Tricia Aanderud, president of And Data, Inc., is a self-proclaimed, SAS BI evangelist, who is passionate about sharing information-design tips, programming tricks and other SAS programming knowledge through her blog: http://www.bi-notes.com.

Her book, "Building Business Intelligence with SAS: Content Development Examples" with co-author Angela Hall was published in Feb 2012. A second book also co-authored with Hall, "The 50 Keys to Learning SAS Stored Processes", will publish in April 2012.

When not writing books, she busies herself by spreading the SAS gospel to corporations who need help understanding how to transform their data into meaningful charts, reports, and dashboards using the SAS BI Solution. She has a background in technical writing, process engineering, and customer service.

Tricia has been an enthusiastic SAS user since 2002 and has presented papers at the SAS Global Forum and other industry conferences. Tricia has a B.A. in Mass Communications from Eastern Kentucky University. Born in Kentucky, she now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband and two bratty Siamese cats.

Rachel Alt-Simmons, a Senior Industry Consultant for Insurance at SAS, has more than 12 years of experience in the insurance industry, including two years at Travelers where she founded its Center of Excellence for analytic technologies and user engagement. Alt-Simmons's experience also includes a stint as Research Director with the analyst firm TowerGroup and 10 years with at Hartford Life in its US Wealth Management Business Intelligence & Analytics Competency Center.

John Barnes has published 29 commercial novels (mostly science fiction,including two collaborations with astronaut Buzz Aldrin), 53 articles in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, more magazine articles than he can remember, and around 30 short stories. Tales of the Madman Underground, Barnes's first "officially" young adult novel, received a Printz Honor Prize at the 2010 American Library Association national convention, and his technothriller, Directive 51, was briefly on the New York Times bestseller list this spring. His 1990 article, "How to Build a Future," about applying social science forecasting to creating backgrounds for science fiction, has been widely reprinted, and he's still getting email about it. In his twenties, John worked in an R&D shop on reliability math applied to the problems of relational databases and testing/validation; in his thirties he consulted on the connection between document systems design and natural language interfaces. He has taught college courses in theatre, communications, literature, writing, mathematics, political science, economics, and philosophy, and written what was probably the most math-heavy theatre dissertation ever (applying statistical semiotics to the problem of defining basic terms in theatre history). Recently he has pioneered applying statistical semiotics to strategic, analytic, and tactical marketing problems, poll analysis, and trendspotting, and consulted for a variety of firms and government agencies. He lives in Denver, Colorado.  His personal blog is Approachably Reclusive.

Bryan K. Beverly is from Baltimore. He has a BA in sociology from Morgan State University and an MAS degree in IT management from Johns Hopkins University. His continuing education consists of project management training through the ESI International/George Washington University programs. He began his career in 1984, the same year he was introduced to SAS software. Over the course of nearly 30 years, he has used SAS for data processing, analytics, report generation, and application development on mainframes, mini-computers, and PCs. Bryan has worked in the private sector, public sector, and academia in the Baltimore/Washington region. His work initially focused on programming, but over the years has expanded into project management and business development. Bryan has participated in in-house SAS user groups and SAS user group conferences, and has published in SAS newsletters, as well as company-based newsletters. Over time, his publications have expanded from providing SAS technical tips to examining the sociological, philosophical, financial, and political contexts in which IT is deployed. He believes that the key to a successful IT career is to maintain your skills and think like the person who signs your paycheck.

Richard Boire's experience in database marketing and predictive analytics dates back to 1983, when he received an MBA from Concordia University in finance and statistics. His initial experience at organizations such as Reader's Digest and American Express allowed him to become a pioneer in the application of predictive modeling technology for all direct marketing programs. This extended to the introduction of models that targeted the acquisition of new customers based on return on investment and, ultimately, customer profitability. With this experience, he formed his own consulting company in 1994. Now called the Boire Filler Group, the firm is a Canadian leader in offering analytical and database services to companies seeking solutions to their predictive analytics or database marketing challenges. Boire is a recognized authority on predictive analytics and is among the top five experts in this field in Canada, with expertise and knowledge that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. He gives seminars on segmentation and predictive analytics for such organizations as the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA), Direct Marketing News, Direct Marketing Association Toronto, and the Association for Advanced Relationship Marketing. His articles have appeared in Canadian publications including Direct Marketing News, Strategy Magazine, and Marketing Magazine.Supplementing his written materials, he has spoken internationally at such conferences as the Database Marketing Conference, Ukraine Direct Marketing Conference, and Predictive Analytics World. He has pioneered the training and development seminar at UNI Strategic entitled, "Using Predictive Analytics to Compete in the New Economy." Boire has taught applied statistics, data mining, and database marketing at a variety of Canadian institutions, including University of Toronto, Concordia University, George Brown College, and Centennial College. He chairs the CMA's customer insight and analytics committee and sits on the CMA's board of directors. He has chaired numerous full-day conferences on behalf of the CMA, and has co-authored whitepapers on the following topics: "Best Practices in Data Mining" and "Customer Profitability: The State of Evolution Among Canadian Companies."

