Before revision:  The term probably originated in lunch-table conversations at Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in the mid 1990s , in which John Mashey figured prominently. The first significant (and independent) academic references are arguably Weiss and Indurkhya (1998) in computer science and Diebold (2000) in econometrics. An unpublished 2001 research note by Douglas Laney at Gartner enriched the concept significantly. The Big Data phenomenon continues unabated  .
After revision:  The term probably originated in lunch-table conversations at Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in the mid 1990s . The Big Data phenomenon continues unabated .