This Month's Featured Course
Instructor Jeff Zeanah Takes on New Exploratory Analysis Course
A fresh perspective. That's what companies are looking for when they hire Jeff Zeanah, president of Z Solutions, Inc. and a SAS instructor specializing in exploratory data mining and predictive analytics."My clients don't want me to come in and say, 'Good job, keep it up,'" says Zeanah. "They need someone who can reveal new information from their data, tell them what's missing, and what they can do differently. Tell them where they're wrong, if you will. At the heart of that process is exploratory data analysis."
Zeanah has consulted with industry leaders in a half-dozen industries, including health care, manufacturing, retail, public health, science, finance, nutrition and utilities. A frequent guest lecturer at universities on the topic of applying analytics to business, Zeanah also serves on the board of the Institute for Business Intelligence at The University of Alabama.
Now Zeanah is bringing his more than 15 years of experience to the classroom in one of SAS Education's newest courses, Exploratory Analysis for Large and Complex Programs. This three day course is part of the Business Knowledge Series and is geared toward professionals who need a fresh perspective on how to support their organizations through predictive analytics.
Interested in taking this course? You can view the full outline or read on to find out how this course can revolutionize the way you look at your data!
SAS Training Report(EDU): What business pains can students solve by taking this course?
Jeff Zeanah (JZ): Finding new information in a complex system requires a great deal of intelligent trial and error. By definition with 'exploratory analysis' you're not really sure what you're looking for or where to look. But unexpected findings can be the greatest value gained from data analysis. The improved visualization systems and analytical methods presented in Exploratory Analysis for Large and Complex Programs can reduce time spent evaluating a complicated problem.Of course, presenting new information that contradicts conventional wisdom can be as great of or greater challenge. Business audiences can unfortunately have a short attention span, but complex information requires attention to details. In this class, we discuss practical aspects and specific recommendations for presenting new findings to an organization and dealing with resistance to new information.
EDU: How is this course unique from other courses offered in the Business Knowledge Series?
JZ: This course provides greater concentration on model investigation, trying to get at a deeper understanding of the data. Several techniques are presented to visualize model results and/or see how variables interact with each other. Students that are comfortable with Enterprise Miner's general functionality will be comfortable with the course. Students comfortable with SAS and analytical methods in general who are curious about other techniques such as Decision Trees and Neural Networks will also easily follow the course.With any complex problem or system there is always something new to learn if you know where to look. This class starts you on the right path.