Big Data, Risk, and The Matrix

I've written before on this site about the inherent uncertainty around Big Data. In short, the same ROI calculations that justified many 1990s and 2000s ERP, CRM, and BI purchases are unlikely to work this time around. With so much data, how can an organization, consulting firm, or CXO even attempt to accurately predict what will be found, much less the potential savings, innovation, and sales?

Doug Bonderud writes about the need to take a "big" leap of faith of sorts in his post Big Data Visualization: Just the Beginning. Bonderud writes:

As analytics tools become more powerful and as expectations increase, risk is the most likely limiting factor. Ultimately, senior business stakeholders will have to decide whether the risk of experimentation justifies the reward. Right now, companies can make do by using simple visualizations of quickly mined data, but this will not work for long. Digging deep is the next step in the utilization of Big Data.