For more than a dozen years, Matthew Brodsky has been a professional writer and editor, with more than half of that time spent writing on, reading about, and researching business- and technology-related topics, enterprises, and people. He has covered risk management and strategic decision-making, healthcare and human resources, natural and man-made disasters, innovation and entrepreneurship, consumer and corporate technology, and more. He graduated from Cornell University with a BA and from the University of Georgia with an MA, both in history, but don't hold that against him.

Writer, blogger, marketing consultant, ad designer, social media manager, and editor, Ariella offers all those services through her business, Write Way Productions. She is a regular contributor to several UBM boards where she writes about the uses of the internet in education, business, and society, as well as  marketing, branding, and social media.   She holds a PhD in English and has years of experience as a writing instructor for all levels at diverse colleges.

Jason Burke is the Managing Director and Chief Strategist for the SAS Center for Health Analytics & Insights (CHAI). In this role, he coordinates the development and execution of SAS’s industry strategy and solutions portfolio across pharmaceutical, healthcare provider, health plan, biotechnology, and regulatory organizations around the world. Prior to founding CHAI, he was head of Health and Life Sciences R&D, and was the founding director of SAS's Health and Life Sciences Global Practice. He regularly consults with industry leaders and executives on emerging business and technology trends, especially those related to bridging the health and life sciences ecosystems. Prior to joining SAS, he worked at a variety of companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Quintiles Transnational, and most recently Microsoft, where he drove the development and adoption of Microsoft’s industry technology strategy and corresponding architecture. He has served as a technology leader in several industry think tank and strategic development initiatives focusing on the future of healthcare and pharmaceutical research.

As a regular speaker and author, Jason’s areas of interest and experience include strategic planning, emerging technologies, product development, and industry and enterprise architecture. He has served on committees in a variety of industry organizations, including Health Level 7 and the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), where he led the first team focused on the creation of an industry-wide architecture for interoperability. He is a scientist by training with a specialization in cognitive neuroscience. He completed his graduate research at the University of Missouri – Columbia after finishing his undergraduate work at Virginia Tech. You can find Jason online at the SAS Health and Life Sciences Blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, among other sites.

Paul Burns is the president and founder of Neovise, an IT industry analyst firm launched in 2009 to focus on cloud computing. In this role, Paul researches IT challenges, explores business needs, and evaluates appropriate solutions from vendors and service providers. Then, based on independent analysis, he produces recommendations and expert content in the form of white papers, case studies, podcasts, and more. He also writes articles for industry publications, speaks at industry events, and is quoted by a variety of media organizations.

He has over 25 years experience in the IT industry, driving strategy for enterprise software solutions through product management, competitive analysis, and business planning. He has held a series of leadership positions in marketing and R&D, and he was research director of the IT service management practice at another industry analyst firm.

Paul earned both a BS degree in computer science and an MBA from Colorado State University. His extensive industry background offers Neovise and its clients valuable insights on technical solutions that deliver business results. He can be reached via email at paul@neovise.com and can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Dr. Goutam Chakraborty has a B.Tech (Honors) in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; a PGCGM from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and an MS in statistics and a PhD in marketing from the University of Iowa. He has held managerial positions with a subsidiary of Union Carbide and with a subsidiary of British American Tobacco. He is a professor of marketing at Oklahoma State University, where he has taught data mining and CRM applications, advanced data mining, database marketing, new product development, marketing research, digital business strategy, Web-business strategy, electronic commerce, interactive marketing, and product and pricing management for the past 20 years. Goutam has presented numerous programs and workshops to executives, educators, and research professionals in the US, Europe, Middle East, and Asia. He has won numerous teaching awards including Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, Richard. W. Poole Faculty Outreach Excellence Award, Kenneth D. and Leitner Greiner Teaching Award, and Wendell H. Bailey Faculty Excellence Award at OSU; Outstanding Direct Marketing Educator Award, from the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, New York; Professor of the Year Award at CIMBA Italy; Great Executive MBA Instructor Award at the University of Iowa, Iowa City; Outstanding Marketing Teacher Award, from the Academy of Marketing Science, Coral Gables, Florida; and Excellence in Teaching and Faculty Service award from UPCEA central region, St. Louis. 

Goutam's research has been published in many scholarly journals such as the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Advertising,Journal of Business Research, and Industrial Marketing Management. He coauthored the book, <i>Contemporary Database Marketing</i>. In addition, he has served on the editorial review board of the Journal of Business Research and Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. He has chaired the national conference for direct marketing educators in 2004 and 2005 and co-chaired the M2007 data mining conference. He has also consulted extensively on issues related to developing digital business strategy, building and managing customer relationships, product development, and management and creation of e-business models with companies such as Aetna, Mercruiser, Thrifty Rent-A-Car, Berendsen Fluid Power, Globe Life Insurance, Vanguard Realtors, Hilti, Love's Travel Stops, etc. He is the founder of the SAS and OSU Data Mining Certificate program as well as the SAS and OSU Business Analytics Certificate program at Oklahoma State University.

