Today we came to building R, one of the research and development buildings and the first thing I did was get to meet some members of the development team working to create a new SAS application. The team gave me and the other SAS interns a presentation on the development process and how there are many more than just developing and marketing a software. Then, I got to go hands-on with the GatherIQ, one of SAS’s projects in development. I was working with Matthew Schaeffer who could read at the speed of light where I could read at a normal speed, so he would always want to get ahead and I would make him go back so I could finish reading things on the website. After getting hang of the purpose of the website we submitted a survey to help SAS understand what users thought about it. I thought the purpose of the website wasn’t clear at first and it would take at least five minutes of digging to figure out what SAS was getting at. Then I had lunch in an incredible cafeteria called that took place in an open space called the atrium.
The chefs were really nice and the food was great! After lunch, then I went upstairs to a new conference room to present on ideas that I thought would make for a good app. The purpose of GatherIQ is to raise awareness on global issues by sharing information, data specifically, on social media. So, the other interns and I had to come up with ways to present the information so that a younger audience like middle schoolers would be interested in learning about the issues and would want to share them with their friends. My group came up with the idea that the user should be rewarded in some way if they view the page or share it/retweet the page/ like it. So, we thought that for every 100 retweets it would get a sponsored company would donate 10 dollars towards the cause or something along these lines. This activity was really fun and its really cool how SAS will actually use our feedback to make changes to their app going forward!