Forget Database Engineer...

Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century

According to the Harvard Business Review, the position of data scientist is the new key role in organizations that want to get the most value out of data.

I really like the following observation by the authors, and believe it applies very well to the DB2 for i environment...

Much of the current enthusiasm for big data focuses on technologies that make taming it possible, including Hadoop (the most widely used framework for distributed file system processing) and related open-source tools, cloud computing, and data visualization. While those are important breakthroughs, at least as important are the people with the skill set (and the mind-set) to put them to good use.

...people with the skill set AND mind set to put them to good use.   Now we're talking; it still takes people, not just machines to make progress.

From my perspective, the work (and results) of practicing data science can and should be part of your information management strategy, no matter how small or how focused.

Whether we call it "business intelligence", "analytics" or "data mining", it's all about turning the piles and streams of data into information.  Turning information into insight.  And leveraging that insight to become better.

You can begin to do this now, with your data, sitting in IBM i.