Phil Charles is an IT consultant and co-founder of ITOPIA, a managed services and technology consulting firm based in New York City. He has worked with technology for more than 15 years, including hands-on technical work and systems architecture and integration for small and midsized businesses in the tri-state area. He has developed a good working understanding of the technical and business mindsets by playing both roles, sometimes simultaneously. When he's not thinking or developing new and innovative ideas and solutions for clients, he is helping to put a smile on the faces of those around him (mostly during technical mayhem). Phil holds a Bachelor's degree in computer science with a specialization in information assurance from Stony Brook University.

Lalitha Chikkatur is an information management practitioner leading the Business Information Management Technology Center of Excellence at Capgemini India. She has been a successful delivery lead as well as a solution architect. Some niche areas of focus for her have been mobile BI, MDM, big data, and analytics. 

Gary Cokins is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in advanced cost management and performance improvement systems. He is a principal consultant of global business advisory services involved with performance management solutions with SAS, a leading provider of enterprise performance management and business analytics software headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. Gary received a BS degree with honors in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research from Cornell University in 1971. He received his MBA with honors from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 1974.

Gary began his career as a strategic planner with FMC Corporation and subsequently served as Financial Controller and Operations Manager with FMC’s Link-Belt division. In 1981 Gary began his management consulting career first with Deloitte Consulting. Next with KPMG, Gary was trained on activity-based costing (ABC) by Harvard Business School Professors Robert S. Kaplan and Robin Cooper.  With KPMG working with Dr. David Norton, Gary was also involved with initial research that led to the development of the Balanced Scorecard. Prior to joining SAS, Gary headed the National Cost Management Consulting Services for Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

Gary was the lead author of the acclaimed An ABC Manager’s Primer (ISBN 0-86641-220-4) sponsored by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Gary’s second book, Activity Based Cost Management: Making it Work (ISBN 0-7863-0740-4), was judged by the Harvard Business School Press as “read this book first.” A reviewer for Gary’s third book, Activity Based Cost Management: An Executive’s Guide (ISBN 0-471-44328-X) said, Gary has the gift to take the concept that many view as complex and reduce it to its simplest terms.” This book was ranked number one in sales volume of 151 similar books on BarnesandNoble.com. Gary has also written Activity Based Cost Management in Government (ISBN 1-056726-110-8). His latest books are Performance Management: Finding the Missing Pieces to Close the Intelligence Gap (ISBN 0-471-57690-5) and Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics (ISBN 978-0-470-44998-1).

Mr. Cokins has participated and served on committees including: CAM-I, the Supply Chain Council, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the Institute of Management Accountants, the AICPA, and the American Association of Accountants (AAA).

Mr. Cokins serves on board of advisors and regularly posts articles for www.kpilibrary.com , www.smartdatacollective.com , Business Finance magazine’s http://bigfatfinanceblog.com/ , and www.information-management.com . He serves with Professor Robert S. Kaplan on the International Monetary Fund’s activity-based costing advisory panel.

Unrelated to his work career, Gary is very proud to have his project from his junior year at Cornell programming a baseball games be accepted by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY as the “oldest computer game.” His two grandsons are very impressed.

Gary resides with his wife Pam in Cary, North Carolina.

Mr. Cokins can be reached at gary.cokins@sas.com . His blog is at http://blogs.sas.com/cokins  .

Tom Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, the co-founder and research director of the International Institute for Analytics, and a senior advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He has published widely on the topics of analytics in business, process management, information and knowledge management, and enterprise systems. He pioneered the concept of “competing on analytics” with his best-selling 2006 Harvard Business Review article (and his 2007 book by the same name). His most recent book is Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results, with Jeanne Harris and Bob Morison. Tom wrote or edited 12 other books and has written more than 100 articles for such publications as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, the Financial Times, and many others. In 2003 he was named one of the world’s “Top 25 Consultants” by Consulting magazine. In 2005 Optimize magazine’s readers named him among the top three business and technology analysts in the world. In 2007 and 2008 he was named one of the most 100 influential people in the IT industry by Ziff-Davis magazines.

Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a small business analytics consultancy that reviews data from Web analytics and social media dashboard solutions, then provides recommendations and Web development action that improves marketing strategy and business profitability. He has conducted analysis for various small businesses and has also provided his business and engineering acumen at various corporations such as Ford Motor Co. He writes analytics articles for AllBusiness.com and Pitney Bowes Smart Essentials and contributes business book reviews for Small Business Trends. Pierre looks forward to providing All Analytics readers tips and insights tailored to small businesses as well as new insights from Web analytics practitioners around the world. A Gary, Ind., native, he currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Accomplished Financial and Information Technology Leader with 13+ years of demonstrated achievements in delivering superior financial, operational improvements for multimillion-dollar companies. A turnaround specialist and Driven professional known for delivering exceptional project development and business development while successfully launching new products, services and facilities. Talented healthcare technology expert with a proven ability to develop long-lasting and profitable business relationships aimed at generating fresh revenue, reducing costs and producing dramatic business growth. M.B.A. in Finance. Additional areas of expertise:

