We’ve been blaming the tools for 25 years. At some point, we have to admit... maybe it’s us.

Some conversations catch you off guard in the best possible way. This one with Steen did exactly that. We were meant to talk about analytics, why it still doesn’t deliver on its promise, despite all the new tools and fancy dashboards. And we did. But what surprised me was how personal it got. Not emotional, but honest in a way that made me uncomfortable in a good way. The kind of uncomfortable that makes you realize how often we’re just going through the motions, pretending things are working because admitting otherwise might mean admitting we don’t really know what to do next. Steen has this way of naming the things you’ve always felt but never quite said out loud. About how we hire analysts like trophies, how we switch platforms like changing outfits, and how most of us are too busy maintaining broken systems to even think about value. And maybe the most brutal part was how often we choose a new tool just so we don’t have to admit the last one never worked. This isn’t a neat little “here’s what we learned” episode. It’s a mirror into your organization, something I have spoken about in my CDP Reboot series (technology has a funny way of exposing these weaknesses). And depending on where you are right now, you might not like the reflection. I didn’t always. But I’m glad we recorded it. It reminded me that analytics isn’t broken because the tech is bad. It’s broken because we keep pretending it’s someone else’s job to make it useful. So yeah, this one stayed with me. Maybe it’ll stay with you too. 👥 Connect with us on LinkedIn: Steen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steenrasmussen/ Matthew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewniederberger/ 📲 Follow Martech Therapy on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martechtherapy/ Substack: https://martechtherapy.substack.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/martechtherapy.bsky.social #digitalanalytics #cdp #martech #datadriven #dataculture #conversionrateoptimization #superweek #measurecamp #agenticai #datastack #datastorytelling #marketingstrategy #toolbloat #analyticsleadership #cx