Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 16:18:42 -0400
Reply-To: "Dorfman, Paul" <Paul.Dorfman@BCBSFL.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Dorfman, Paul" <Paul.Dorfman@BCBSFL.COM>
Subject: Re: The sign of recency and the performance of logistic model
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> From: sophe88@YAHOO.COM [mailto:sophe88@YAHOO.COM], in part:
> That finding set our marketing people "on fire". They tried to force
> the analyst to 'do something to make sure our recency has positive
> impact on the response rate'. The analyst called SAS support and SAS
> support told him that it is a bad idea to impose such a condition on
> the sign of Recency. Dropping recency out of the model probably is
> much better. Besides, this is no way in proc logistic to allow an
> imposition like that (in proc reg, a restrict statement may work).
> I believe this type of contention is not the first time ever that has
> happened between statistical experts and business people.
Paula,
This is quite common. Similar situation occur in list management all the
time when a marketing analyst imposes criteria on the population to pull a
sample for targeting and ends up with less than expected after the program
has run. In these cases, the programmer who wrote the subsetting program is
usually blamed first. I remember a desperate under-stress marketing analyst
who caused quite a stir when she showed up in the po' programmer's cube in
person yelling "You killed at least 100,000 people from my list!"
> I would appreciate if I can be advised on how to reconcile this type of
> differences.
You give marketing objective information and they question its objectivity,
hence what you should do is exactly what you have done when you
> I told the analyst to inspect his steps. He spent the
> whole Sunday and I can not find anything wrong either.
That is all you can do. If your process, applying marketing criteria
correctly, produces correct results, your job is done. Tell marketing that
if they adjust their requirements they can hope for a larger target sample
and/or better response.
Here is a quiz about a list management programmer (working for marketing):
Q: If you eat 2 apples 2 times a day, how many apples will you have eaten?
A:
1) 5-year old child: 4.
2) "Ice-cool" student: I forgot my calculator.
3) Ph.D.: Why would one need to remember all these darn constants?
4) Programmer: How many do you need?
> I think he is about to cry.
Let him do that to his heart contents. Tears are excellent for lubricating
eyes after a whole Sunday spent staring at a monitor. When he is done
crying, tell him to go have some tranquilizer. Around here, liquor stores
sell them in these (mostly) round glass vessels called bottles.
Kind regards,
=====================
Paul M. Dorfman
Jacksonville, FL
=====================
>
> Thanks, as always.
>
> Paula D
>
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