Development Finance  Turnaround Management  Project Finance  New Market Tax Credit  Strategic Planning  Project Management  Healthcare Technology Consulting  Outsourcing Services  Business Development  Corporate Finance  Capital Raising  Medical Imaging & Teleradiology  Revenue Cycle Management  Competitive & Trend Analysis Risk & Needs Assessment  Vendor Management  Relationship Development  Revenue Growth

Maryam Donnelly is Vice President of Marketing Services at Impact Marketing(nj)www.feeltheimpactnow.com. She has spent more than 15 years leading marketing strategy,communications, product marketing, market research and business development at Fortune 500 companies including Prudential Insurance, Automatic Data Processing and Travelport(formerly Cendant). She has been a principal at Impact Marketing(nj),  a boutique marketing services company based in the New York metro area for the past five years. Impact Marketing provides the spectrum of businesses with strategic marketing consulting services including marketing planning, marketing communications, marketing management, and analysis. Maryam holds a BBA and MBA in Marketing from Hofstra University, she can be reached at maryam@feeltheimpactnow.com.

Brian Epp leads the Assessment and Analytics Group for Pearson eCollege's Academic Training and Consulting team. He advises leaders in higher education on effective practices in these areas and presents on assessment, analytics, and Web 2.0 at conferences worldwide. Prior to joining Pearson eCollege, he was director of international education and chair of international programs at Jones International University, where he focused on campus internationalization strategies and the development and management of dual degree programs with partner institutions in Latin America, Spain, South Korea, and India. Brian holds an M.Ed. in eLearning technology and design.

Sandra is a free-lance business and technology writer in the Boston area. She is a frequent contributor to many high-tech print and online publications. Previously events editor and managing editor of online for IDG’s Network World, Sandra has covered all aspects of business intelligence/analytics over the years, writing articles and in-depth issue papers. An industry educator, she moderates Webcasts and conference sessions on an array of technology topics. She can be reached at sandra@slgpublishing.net.

Michelle Greenlee has more than nine years of experience as a technology professional. She has worked with marketing directors of national franchises and other national companies to develop online and cross-media marketing campaigns. Her specialties include open-source software, new media, and the latest advances in Internet technologies. She graduated magna cum laude from Internet Evolution's 6DEE Executive Education Series and is currently pursuing Google Adwords Professional Certification. When she isn't writing code, she writes about code for the Dice blog network. She's based in Texas with her family of people and her family of devices: three Android phones, an iPad2, an Android tablet, and two iPods. You can follow Greenlee's work at about.me/tinym and tinym.com.

Seth Grimes is an analytics strategist with Washington DC based Alta Plana Corporation. He is contributing editor at TechWeb's InformationWeek and founding chair of the Sentiment Analysis Symposium and the Text Analytics Summit. He is the leading industry analyst covering text analytics and sentiment analysis. Seth consults, writes, and speaks on business intelligence, data management and analysis systems, text mining, visualization, and related topics.

Fern Halper is a partner at Hurwitz & Associates, a consulting, market research, and analyst firm. She has more than 20 years experience in data analysis, market analysis, and strategy development. She is a thought leader in the area of advanced information technologies including business analytics, text analytics, and cloud computing.

Shawn Hessinger is a community manager, blogger, social media and tech enthusiast, journalist, and entrepreneur based in Northeastern Pennsylvania. He serves as community manager and blogger for BizSugar.com, a business news and information Website, and contributes regularly to the online business news source, Small Business Trends. He is the founder of PostRanger.com, an online content and media community, and has provided blogging and social media services and consulting for companies all over the world. He researches and writes on a variety of business, Internet-related, and other tech topics including business intelligence and analytics. He is also keenly interested in computer-aided data management as it relates to his various online ventures. A newspaper journalist with more than 11 years experience as a reporter and then managing editor, Shawn began blogging in 2006 and now provides a variety of consulting and outsourcing services in Search Engine Optimization, Web development, and online marketing to companies large and small. He is a strong advocate for the use of BI and related computer data management in business decision making, whether using software as a service (SaaS), cloud, or other applications, and in the opportunity these technologies provide to transform small startups and larger established businesses alike.

Piyanka Jain has more than 10 years of analytics and entrepreneurial experience, with a cumulative business impact of more than $120 million. Before she founded Aryng, Jain was PayPal's head of business analytics for North America. She is a regular keynoter and speaker at business and analytics conferences.

Kaplan was formerly a leading industry analyst at IDC, Dataquest, and META Group, and successful senior marketing executive at InterOPS Management Solutions and International Network Services (INS). He founded THINKstrategies in 2001 as the only independent strategic consulting firm dedicated to helping enterprise IT decision-makers and technology solution providers achieve their business objectives by leveraging the value of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing and Managed Services. In addition to focusing on the business implications of these transformational services, Kaplan has also founded the Cloud Computing Showplace which is the largest online directory and best practice resource center focused on SaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions, including managed services. He is a frequent contributor to various publications and speaker at many major industry events.

