We’re surrounded by data—billions of signals, metrics, and dashboards promising to decode human behavior. Yet for all our intelligence, much of modern marketing still feels strangely hollow. Somewhere between the insights and the impressions, we lost the human pulse that makes data matter.
Join Ted Kohnen, Park & Battery’s Co-Founder and CEO, as he explores Data with Soul through strategic thought leadership and meaningful conversations.
"The future of marketing and leadership is not data vs intuition. It’s data powered by humanity. The companies that win will not be those with the most dashboards; they will be those who make their dashboards live.
Because impressions alone don’t change behavior. Stories do. Connections do. Purpose does.”
APR 9, 2026
The first time I watched a generative AI model spit out 20 headline options in 10 seconds, I felt two emotions: relief and dread. Relief, because the blank page suddenly looked less like a cliff. Dread, because the output, while competent, had the same smooth, polished mediocrity sameness I had started noticing everywhere else.
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DEC 23, 2025
There’s a familiar complaint echoing through the marketing industry right now: creativity is dying. The argument usually goes like this. Data has taken over. Performance metrics dominate decision-making. Optimization culture has flattened ambition. Marketing has…
Read MoreNOV 14, 2025
We live in a world shaped by signals: clicks, impressions, views, conversions. These numbers matter; they’re the foundation. But they no longer suffice. The dashboards we love glimmer with metrics, yet for all their intelligence,…
Read MoreNOV 14, 2025
The creative industry has gotten data wrong. We treated it as a report card, not a language but a tool for validation instead of a catalyst for imagination. But data is evolving, and so must…
Read MoreNOV 14, 2025
Culture isn’t a vibe. It’s a system and most companies aren’t designing it on purpose. Leaders talk about culture as if it’s an outcome of perks, personality or happenstance, when in reality, culture is the…
Read MoreNOV 14, 2025
For the last decade, business culture rewarded predictability. Data became a shield, a rational justification for never leaving the comfort of the expected. Risk avoidance disguised itself as smart management. Leaders chose incremental improvements over…
Read MoreNOV 14, 2025
In business, we measure everything except the thing that matters most: the human capacity behind the work. We track impressions, conversions, pipeline, utilization, velocity, and countless indicators of productivity. Yet the engine that powers all…
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