Dear Reader,

If you're a fan of the great American TV series Happy Days, you undoubtedly remember the popular character: Arthur Fonzarelli, The Fonz. As you may recall, he could start a coin-operated juke box with a pound of his fist, summon attractive women to his side by snapping his fingers and silence a forest full of wildlife by shouting "cool it." While the TV series' other stars, Richie, Potsie, and Ralph in particular, might have been considered nerds, The Fonz was the epitome of cool.

In the series, Fonzie rode a motorcycle, wore a leather jacket and worked as an auto mechanic. If they were making the series today, though, The Fonz would drive a Prius, wear khakis and golf shirts and would definitely work as a statistician. That’s because in today’s world, statisticians are the coolest. And you don’t have to take my word for it. In a recent New York Times article, Google's Chief Economist Hal Varian dubbed statistician as this decade's sexiest job. I’m not surprised. Analysts bring order to a complicated business world and help their companies make critical, difference making decisions by translating a tsunami of data into useable information. Accomplishing such incredible feats (and even scarier ones like “jumping the shark”) doesn’t always come easy. Being this cool sometimes requires some continuing education. That’s why for the past 15 years we’ve invited statisticians and analysts from around the world to join us for the world’s largest Fonzie Convention, A.K.A. SAS’ Analytics Conference Series.

This year’s U.S. installment, Analytics 2012, won’t take place in the men’s washroom at Arnolds or in the attic over the Cunningham’s garage. Instead, Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas will play host to the event October 8-9. With pre-conference workshops October 7 and post-conference training classes October 10-12, Analytics provides a full week of opportunities to hear from some of the industry's most respected analytical experts and learn strategies you can use to turn your data into actionable knowledge. You'll also learn the lasted advances in the field of analytics and best practices that have helped drive innovation within some of the world's most successful organizations.

With three keynote talks, nine featured presentations and more than 40 session presentations from top experts in the field – not to mention the opportunity to network with more than 1,000 of your peers in analytics – we are certain you'll hear some inspiring examples of data-driven innovation from practitioners working in nearly every industry and carry back some ideas to improve your organization's analytical practices.

So if you haven’t done so already, we encourage you to register for Analytics 2012. There's simply no better place to advance your knowledge of analytics. And if you don't believe me, you can, in the immortal words of The Fonz, Sit on it!

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you at Aaaayyy2012!

Larry LaRusso
Editor, SAS Training Report