Scott Koegler is a former CIO and author of the book, Multisite Systems Integration, which describes methodologies for integrating distributed networks, based on one of the projects he developed for a healthcare provider. His main topics of focus currently include EDI technology, nonprofit topics, and technology for medical practices. He is also the publisher of the Website, Your Company Newsletter.

Anish Koppula is a media performance analyst with Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) in Chicago. He has a strong statistical and analytics background with a passion for business intelligence and predictive modeling. His areas of expertise  are  time series forecasting,  generalized linear  models, and  risk analysis, and his  current research focus is on cluster analysis and  market segmentation. Prior to joining SMG, he worked closely  with  telecom,  retail, and  financial  giants and led academic projects  reporting significant lifts and recommendations for their businesses. Koppula is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer and a Predictive Modeler, with other certifications from JMP, Sun Microsystems, and Google.  He was nominated as session coordinator for SAS Global Forum 2011 and inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society by Oklahoma State University's (OSU) Graduate College. With a keen interest in software platforms, he has worked on projects including iPhone OSU app development and authored a publication on data acquisition for the International Conference on Avionics Systems. He has a Master's degree in electrical engineering from OSU and completed the SAS and OSU Data Mining Certificate Program at OSU's Spears School of Business.

Paul Korzeniowski is an AllAnalytics.com contributing editor who has been examining IT issues for more than two decades. During his career, he has had more than 10,000 articles and 1 million words published. His work has appeared in the Boston Herald, Business 2.0, eSchoolNews, Entrepreneur, Investor's Business Daily, InformationWeek, and Newsweek, among others. He has expertise in analytics, mobility, cloud computing, security, and videoconferencing. Paul is based in Sudbury, Mass., and can be reached at paulkorzen@aol.com.

Julie Lockner is a leading industry expert in the structured data management market. As Senior Analyst and Vice President covering data management solutions for ESG, her focus areas include database management systems, data warehouse, business intelligence, data analytics, data integration, and, most recently, all things "big data." Prior to joining ESG, Julie was President and Founder of CentricInfo, a consulting firm that specialized in helping organizations find value in their information assets through implementation of data governance policies, datacenter optimization, and data analytics focusing on aligning business and IT. ESG acquired CentricInfo.

John Lucas is the Director of Operations at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, rated one of the top zoos in the country. With responsibilities over all earned revenues for the Cincinnati Zoo, he is charged with setting the vision and strategy behind the zoo's efforts to drive a superior guest experience and further the mission of the zoo. John began working with the zoo in 2002, and since that time has been centrally involved in driving new programs and revenues in admissions, group sales, and rides that have enabled the zoo to further its goal of inspiring visitors about their natural world. He leads the zoo's business intelligence effort, which launched in 2010 and has resulted in immediate and profound impacts on how the zoo is able to react to the information it collects.

Kelly McGuire leads the Hospitality and Travel Global Practice for SAS. In this role, she is responsible for driving the offering set and setting strategic direction for the practice. She works with product management, sales, alliances, and R&D to ensure that SAS solutions meet the needs of the market. She also works closely with IDeaS Revenue Solutions, a SAS company, helping to integrate IDeaS revenue management solution with SAS's Customer Intelligence solutions. She has 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry. Before joining SAS, she consulted with Harrah's Entertainment on restaurant revenue management strategies for its major markets. Prior to that, she was a senior consultant at Radiant Systems. She also worked for RMS (Restaurant Revenue Management Solutions) providing menu item pricing recommendations to major chain restaurants.

McGuire has a BS from Georgetown University and an MMH and PhD in Revenue Management from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. Her research has been published in The Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Journal of Pricing and Revenue Management, and Journal of Service Management. She and her fellow "The Analytic Hospitality Executive" bloggers are hospitality industry specialists at SAS who have partnered with The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University to find solutions to hospitality industry challenges. In this blog, Kelly leverages the knowledge of the faculty, existing research, and the experience of industry peers to answer the questions that hospitality executives face every day. These questions regard topics such as revenue management and price optimization, social media analysis, sustainability, patron/guest lifetime value optimization, labor planning, and marketing automation and optimization.

Nancy Mogire, a Kenyan, is a researcher in IT and systems security. She is a graduate student in information systems at Strathmore University, where she is working on a project with IT faculty to establish a curriculum for training in mobile applications and interactive mobile and Web technologies. She has been in the information field for about four years, previously focused on Web design and Web content production. Mogire is an avid reader of technology publications and blogs. When not doing any of the above, she finds time to play a game of chess or watch a TV series, usually legal, investigative, or political drama, and often with a twist of high-level technology.

Jim Mulholland has 25 years of experience in the corporate IT arena, mostly deploying data warehouses and business analytics. He has deployed business intelligence tools for both large (Nabisco, Warner Lambert) and small (Verispan, Creativity Inc.) companies with the largest implementation encompassing several terabytes of storage and a customer dimension with 150 million unique elements. Jim has transitioned his focus to consulting and educational endeavors, having recently received his California teaching credential in mathematics. He is an avid believer in the value of BI tools and has spoken at various industry conferences on the subject.

