What do colors, soup kitchens, and mountain climbing have in common? They're all part of the mental models that have shaped how we think about analytics, and they're exactly the kind of durable wisdom that matters more than ever in an age of AI slop. This campfire-style conversation among the co-hosts reveals the concepts, books, and aha moments that have stuck with us across decades of analytics work. From the magic of randomization to the critical distinction between outputs and outcomes, we share the frameworks that guide our thinking whether we're writing SQL by hand or asking Claude to do it for us. It turns out the most valuable analytics wisdom isn't about tools or techniques—it's about understanding how humans actually make decisions, build trust, and collaborate effectively. Some things never go out of style.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

What do diamond ring shopping, Uber pricing psychology, and active user metrics gone wrong have in common? They all highlight our complicated relationship with precision versus accuracy—and how that relationship can either build or destroy trust in our data. Arik Friedman from Atlassian joins us to unpack why being "about right" often beats being "exactly wrong," and why your nagging feeling that something's off might be a useful insight in and of itself. From the discipline of documenting assumptions to the art of knowing when to round your numbers, we tackle the very human challenge of working with data that's supposed to be objective but rarely is. Plus, we explore Twyman's Law (if data looks too good to be true, it probably is) and why sometimes your intuition is your last line of defense against embarrassing mistakes.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

Research and analytics: are they more like peanut butter and chocolate, or more like oil and water? On this episode, we dig into the surprisingly common (and surprisingly unfortunate) divide between these two disciplines with Stefanie Zammit, Global Director of Analytics and Insights at Bang & Olufsen. Stefanie has spent her career bridging the qual and quant worlds, and she makes a compelling case that the best insights come from putting both methodologies to work on the same business problems. From the "never ask a survey question you already have the answer to" rule to why personas are usually terrible (spoiler: it's not the clustering, it's the storytelling), we explore how organizations can break down the silos between research and analytics teams. Turns out, the fear of the unknown and a bunch of fancy terminology might be keeping us from some pretty powerful insights. Also, apparently 100% soundproof rooms are absolutely terrifying.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

AI is moving fast. But so is life. AI is widely recognized as a must-adopt technology, but how and where are data workers expected to find the time for that?! Organizations are struggling to find effective ways to productively drive healthy adoption of AI: What is it they expect their workers to do with AI? Is it purely an efficiency driver, or should they expect other avenues of value creation to be pursued? What guardrails need to be in place? What incentive structures are (and are not) effective when it comes encouraging team members to take the AI plunge? One tactic that is definitely effective is to have leaders who are excited, engaged, and transparent as they get their hands dirty. And, boy, did the algorithm deliver one of those to us in the form of John Lovett, VP of Analytics at SEER Interactive, for this discussion!

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

The one rule about the Analytics Power Hour is that we don't talk about specific tools. But that doesn't mean we won't talk about tool SELECTION! Jason Packer recently released the second edition of Google Analytics Alternatives, (also available on Amazon) and his approach in the book is very much not an RFP-like "check which features your tool offers" system. And his rationale for that seems just as applicable (to us, at least!) for any data platform selection, be it a digital/product analytics platform, a BI tool, database or storage infrastructure, or, well, you name it! Ultimately, the challenge is how to go about getting a reasonably strong understanding of the philosophy and historical roots of each platform being considered and then marrying that up with the foundational priorities and needs of the organization. Is that a lot harder than a feature checklist? Yes. But them's the breaks.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

As Kevin McCallister once taught us: just because the house is still standing doesn't mean everything's under control. Everyone's racing to adopt AI, but has anyone actually read the fine print? For this year's International Women's Day episode, we are joined by Aubrey Blanche to unpack the hype, the hidden tradeoffs, and the quiet ways teams are giving up agency in the name of "productivity." We explore how data and tech teams are uniquely prepared and positioned to ask better questions, measure what really matters, and avoid letting the AI teenager run the house. Learn more about "phantom value" and why faster isn't always better… or even cheaper!

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

We know what the work of the data practitioner is, right? It's everything from managing data ingestion to data governance to report development to experimental design to basic and advanced analytics. It's writing (or vibe-writing?) SQL or Python or R while also being adept at whatever data stack—no matter how modern—is at hand. Of course, it's a lot more, too! And that's the topic of this episode: the unofficial, often unheralded, but often quite important "shadow work" of the analyst—the myriad tasks required to effectively glue together all the data work that occurs out in broad daylight to enable the data to truly be useful at driving the business forward.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

From a professional development perspective, you should always be learning: listening to podcasts, reading books, connecting with internal colleagues, following useful people on Medium and LinkedIn, and so on. Did we mention listening to podcasts? Well, THIS episode of THIS podcast is not really about that kind of learning. It's more about the sort of organizational learning that experimentation and analytics is supposed to deliver. How does a brand stay ahead of their competitors? One surefire way is to get smarter about their customers at a faster rate than their competitors do. But what does that even mean? Is it a learning to discover that the MVP of a hot new feature…doesn't look to be moving the needle at all? Our guest, Mårten Schultzberg from Spotify, makes a compelling case that it is! And the co-hosts agree. But it's tricky.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.