San Diego -- “Big Data,” and what to do with it, was a recurring topic at the Teradata Partners User Group Conference, held here from Oct. 2 to 5.  Retailers, insurance companies, telecom firms, banks and others looking for best practices in data warehousing and optimization were among the 3,500 attendees at the San Diego Convention Center. With so many challenges facing IT professionals --everything from geomarketing to capturing tweets inside a data warehouse -- participants focused on collaboration and learning from each other’s mistakes and successes.