Ajay Ohri has been one of the more widely known independent writers and bloggers in the field of analytics since 2007. His Decisionstats.com Website reaches more than 15,000 people on a monthly basis and has carried more than 90 interviews with noted leaders in the analytics space including authors, analysts, founders, and senior management of practically the entire analytics industry. Ajay is a trained engineer and MBA with almost eight years of experience in projects across the analytics domain, including automobiles, financial services, entertainment, and telecom, with technical expertise in SQL, SAS, R, KXEN, JMP, and SPSS. He is currently in the process of developing online trainings for analytics professionals as well as writing books on analytics using the language R. He has also written three books of poetry, including his most recent, Poets and Hackers.

Olivia is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and expert in business intelligence and organizational alignment. Her passion for finding successful solutions for her clients inspired her research in systems thinking and integrated business practices. She is considered a thought leader in the integration of analytic tools and holistic organizational practices that deliver success through the optimal blending of quantitative and qualitative methodologies and practices. Her years of research and study in data mining and business intelligence led to the writing of her first book, Data Mining Cookbook: Modeling Data for Marketing, Risk and Customer Relationship Management (Wiley, 2001). Seeing a larger need for the blending of analytics with human competencies, she was inspired to conduct research in the areas of communication, collaboration and leadership. This led to the unveiling of links among the global economy, organizational dynamics, and complexity science, highlighted in her second book, Business Intelligence Success Factors: Tools for Aligning Your Business in the Global Economy (Wiley/SAS, 2009). Olivia currently works with clients in the areas of business intelligence, organizational dynamics, and leadership development. Her current research is focused on psychology, complexity science, quantum physics, and evolutionary biology. She holds a BA in Mathematics and an MS in Statistics.

Gil Press is Managing Partner of gPress, a marketing, publishing, and research consultancy. Prior to establishing gPress, he held senior marketing positions with DEC and EMC. Most recently, he was Senior Director, Thought Leadership Marketing at EMC, responsible for online and print thought leadership communications and a number of high-impact global marketing programs. He is on the Editorial Board of Ubiquity, an ACM publication, and blogs at http://whatsthebigdata.com and www.infostory.wordpress.com.

Dhiraj Rajaram is responsible for Mu Sigma's vision and strategic direction, building teams, aligning organizational resources to a customer-centric vision, and delivering profitable growth. He has built Mu Sigma from the ground up. In the process, he raised seed and growth capital for the venture, secured key Fortune 100 customers, incubated a delivery unit, and hired key leadership members. Before Mu Sigma, he advised senior executives across a variety of verticals as a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Rajaram holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. He also received an MS in computer engineering from Wayne State University and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy at Anna University.

Tom Reamy is the Chief Knowledge Architect of KAPS Group, a group of knowledge architecture, test analytics, and taxonomy consultants that he founded. He has 20 years of experience in information projects of various kinds and has published a number of articles in Knowledge Management, Intranet Professional, EContent, and KMWorld, and most recently, two whitepapers on a concept called a semantic infrastructure. He is a frequent speaker at knowledge management, taxonomy, and text analytics conferences.

 For the last six years, his primary focus has been on text analytics, helping clients select the best text analytics software for their needs as well as doing text analytics development projects that include applications such as call support and customer experience, enterprise search and enterprise content management, voice of the customer, and customer behavior prediction. He is currently doing research in using text analytics for expertise analysis and other cognitive science projects.

 Tom's academic background includes the history of ideas, artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and philosophy, particularly epistemology. When not writing or developing text analytics projects, he can usually be found at the bottom of the ocean in Carmel, photographing strange critters.

Dr. Thomas C. Redman, Founder, Navesink Consulting
Dr. Thomas C. Redman (the Data Doc) is an innovator, advisor, and teacher. He was first to extend quality principles to data and information, in the late 80s. Since then he has crystallized a body of tools, techniques, roadmaps, and organizational insights that help organizations make order-of-magnitude improvements. More recently he has developed keen insights into the nature of data and formulated the first comprehensive approach to "putting data to work."  Taken together, these enable organizations to treat data as assets of virtually unlimited potential. Tom has personally helped dozens of leaders and organizations better understand data and data quality and start their data programs.  He is a sought-after lecturer and the author of dozens of papers and four books. The most recent, <i>Data Driven: Profiting From Your Most Important Business Asset</i> (Harvard Business Press, 2008), was a <i>Library Journal</i> best buy of 2008. Prior to forming Navesink in 1996, Dr. Redman conceived the Data Quality Lab at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1987 and led it until 1995.  He holds a PhD in statistics from Florida State University and holds two patents.

Jennifer Roberts is the marketing director at Collective Intellect, a social media and text analytics company.  Her day runs the gamut from creating the overall marketing strategy to writing blog posts to refining messaging and working with sales.  Jennifer lives in Boulder, Colo., with one husband, two dogs, and the meanest cat to ever pad the earth. 

