Happy Valentines Day 2013!

Cutest E-Card from Josh's mom to us :-)

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Tomorrow morning is Josh's interview with an Air Force officer to try and get into Officer Training School.  So proud of him for wanting to do this, and hoping he gets in because I know it would mean the world to him.  I really admire his passion.

Whatever happens, at least we'll be going through it together.

Happy Valentines Day, everybody!

Four Modeling Don'ts

Four Modeling Don'ts by M.M.Herlihy

Don't forget.
Pitfall #1: Not Balancing Math and Business—Analysts need to take time to understand the key performance drivers of a business, Herlihy explains, so they can build a model that logically reflects the firm’s market situation and goals. For example, response is dependent on deliverability, but deliverability should be a pre-select before the model is developed and not a variable in the model. In addition, analysts need to be on the lookout for data fields that contain ill-defined content, such as a field that once represented survey responders but in recent years indicated which customers ordered gift packaging on orders.

Pitfall #2: Believing in Quick Fixes—Automated modeling solutions have mass appeal, but can produce lackluster to disastrous results when not handled properly. Even with a “black box” tool, says Herlihy, you still need to know how to interpret the results, run through the appropriate iterations, validate the model and tune the software and settings. Bad models are worse than no models.

Pitfall #3: Not Modeling the Right Thing—In many cases, businesses must drive contradictory behaviors to attract the right prospects and encourage the most profitable customer activitiy. Herlihy gives the example of credit lenders who tend to get the highest responses to offers from individuals who need credit but aren’t likely to pass the criteria for credit approval. Conversely, those individuals who are mostly likely to get approved are least likely to respond because they don’t need credit. Modeling for just response or persistency (conversion/payment) won’t achieve lasting business success; rather, the right thing to do is to develop a balanced model construct to look for those consumers who score well for both behaviors.

Pitfall #4: Inconsistency in Data Storage and Deployment—The wrong data easily can be pulled into a model when the files receive inconsistent coding scores. Some business use a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst score and 10 being the best; other firms reverse the scale. Still yet, computer programmers often use 0 through 9 for data storage because it takes up a consistent number of bytes, says Herlihy. Analysts who don’t sufficiently study the database and find out what tagging methodologies are being employed (especially those who are new and inexperienced) are likely to pull low-performing deciles by mistake and build the wrong model. The best practice for businesses to learn is to stick to the same tagging methodology.

A final word of advice from Herlihy: “If you don’t have at least 1,000 of whatever you are trying to model, it is best to collect more data before you invest in the model.”
***********
Why 0-9 for Scoring:
http://multichannelmerchant.com/lists/archive/data_storage_062507/
"

f you're using 0-9 as your stored decile values – with 0 being the highest score and 10 being the lowest – and you want the top two deciles pulled, records would be pulled from deciles 0-1.

But if you're using 1-10, with 1 being the highest score and 10 being the lowest, there's a good chance the 10 will be mistaken as a 0, meaning you would actually have the best names and the worst names pulled instead.

Say you pulled 100,000 records from each of deciles 0 (with potential revenue of $87,000) and 1 (with a probable $65,250 coming in) for a mailing, the revenue would total $152,250. But if you're using 1-10 as your decile scores, and the bottom decile is mistakes for the top, the potential loss in revenue could be critical."

Happy New Year! 2013 has arrived!

The past couple of weeks have been great!  Josh graduated (finally!) hooray!, my family got to spend some quality time with his family which was nice.  

I am very glad that my parents are so supportive of me and try to just accept my life and who I am.

Christmas was fun.  I got a typewriter! Josh knows my fascination with typewriters and bought one from his grandmother who wanted him to help her sell it on e-bay.  I am very glad to have this typewriter because they are such a sweet family and it's nice to have something of history (and in amazing condition with the original booklets!).  Played a lot with Luke, helped Josh clean/pack some, visited with friends.  One of our previous exchange students from high school came to visit from Italy with her boyfriend so it was really nice spending some time with them as well.

I learned a lot about myself at the end of 2012.

I love my family and I now have a better understanding of our past and how much they sacrificed for me and invested in me.  I am thankful for all they have done, thankful that they persevered despite all odds to stay in this country even when it looked like there were no more options and no more hope.  I am very grateful to be here in this amazing country.  Without the hard work of my parents I would not be where I am today.  I would not have met such amazing people, had such great experiences, and start such an amazing career!

I learned that there are specific aspects of my personality that I can directly see come from my parents.

From my father I have my sense of urgency towards striving to be the best, innovation, curiosity, and thirst for knowledge about anything and everything.  From my mother I get my spirit, stubbornness to go against all odds and against doubts from others, my empathy and sympathy towards others, love of the outdoors, and fearlessness (excluding those really irrational but few fears I have).  From both my parents I have inherited a strong work ethic, a moral compass, an appreciation for what I have, faith in others, and goals to have a purpose in life and make a difference -- to look beyond myself, beyond the present, and to push forward.

So...news...

Josh moved in yesterday.  He and Molly were really worn out (I wouldn't blame him, he's had a rough many many weeks/months and deserved much needed break!) so we didn't really go out for New Years Eve.  We did make a field trip to Liquor Barn though.  That place is so huge! and overwhelming!  We came back with some delicious sparkling wine.  It is gone.

