Big Blue’s James Kobielus moderated a one-hour big data discussion on Twitter today with Terri Griffith from the Leavey School of Business, IBM distinguished engineer Stephen Brodsky and other pundits who provided their take on this trend.

Kobielus started off by asking the participants what big data means to them, and merchandising was the response. Marketing expert Shelly Lucas cited a better view of the customer, and as a result better and better offers that drive innovation.  That is the the competition that in turn motivates vendors to step things up a notch.

From here on out, the cross-industry adoption we’re seeing today became the main focus of the conversation.  Forrester’s Mike Gualtieri commented that acquisitions are central to companies’ big data plans, and so is the need to first identify their requirements, and only then try to realize them.

Deeper into the chat prof. Terri Griffith pointed at her field, higher education, as one that has some catching up to do in analytics.  But not when it comes to research, where this technology is being leveraged with great success, but rather in the academic operational structure.

The topics changed from the viability of data as an asset to privacy, and finally settled on the role of the big data scientist. Kobielus himself chipped in, noting that the demand from employers is far from being met, but that the talent pool is growing in a very positive direction: data scientists will work with the analytics software vendors offer to boost decision-making.

The role of the data professional was established during the session as well – not only making this insight accessible but at the same time relevant to multiple audiences. First however, business models will need to be changed in order to accommodate the new order of things.