Leo Sadovy handles marketing for Performance Management at SAS, which includes the areas of budgeting, planning and forecasting, activity-based management, strategy management, and workforce analytics. He advocates for SAS’s best-in-class analytics capability into the offices of finance across all industry sectors. Before joining SAS, he spent seven years as Vice President of Finance for Business Operations for a North American division of Fujitsu, managing a team focused on commercial operations, customer and alliance partnerships, strategic planning, process management, and continuous improvement. During his 13-year tenure at Fujitsu, he developed and implemented the ROI model and processes used in all internal investment decisions, and also held senior management positions in finance and marketing.

Prior to Fujitsu, Sadovy was with Digital Equipment Corp. for eight years in sales and financial management. He started his management career in laser optics fabrication for Spectra-Physics and later moved into a finance position at the General Dynamics F-16 fighter plant in Fort Worth, Texas. He has an MBA in Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing. He and his wife Ellen live in North Carolina with their three college-age children, and among his unique life experiences he can count a run for US Congress and two singing performances at Carnegie Hall.

Stephen Samild is a co-founder of Analyst First, an institution created to advocate the centrality of practitioners and sponsors in business analytics initiatives. Analyst First is a new approach to business analytics in which tools take a far less important place than the people who perform, manage, request, and envision analytics, and analysis is recognized as a non-repetitive, exploratory, and creative process. He is a co-founder and director of Presciient, a privately-owned, vendor-independent consultancy specializing in the long tail of analytics and business intelligence. Stephen has over a decade of experience in business analytics across a range of industries and business functions as a consultant and with software vendors SAS and Cognos. He is an active member of the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia.

Tom Sattler is the founder of G.A.P. Marketing, a marketing agency providing in-store, on-line, SEM, traditional media, and social media services to the retail and IT channels.  Prior to starting G.A.P. Marketing, he ran sales and services teams within entrepreneurial IT organizations until he jumped into retail marketing with a Fortune 100 home improvement retailer.  When he is not driving customer traffic, converting shoppers into consumers, or measuring the results of campaigns for his clients, Sattler can be found enjoying the beauty and history of the Texas Hill Country on foot or on bike with his wife, kids, and a Labrador named Pekoe.  He resides north of Austin, Texas.  Follow him and G.A.P. Marketing on Twitter @GAPMktgTweets.

David Schmitt, an analytics director in the hospitality industry, leverages his unique blend of analytical, technical, and communication skills to deliver key insights that help senior executives make better decisions. He has demonstrated success in leading formal and informal cross-functional teams to develop robust enterprise-level datasets and apply advanced analytics that turn data into practicable insights. His strong presentation and writing skills enable him to turn technical analysis into knowledge that audiences find engaging, relevant, and sometimes even fun. Currently a director at a global hotel company, Schmitt previously held a variety of positions in the high-tech industry, including several startups and Apple Computer. He holds a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Beth Schultz has more than two decades of experience as an IT writer and editor.  Most recently, she brought her expertise to bear writing thought-provoking editorial and marketing materials on a variety of technology topics for leading IT publications and industry players.  Previously, she oversaw multimedia content development, writing and editing for special feature packages at Network World. In particular, she focused on advanced IT technology and its impact on business users and in so doing became a thought leader on the revolutionary changes remaking the corporate datacenter and enterprise IT architecture. Beth has a keen ability to identify business and technology trends, developing expertise through in-depth analysis and early adopter case studies. Over the years, she has earned more than a dozen national and regional editorial excellence awards for special issues from American Business Media, American Society of Business Press Editors, Folio.net, and others.

Marshall Sponder is a Web analytics and SEO/SEM specialist with expertise in market research, social media, networking, and public relations. As both an in-house team leader and consultant, he has used sophisticated analysis to optimize the social media marketing efforts of companies and brands including IBM, Monster, Porter Novelli, WCG, Gillette, Pfizer, Warner Brothers, Laughing Cow, The New York Times, and Havana Central. Sponder is a board member emeritus at the Web Analytics Association, a member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO), and a member of the Certified Institute of Public Relations Social Media Measurement Study Group (CIPR).

Joe Stanganelli is founder and principal of Beacon Hill Law, a Boston-based general practice law firm.  His expertise on legal topics has been sought for several major publications, including U.S. News and World Report and Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine. 

Joe is also a social media maven and marketing consultant.  He has been working with social media for many years -- even in the days of local BBSs (one of which he served as Co-System Operator for), well before the term "social media" was invented.

From 2003 to 2005, Joe ran Grandpa George Productions, a New England entertainment and media production company. He has also worked as a professional actor, director, and producer.  Additionally, Joe is a produced playwright.

When he's not lawyering, marketing, or social-media-ing, Joe writes scripts, songs, and stories.

He also finds time to lose at bridge a couple of times a month.

Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeStanganelli

Also, check out his blog .