I am very grateful for Josh and look forward for our future.  I know that we are not here together, living together, out of just convenience.  We work well together.  We complement each other - in lifestyle, skills, interests, personality.  Complement does not necessarily mean in common.  But there are things that one is good at/interested in that the other is not.  And we are both interested in a lot of things and are actually handy/good at a lot of things that when they are combined... it makes me feel like there is nothing we cannot do together.  I have faith in him and hope to do whatever I can to encourage him to pursue his dreams because unlike most people i know, he is unusual in the amount of passion he has for life, he has such aspirations and has such a work ethic that I believe he can get to wherever he wants to go.  Even though there are a lot of things he wants to do, I am glad that he has so many options of what he wants/likes to do.  He is very fortunate in that sense.  I can't say that I am like that myself, have specific careers I've wanted with such passion.  Hoping that in 2013 we will continue to support, love, encourage each other, work together, and move forward!

Here's to an exciting and meaningful 2013 of growth and new experiences! Here's to adventure! Welcome 2013!

Bieber let us leave work early!

Thanks to Justin Bieber's concert being in town, we were told we can go home early today so we don't end up in all that awful traffic.  To celebrate, here is a video:

Life is moving too fast

Today was quite a day.  Actually the past two weeks have been... something else.  I do certainly still love my job but it's even more obvious that there is still a steep learning curve and that everything is just accelerating even more.  Timelines are tight, technology sometimes hates me (thankfully my work computer is zippy!) but more realistically it's not the technology that hates me, it's the user that needs to hone in more skills.

SAS is not for the weak.

I hope I'm strong enough! My brain is in for more of a work out for sure.

Also, I need to just slow myself down.  I know that when I get stressed I just go ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM and sometimes that is not good... not necessarily all bad, but I need to get better first.  Hopefully I can spend some time next week figuring out how to build good macros/arrays with SAS.  I have a basic understanding but very basic... At least I know I have no major qualms about working long hours because I think I've been in the office about 10 hours a day this week and a couple more hours in the evening spread out. But, I'm mostly satisfied with how things turned out this week although I am a bit of a paranoid person by nature.  Our VP is so brilliant! sometimes I wonder how I am perceived.  I came out feeling a little stupid but I suppose that just means I have much to learn! (though, I knew this).  Good thing I like to learn.  I just hope I can keep up! Definitely going to try.

It was nice that we had a baby shower for a colleague yesterday.  It was a nice temporary break for my brain. Probably much needed.  We played games and I discovered I'm pretty decent at children book names and baby facts.  I think I was the only one who knew that babies have no knee caps! Apparently I have a decent gauge on finances because I answered correctly to the cost of raising a child up to one year of age (excluding medical) and was close in guessing number of diapers changed in 2 years. Woo. It's the little things in life, right? of course the big things are fabulous too.

Josh should be here in the near future. HOoray! Planning on going Kart racing tomorrow :).  Lasagna in the oven just waiting for his arrival!  I think Molly is coming too! woof woof :)

Miami University ranks in Top 10 ‘party schools’

Miami University ranks in Top 10 ‘party schools’

Eeeeep. Work hard, play hard.  Hope they don't fall too far down in rankings though...

Finding my place and loving it!

You know it's been a while since I've written a post when once again, the layout of blogger changes.... I've been here working for nearly 3 months now and it's been quite an experience... I'd say 95% Great and 5% Anxiety. Which, if you know me well... that is really good that it's only at 5% for my Anxiety. The job is stressful but I'm learning to channel this stress towards good and exploring the data and just diving in. Apparently that's one of my personality traits according to the Predictive Index. Essentially I am
 1) Dominant (the most under my manager, haha) which demonstrates that I am independent, assertive and a self-starter
2) Mildly patient (I don't see how this is, but maybe I'm patient about the process of how things work).
3) Mildly Introverted (thinking things through).
4) Creative/Innovative
5) Apparently I'm not afraid of failure/rejection and keep pushing forward I think I am somewhat apprehensive as of late because I'm not used to this kind of position.

 I mean, until now, I was used to just being told what to do and having my new ideas go nowhere because people didn't want to pursue new things. Now, I can actually really get engaged with the team, contribute, let my ideas flow, and actually see things happen!

Even though the timelines given are sometimes really fast and sometimes I think they're cutting it really close... I'm learning that because of that it is crucial to get a handle on all things data and SAS to get things done efficiently because you never know what kind of things need to be done to get the data organized and coded in a useful manner. It's cool that we can use this to our advantage in terms of management and working together as a team to really put us out there in the organization. Data can show some really cool things and I'm learning a lot on the way. .... I also love my coworkers.

They are so awesome. I'm pretty close to two of them as we are young, lol. I'm still the youngest but I don't want that to be my disadvantage. If anything, I will try to put it to my advantage because I've got the energy to just throw myself into any project and I'm hoping that I truly will be independent/competent in a few months. I love my job and I hope I can continue feeling that way. I'm really getting used to my new life/routine although sometimes I do get a little lonely and I wish I had somebody here to motivate and encourage me... or at least make me do things that are not work. hah. 

Life is good. I have a great family, great guy, great friends, great job. The rest, even if they are annoying... are just little blips. No big deal. I just have to adapt, be resilient, and enjoy life to the best of my ability. At least I've been doing better about being healthy. I've been eating better, I try to move around more, and I try to keep my spirits up. Looking forward to whatever the future holds but at the same time I want to revel in the present because I'm realizing time goes by too fast! was looking over old photos with the fam of Luke for his school assignment and he was suuuuch a cutie and I miss his baby-ness. He's still super cute and I'm really upset that he had a bully in preschool but he's such a sweet kid... hope kindergarten is a lot better. He is pretty awesome.