a good deal of practice.
- (AL): How did you decide to publish with SAS?
- (RC): It was pretty clear that I needed to use SAS Press as the acquisitions and editorial staffs are really easy to work with.
- (AL): Your book will be going to the printer in just a few weeks. How does it feel to be in the home stretch of such a long project?
- (RC): After a fairly long stint of writing and designing examples it does feel good to be nearing completion. I hope that my book will
help others learn about this topic faster than I did on my own.
- (AL): What advice would you give to potential authors?
- (RC): The writing process might take longer than you expect, unless you have written a lot before.
- (AL): How were you able to balance your time between your career and writing this book?
- (RC): I accomplished my writing only in off-hours as I was not able to write while on the job. I had to balance family time and writing
and, at times, I had to put aside the book for family or other priorities. I was fortunate that my spouse was very understanding and patient, and
that was a big help to me during the entire process.
- (AL): When you aren't writing or consulting, how do you like to spend your free time?
- (RC): I enjoy reading a lot, spending time with family, and church activities.
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Since 1998, Randy Collica has been with Compaq and Hewlett-Packard as a Sr. Business Analyst using Data Mining techniques for
targeted marketing and customer analytics in the Customer and Data Knowledge Services department. He has developed customer scoring models,
as well as models to estimate corporate IT spending for use in tactical and strategic customer and prospect business intelligence. He has authored
and coauthored 11 articles and has been a member of the IEEE since 1979.
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