Terry Sweeney is a writer and editor based somewhere in the smog-laden environs of Los Angeles. He has covered technology for more than 20 years, with broad expertise in storage, networking, security, wireless, and celebrity stalking.

From October 2005 to June 2007, he was Editor in Chief of Byte and Switch (www.byteandswitch.com), storage networking's most widely read Website, which, when you think about it, is really not saying much. He was also a Founding Editor of the sinister IT security Website, Dark Reading (www.darkreading.com), as well as Storage Pipeline (absorbed in a nearly bloodless coup by the insatiable Byte and Switch). He did not leave under a cloud.

Sweeney was also News Editor at Internet Week and spent three years in Paris working for Communications Week International. When the Germans occupied the city he fled to Geneva, Switzerland, where he served as Editor in Chief of the print, online, and video content for the ITU's Telecom 99 conference. He later ran guns to freedom fighters in the Belgian Congo. Maybe.

He has contributed to The Washington Post, Crain's New York Business, Red Herring, Blue Herring, Rogue Herring, Information Week, Network World, SearchStorage, and Chicken Fancier, among other business and IT titles. He also designed a prototype flying machine and a fully functional submarine. No. Wait... That was someone else...

Sweeney surely did, however, graduate from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1982 with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism and a minor in Portuguese, for no discernible reason.

Amaresh Tripathy is a Principal in PwC's Advisory group and founded the firm's information analytics practice, which he helps to manage. He has helped Fortune 500 companies in multiple industries (telecommunications, CPG, healthcare, insurance) to use bottoms-up data analytics in strategic decision making. His work has focused on developing growth and pricing strategies, defining market entry plans, understanding customer behavior to increase profitability, improve marketing efficiency, developing operations strategy, and streamlining distribution. Amaresh received his Bachelor of Engineering from the National Institute of Technology and has a graduate degree in Transportation Systems Engineering from the University of Texas-Austin.

Louis Watson is an entertainment industry systems consultant and technical writer based in the Los Angeles area. He has published many how-to technical articles and actively contributes to various IT community-based Websites. Having worked on many major film releases as the technical person behind the curtain, he has acquired a love/hate relationship with the fickleness of Hollywood. He has worked in startups and major enterprises that have allowed him to develop a sense of scope as it relates to the technical needs of businesses. His hobbies and special interests include robotics, application development, sports, and anything to do with the beach, and he has a frustratingly short attention span when it comes to the game of poker. On his personal blog, Louis rants on issues ranging from sports to business and politics. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management Information Systems from California State University, Northridge, and is always striving to increase his knowledge of technology and keep up with our ever-changing times.

Robin Way has more than 20 years of experience in the design, development, execution, and improvement of applied analytics models for clients in the credit, payments, lending, brokerage, consumer packaged goods, health insurance, and energy industries. He operates his own management analyticsconsultancy, Corios, based in downtown Portland, Ore. He was previously employed with SAS's Financial Services Business Unit as a managing analytics consultant for 12 years, in addition to another 10-plus years in analytics management roles for several client-side and consulting firms. His professional passion is devoted to democratizing and demystifying the science of applied analytics, and his contributions to the field correspondingly emphasize statistical visualization, analytical data preparation, predictive modeling, time series forecasting, and mathematical optimization applied to marketing and risk management strategies. Way is the lead faculty member for the Banking Analytics Research Council on behalf of the International Institute of Analytics. In cooperation with SAS, he is developing a training course on the practice of financial transaction sequence discovery and scoring techniques. His undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his subsequent graduate-level coursework emphasized the analytical modeling of human and consumer behavior. He may be reached at rway@coriosgroup.com or www.linkedin.com/in/robineway.

Steve Williams is President of DecisionPath Consulting. He is also a leading strategy consultant and thought leader in the business intelligence, analytics, and performance management fields. His clients have included Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Watsco, Pinnacle Foods Group, Principal Financial Group, Toronto Hydro Electric System, and the US Social Security Administration. In addition to his extensive BI strategy work, Steve has been an early and frequent BI thought leader since 2003. He has written for many business journals and magazines, including Strategic Finance, Business Trends Quarterly, Business Intelligence Journal, and Information Management (previously, DM Review). With Nancy Williams, he is co-author of The Profit Impact of Business Intelligence (Elsevier/Morgan Kaufman Publishing, 2006). He has an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and a BS in Business Management from the University of Maryland.

Cordell Wise has been advising financial services organizations on the use of predictive analytics for over 15 years. His work with clients ranging from large financial institutions like HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Discover, as well as smaller regional and community banks, has made him a recognized expert on how to use analytical tools to produce practical solutions. From both product management and consulting roles at leading companies like FICO (creators of the most widely used credit scores in the US) and First Data (the largest third-party  card processor in the world) he has gained deep understanding of how predictive analytics are developed, validated, and deployed in applications across the customer lifecycle. Cordell has provided content for papers for the Federal Reserve and Small Business Administration and has been published in number of risk management journals. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a contributor for electronic media. He holds an MBA in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BS in Business-Finance from Brigham Young University.