2024 SAS Customer Recognition Awards

[jcabanillas]

It’s time to submit your entry for the 2024 SAS Customer Recognition Awards! These awards were created to recognize and reward SAS customers who help us change the world through analytics. We’ll recognize customers for their stand-out contributions over the past year and highlight the fantastic work you’ve accomplished. The first-place winners will be announced at SAS Innovate 2024. Each winner will receive one trip to the event*, a SAS trophy and SAS swag. We will ask each winner to create a short video to describe their winning submission for a compilation video to show during SAS Innovate, held in Las Vegas April 16-19, 2024.

Read on to learn about the different award categories and how to enter.  If you have any questions, please reach out to communities@sas.com or juan.cabanillas@sas.com 

*Visit the SAS Customer Recognition Awards page for the complete program description, rules and to submit an entry.

Video Tutorial: How to Enter

 

Award Categories

• Community Uplift Award: Awarded to a SAS customer who has made an impact in their community at large using SAS products.
• Curious Thinker: Awarded to a SAS customer that has an inspiring career story to share and highlights how SAS played a part in that journey.
• Innovative Problem Solver: Awarded to a SAS customer who uses SAS in innovative ways to solve a business problem.
• ROI Rock Star: Awarded to a SAS customer demonstrating the greatest business benefit and return on investment (ROI) using SAS products.
• SAS Analytics Explorers Advocate: Awarded to a SAS customer who is leveraging the SAS Analytics Explorers program to grow their skills, their career and/or their network.

How to Enter

1. Visit the SAS Customer Recognition Awards page. Note that you will need to be a community member to submit an entry. Not a member? You’ll be prompted to join before you submit your entry.
2. Please review the program details and official rules.
3. After reading through the awards list, choose an award category you’d like to enter. You may only have one submission per category but are welcome to enter more than one category.
4. Click the Enter the Contest button at the top right of the page.
5. Fill in your company, company background, your name, title, and country then hit the Next button on the bottom.
6. On the next screen select your category and then answer the questions below. Each question must be answered for your entry to be complete and open to voting and panel judging.
7. Next hit the preview button to review your entry. You may edit the entry title. Please attach a high-resolution version of your company logo using the camera icon. Please remove the red text after you add the logo. Choose size large and left aligned.
8. You may also insert other images or video to support your entry and at the bottom of the page you can attach supporting documents. Please also remove the red text at the bottom of the box.
9. When you are happy with your preview, hit the post button.
10. Your post will immediately go live and be open to public viewing.

11. You may edit your submission by clicking on your submission and then clicking on options > edit.

What happens next?

The nomination process closes on January 19, 2024. The SAS Communities team will review all posts for completeness and may reach out to customers with questions on their post. Any posts with inappropriate content will be removed. On January 22, 2024, online voting will open to the public. Votes will be cast by clicking the like button for the entry. The voting process closes on February 2, 2024. Judging panel scoring will be complete by February 2, 2024. Winners will be chosen based on a combination of public votes and judging panel scores. A panel comprised of SAS employees and non-SAS members will score each submission on a 1-5 scale on three categories: spirit of story, strength of evidence and results. Winners will be calculated based on a combination of online voting and panel scores. Winners will be notified the week of February 12, 2024. The Customer Recognition Awards site will be updated with all winners in April 2024 and first-place winners will be announced to the public at SAS Innovate in Las Vegas, April 16-19, 2024.

Timeline

Submit Entry Dates: December 4, 2023 – January 19, 2024

Voting Dates: January 22, 2024 – February 2, 2024

Panel Scoring Dates: January 22, 2024 – February 2, 2024

Winners Notified: Week of February 12, 2024

First-Place Winners Announced: April 16-19, 2024 at SAS Innovate (complete winner list posted in the SAS Support Communities)

Winners: First place, second place, third place (pending quantity of entries)

[MarkusWeick]

My highlight 2023: Las Vegas SAS Explore as SAS Analytics Explorers Advocate:

Thanks again!

[hollandnumerics]

Is it ethical for SAS Employees to vote in large numbers for their local customers? Surely these awards should be free from bias!

[ChrisHemedinger]

Hi Phil @hollandnumerics , the voting portion of the contest helps to build excitement and engagement with these excellent entries. When it comes to determining the winner though, most of the weight comes from the 5-member jury who will score entries on spirit of story, outcome/results, and strength of evidence. The details are laid out in the official rules. As you can see, some participants are doing a great job of "getting out the vote" -- not just from SAS colleagues but from the community at large. 

[hollandnumerics]

Hi Chris @ChrisHemedinger

I appreciate your desire to build excitement and engagement for the entries, but when 2 entries appear to have 69 and 39 votes each, but 61 and 24 respectively are from SAS Employees, it does look more like cronyism, rather than community engagement. I appreciate that the rules favour the judging panel, but the publicity for these awards suggested a more significant influence for the community votes, which is why, I suspect, your community membership has been boosted!

We will just have to see if the inflated voting has any impact on the final results!

............Phil

PS. Maybe you should encourage your SAS colleagues to vote more widely?

[MichelleHomes]

Did the first-place winners get announced at SAS Innovate?

I didn't see any winner announcements in the General Sessions.

[ChrisHemedinger]

Hi @MichelleHomes, Yes! Winners were highlighted on the "pre-roll" as you walked into the main session room, and also we had selected short videos about some of the winners throughout.

Coming very soon: an e-book with all of the winners and their stories, and we'll reshare those videos as well.

And of course, the winners were celebrated at the event with a special luncheon just for them and an awards ceremony. Sean O'Brien (SVP of Customer Success) hosted and handed out the awards.

[MichelleHomes]

Oh that's good to know! Thanks @ChrisHemedinger