What is the state of SASGF 2022?

[DeannaGregory]

As a conference chair for SESUG 2022, I am equally concerned. SAS support through speakers/presentations and presence at the conference is very important to our attendees. It is beneficial for everyone to have that face-to-face interaction. We had a harmonious existence in years past by providing these opportunities throughout the year (SASGF in Spring, Regionals in Fall). This threatens this balance by either forcing RUGs to consider moving dates to the Spring (drastic moves like this have been deliberately avoided due to several logistical reasons - in obvious addition to the desire to maintain harmony) or needlessly saturating a time of year with decisions on professional development that directly abut and overlap the established routine of fiscal and domestic demands that impact the decisions of organizations and individual employees every year. In addition to this, we have no real idea of what a post-COVID conference world will look like. Those of us running the regional conferences this year and next have already been trying to build and share our knowledge and insight so as to create the best experience for our collective community. This decision by SAS event planning - while simultaneously excluding the RUGs, LUGs, and IHUGs that support the development of SAS's end users - serves as a huge red flag that SAS event planning has insight or information that they have neglected to share with community organizers for the benefit of the community on the whole. Instead of collaborating with us to ensure the best 2022 experience for our community, we were slapped with a lack-luster update via post on this forum that has significant potential to impact our ability to best serve our community. It is too late to reschedule our conferences to the Spring to maintain harmony, so we are left to wonder what other surprises SAS has for us, and how to plan for them.

It definitely feels like this was either an oversight by SAS, or deliberate. It goes against our established relationship for years. I hope that since this move has had significant internal planning and support, that insight will be shared with the RUGs as well? We still want to create the best experience for our users, it is the most important thing to us. What is SAS's vision for our community moving forward?

[ChrisHemedinger]

@TashaChapWUSS  & @DeannaGregory and other user group leaders --

We realize that the Regional groups are far along in their planning and their commitments. As I attended SESUG I could see the exciting plans coming together for Mobile, AL in 2022.

We all agree that in-person events are irreplaceable with their experiences of networking and face-to-face interactions. I'm hopeful that local and regional events can help fill that gap.

We'll connect offline with you and the other regional leaders so we can have a proper discussion. As far as I'm concerned we're as committed as ever to help Regional and Local group events succeed and thrive. 

[TashaChapWUSS]

I appreciate the opportunity to continue this discussion offline. However, SAS needs to be aware that this has generated *significant* conversation (and concern) within the community, among leaders and users alike. I can't speak for all of them, so I anticipate that you will continue to hear from all of those affected, here and elsewhere.

I cannot stress enough the gravity of this situation. We're coming off of the heels of COVID, which rocked us as much as any organization. And now SAS is putting a free, global, marquee event (your words) directly on top of us at the most sensitive time. Nothing about that indicates a desire for Regional and Local groups to succeed and thrive.

[ChrisHemedinger]

Sharing an update for those of you following this conversation. The new SAS events lineup has been published. In addition, SAS' Chief Marketing Officer, Jenn Chase, has published an announcement here. (I've edited the "solution" message on this thread with these details.)

We're continuing to meet with user group leaders -- including SESUG and WUSS who have firm plans for in-person events in Q3/24 2022 -- to re-affirm our support for these user events and work on ways to ensure all of these engagements are additive and not competitive. If you aren't already part of these conversations and you have ideas to share, please reach out directly to me or to @kateulveling. 

[Kurt_Bremser]

So it looks as if I have been a presenter at the last in-person SASGF, and the last SASGF overall. Another way to be part of history 😞

[yabwon]

@Kurt_Bremser Wellcome to the "club"... 😞

[pmbrown]

lex jansen's website has always been a fantastic resource for sas users. What happens to that now, ie will people lose SAS GF as a route to publication?

[Kurt_Bremser]

The successors to SASGF will handle that, so a technical paper will make it through the technical forum. And we already have all papers from SASGF 2021 here on the communities, so this will most probably the main repository for such papers in the future.

[Quentin]

Happily, @lexjansen's amazing site indexes a wide range of UG proceedings:

"This searches 35312 conference papers from SAS Global Forum, SUGI, PharmaSUG, PhUSE, NESUG, SESUG, WUSS, MWSUG, PNWSUG, SCSUG, SEUGI, ... " www.lexjansen.com

The end of SGF does not mean the end of UG papers, or the end of lexjansen.com.

As to whether the recently announced "SAS Explore" event will offer an opportunity for user-contributed presentations, that's a good question. I'm sure we'll learn more as SAS develops their plans.

[lexjansen]

Correct, lexjansen.com is not depending on the fate of SGF.  We will see if there will be user-contributed presentations. If there is, I will do my best again to index those.

Over the years there have been other changes that I had to deal with. For example, SGF already went from PDF papers to video and GitHub, and this year to community articles.

Time will tell!

Cheers,

Lex

[pmbrown]

thank God for Lex 🙂 I guess Phuse is the only one available to Europeans

[TashaChapWUSS]

The Regionals and PharmaSUG are still here and kicking!  PharmaSUG will be in Austin, TX in May, Western Users of SAS Software will be in San Francisco in September, and SouthEast SAS Users Group will be in Mobile, AL in October.  And these days "regional" has more to do with where the conference is than anything else.  We happily welcome presenters, volunteers, and even conference chairs from all over.  

If you're looking for somewhere to present, we hope you'll consider joining us. 🙂

[TashaChapWUSS]

Hello all!

I just want to make sure that everyone on this thread was aware that the Call for Papers for both WUSS and SESUG are currently open.  You can find out more information about C4P and the upcoming fall in-person users group conferences at wuss.org and sesug.org respectively.  

We happily welcome any and all presenters!  You can even submit the same paper to both conferences.

[CJac73]

SCSUG haven't planned our 2022 event, but were looking toward our RUG fall time frame. This change from SAS without advanced warning isn't helping in RUG planning for 2022. Hopefully SAS will move their events to spring/summer, but keeping the volunteer regional user group planners informed will go a long way toward smooth operations for everyone.

[ChrisHemedinger]

An update for those following SAS event news. The SAS Innovate event that was planned for in person for April is not going to be held as planned. Here's part of the statement that was shared last week to many of the potential attendees:

Given the ongoing uncertainty regarding the pandemic, SAS has decided to not hold the in-person SAS Innovate event in San Diego (April 11-13).

Like many of you, we too were excited and looking forward to once again being together in person and participating in this planned analytics experience for business leaders. But doing the right thing is paramount for SAS, and this decision is solely driven by our concern for the health and well-being of our employees, partners, customers and the community. We are evaluating alternative experiences to SAS Innovate for 2022.

It's clear we're not out of the woods yet when it comes to planning large in-person events. We know people are eager to see each other to learn and network. SAS is planning to support some key industry events if you have interest and can get there:

• Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) East in Boston during April
• PharmaSUG in Austin during May