<published earlier by FedScoop, http://fedscoop.com/big-data-is-it-a-big-deal/>

In our increasingly fast-paced world, the buzz-word du jour, Big Data, looks like a winner of the fastest transition from cool, new, vacuous, poorly-defined concept to mainstream acceptance and implementation.

A year or two ago if you had mentioned Hadoop, listeners would have thought you had the hiccups (or had just sneezed). Now even the non-Technorati use the term in casual conversations.Big Data – Is It A Big Deal?