Recently, we've seen signs that the economy is starting to turn around. While that's promising, many organizations today remain cautious, waiting to see if the recovery is "for real." I think that is a mistake.

I agree with the economic thought leaders who believe that organizations that use the downturn to their advantage put themselves in an excellent position to reap the benefits when the recovery is complete. One of the measures companies can take to prepare themselves for the upturn is to develop the technical skills of their employees. And that's where SAS Education comes in.

We're doing everything we can to deliver training to help you most efficiently and effectively use SAS. To help quickly increase your team's SAS knowledge this month, we're running a July 2-for-1 discount on all of our public courses, allowing you to bring a colleague to a SAS training class for free and deliver twice the knowledge back to your office. We're also providing relief through new, no-travel e-Learning options and by offering an Early-Bird discount on our M2009 data mining event registrations.

So, here's to optimism and advancing your knowledge; I hope both of them are on tap for you this month!