Last month Tom Davenport, renowned international speaker and author of 'Big Data @ Work' came to Dublin as a guest of SAS Ireland. During the event, there was a lively conversation on Twitter, with many great questions answered by John Farrelly and Alan Gormley from SAS Ireland. Here are some of the highlights.

@PS_I_T @SAS_Ireland: Hadoop is making it more affordable for organisations to experiment and get started with big data analytics, faster!

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@AislingMcCarth @SAS_Ireland Hi Aisling, this is lot more affordable than you might think and a great way to start: http://t.co/dNh0g7M5nA — John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@spkeat @SAS_Ireland Focus on the decision and action, so analysis about outcome. Finding visualisation really helpful to business users.

— Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@spkeat @SAS_Ireland: Combination of visualisation, big data, hadoop and we think SAS!!! :) interested in your thoughts... — John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@BradyMise Let the #data tell the story, but the context is provided by the business. We will explain further in an upcoming blog!

— SAS Ireland (@SAS_Ireland) September 17, 2014

@markinlutt They should always be working together! — SAS Ireland (@SAS_Ireland) September 17, 2014

@AislingMcCarth @SAS_Ireland; Big question! takes more than a tweet! you might find this useful: http://t.co/FmGc8IF4bC

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

#SASselfie Want to see SAS Visual Analytics? Ask @zakitariq24 or @CiaranNevin for a demo in the lobby #bigdataatwork pic.twitter.com/SiBjUgdK6d

— SAS Ireland (@SAS_Ireland) September 10, 2014

@MartinMcMahon10 @SAS_Ireland Depends on industry etc. but the key is to monitor all models. Short answer is not long - months usually — Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@colinmas @SAS_Ireland ; Both! A number of the new analytics courses are starting to recognise this very issue. Watch this space!

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@ikellep @SAS_Ireland @SAS Some. Key is to keep key decisions internal and outsource ones which need less internal business knowledge. — Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@mcquit @SAS_Ireland Both feasible and preferable. You can be in a seg of people who would like x but have no need / desire for it now.

— Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@spkeat @SAS_Ireland Value comes from action. No analysis should be done if you are not going to use it. — Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@phelimoconnell @SAS_Ireland big question! you have to identify the problems/opportunities, prioritise and decide where to start, and START!

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@klennon19771 @SAS_Ireland and communication skill but everything has to focus on business problems, or no one will listen — Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@kieranbrennan @SAS_Ireland I think it comes down to a combination of 'time to value' and 'business sponsorship' - prioritise accordingly

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@alanmcgra @SAS_Ireland Tools will isolate predictive variables. Analyst needs to think about how the data relevant to the problem.

— Alan Gormley (@aligisme) September 17, 2014

@raineyp @SAS_Ireland: its an evolving space, given the skills shortage one that I think will grow. My advise is take a hybrid approach...

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 17, 2014

@SmartGovtData @SAS_Ireland: the Irish government are preparing the legislation to enable data sharing, public consultation closes in 5 days

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 10, 2014

@PhilMale @SAS_Ireland: we discussed this with @tdav yesterday and it is a huge enabler that is changing the traditional DW landscape

— John Farrelly (@John_Frrlly) September 10, 2014

Cool visualisation of the #bigdataatwork discussion taking place at the @tdav event in the @IMI_Ireland @SAS_Ireland pic.twitter.com/PDJLnNrxJW

— Ciarán Nevin (@CiaranNevin) September 10, 2014

Thank you all so much for being part of the #bigdataatwork discussion with @tdav! Here are today's topics! pic.twitter.com/3fhkUBrC8q

— SAS Ireland (@SAS_Ireland) September 10, 2014

Blog post compiled by Phil Male from SAS UK and Lauren Brennan from SAS Ireland.