Will Your 2009 JSM Poster
Have Statistical Significance?
Announcing the SPA poster competition
M
embers of the Scientific culture, economics, education,
and Public Affairs manufacturing, medicine, etc.).
(SPA) Committee The most effective Statistical
invite all 2009 JSM poster authors Significance pieces are easy to
to compete for $200 and Statistical develop, simple in exposition,
Significance publication. enlightening, and fun to read.
The prize will be awarded to See
www.amstat.org/outreach/
the author of the JSM poster pdfs/StatSignificancePrototypes.pdf
that the judges deem the best for examples.
contribution of statistics to soci- The contest requires the subject
ety and that includes a Statistical matter of the JSM poster to
Significance piece. (NOTE: par- be included in the Statistical
ticipation in this competition is Significance piece and the Statistical
only available to poster authors Significance piece to accompany
who submitted their poster your poster presentation at JSM.
abstract by the JSM deadline of Poster authors will prepare their
February 2, 2009.) posters as they normally would,
What constitutes a Statistical but add a Statistical Significance
Significance piece? Statistical piece to it. winner will be notified immedi-
Significance is a short, one-page A panel of judges appointed by ately thereafter.
illustration of the value of statis- the SPA committee will visit the To enter, email your inten-
tics to society. The objective is to posters and Statistical Significance tion to compete to SPA member
illustrate to the lay person how pieces at JSM and determine a win- Robert Santos at rsantos@urban.
statistics has helped our society in ner during the SPA business meet- org. Feel free to contact Santos if
a specific area (e.g., health, agri- ing on the morning of August 5. The you have any questions. ■
Statistician: A Sexy Job
I
n an effort to help this whole army of people digesting information to
managers gain a bet- be able to feed it to the decisionmaker at the top,”
ter understanding of he said. “But that’s not the way it works anymore.
technology, chief econo- The information can be available across the ranks,
mist at Google, Hal to everyone in the organization. And what you need
Varian, suggested they to ensure is that people have access to the data they
learn to use data. “The need to make their day-to-day decisions.”
sexy job of the next 10 years will be statisticians,” A professor of information sciences, business,
said Varian. “The ability to take data—to be able to and economics at the University of California
understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, at Berkeley, Varian sees statisticians as part of the
to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be reconfiguring of the business industry’s future.
a hugely important skill in the next decades.” Information is easily accessible, and statisticians
In the video interview for the business journal The can help organizations analyze the information to
McKinsey Quarterly, Varian explained how managers improve productivity.
can collect ideas from data analysis if they know how To view the interview or read the transcript, visit
to use it. “In the old organization, you had to have
www.mckinseyquarterly.com. ■
MARCH 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 17
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