Peer Revue

The Demise of the Gansy of Gnomes Gardening Club

David Biesack — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:37:58 +0000

This is a tale of woe and misery, but also one of hope. Woe and misery Our tale begins more than seven years ago, an age ago in Internet Time. A cloud (nay, another type of cloud than what may come to your mind in this Age) pervaded the halls [...]

Rock stars

David Biesack — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:39:25 +0000

“They are a group of SAS rock stars and I'm darn proud of them!” That comes from Meg Pounds, manager of the Customer Experience Testing (CET) team. (Go on, Meg - use some stronger language; Peer Revue needs some juicier content.) Meg's remark comes on the occasion of the team's tenth [...]

Perks are epic

David Biesack — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:29:34 +0000

When I started Peer Revue, I tried to point out it's the work we do that makes SAS such a cool place to be, not just the fancy-schmancy benefits that get all the headlines. But FORTUNE magazine apparently has another agenda; they've gone and named SAS the Best Company to [...]

Spirits in the virtual world

David Biesack — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:14:00 +0000

As the holiday season approaches, one is tempted to use a Dickensian reference about spirits past, present and future. But instead of a holiday classic from 1843, I'm going to haunt you with an earworm from 1981. Having matriculated in the same year that The Police recorded Spirits in the [...]

SAS usability gets peer review

David Biesack — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:56:00 +0000

Like a car loan officer hot on the heels of usability car salesmen, and in commemoration of World Usability Day, I'd like to list some of the papers and posters which my peers have presented at recent usability conferences. This will give Peer Revue readers a sense of the type [...]

Usability car salesmen

David Biesack — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:05:53 +0000

Hot on the wake of World Statistics Day, when there were close to 7,012 blogs from SAS about it, World Usability Day almost passed unnoticed. But the keen-eyed noted that at SAS, we celebrated World Usability Day with an internal showcase event. Between 11:00am and 2:00pm, my peers showed off [...]

I <3 STATISTICS

David Biesack — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:04:00 +0000

Like John Sall, I'm wearing my "I <3 STATISTICS" pin today... and I'm not even a statistician. When I tell new acquaintances that I work at SAS, I usually get one of these responses: “Oh that's nice. I've never heard of them.” “Oh that's nice. I hear they have great [...]

Communication is easy

David Biesack — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Communication is easy? Wishful thinking? Keith Collins, our CTO and VP of Technology, once told me "communication is hard." That may seem a completely obvious statement to most of Peer Revue's readers, but recall I'm a code monkey. We developers think communication is easy: we write a program that tells [...]

Keep track of that

David Biesack — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:19:00 +0000

I've been a longtime fan of the WNYC radio show, Radio Lab. Hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad have interviewed famed biologist E.O. Wilson a few times. Listening to him describe his study of ants and how they make tracks and trails is a great story of perseverance and attention [...]

Peer Revue

David Biesack — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:17:00 +0000

Perhaps you are like me and have gotten top-ten list fatigue from the typical press that SAS gets. The pervasive coverage leaves the impression that we all arrive on campus at 10:00AM, grab a massage before heading to the natatorium for a few laps, take a stroll around the lake [...]