Sediment's the silent killer here. Those prompts you wrote six months ago are still training your AI. Still shaping outputs. And they no longer match how you actually think.
Your documentation is either a living system or a time capsule. Most of us are running on ancient artifacts.
I love the thought behind this, Mia! Building AI Meets Girlboss I have quite a good idea of what my core beliefs and values are. I was really excited to try out the prompt. While the wording of it makes my hair fall out, 😂 it DID give quite a good reflection of my spine rules:
1. We do not teach AI. We train judgment.
2. AI is leverage for people already doing good work.
3. Prompts are disposable. Standards are durable.
4. We fight false competence, not ignorance.
5. Warmth is allowed. Vagueness is not.
6. If it sounds like productivity content, rewrite it.
Feel lucky to have found this post early on in my substack journey. As someone interested in too many things - thinking about that category spine is a really helpful analogy for me!
A masterclass in combining great storytelling with practical application. Adding the sinking of the Titanic analogy to the core idea of a robust content strategy instantly makes that idea more interesting and appealing.
Substack is home to readers looking for a great story to read! Give them one! Well done as always, Mia!
Most brand advice is 'trust your intuition' and 'be authentic' which is completely useless to someone who thinks in systems.
But this Mia? This is root cause analysis.
I can work with this. It's helpful!
We have CI/CD for code. Why don't we have CI/CD for brand? Every asset should pass the Category Spine tests before it ships, just like every commit should pass tests before it merges.
Thank you Neela ❤️ and I agree!! It's funny because "be authentic" is generally the worst advice for people who struggle with authenticity.. And "just trust your gut" is the last thing I want to hear when I'm sweating over a launch 🤣🤣
Mia, this is awesome! Saved to use later on today 🤩 I've overhauled a lot in the past week but have been trying to resolve the final niggles. This feels like the missing piece!
Love how much you analyse things and dig deep in the most unexpected ways.
Loved the idea of evaluating your content with your own consitution-style quality benchmarks. Thats how we prevent our content from submerging under generic stockpile. And the Titanic-simile to denote slow-drowning of rotten work generated by AI is spot on! 🛳️
Thank you Raghav! A constitution doc is suuuuper important for everything! Content, branding, positioning, all the good stuff! Thank you for reading ❤️
The Category Spine idea clicks hard. I've been calling this "constraint documentation" but yours is sharper. I'd add another question: what's the review cadence?
I plan ahead and prepare a document with instructions to follow and guidelines, ship for weeks, and only remember they exist when I’m debugging a mess I basically introduced myself.
Now I'm gonna go check something I should've done a few weeks ago 😶🌫️
Review cadence is a good constraint to add. And I'm probably not the best person to answer this as I like to review my docs waaaay too often. But I'd say every time you feel a shit in how you write, how you position yourself, what your audience perceives about you, is a good time to revisit :)
This is a brilliant post and prompt Mia. Going to try it with Slow AI later on, but even in just reading this article I feel better about myself as I think I do have a core set of beliefs and non-negotiables I can stand behind. The key now is for me to avoid drift but I think this prompt should help me to avoid becoming the literary equivalent of that string quartet that insisted on playing on as the ship sank around them. 🙏
I think you're all good, to be honest! You've got plenty of unique value props, beliefs, common enemies with your audience, etc. It's just a matter of organizing those so they aren't disconnected from one another and are reflected in all you do :)
And hey, don't throw shade at my favorite string quartet! I love those guys 🤣
Exactly! It's not just a "watered-down CTA". It affects everything and then you slowly drift your brand into that watered-down prose that wasn't yours to begin with.
Thank you for reading and I'm happy you're adding this to your workflow! :)
Sediment's the silent killer here. Those prompts you wrote six months ago are still training your AI. Still shaping outputs. And they no longer match how you actually think.
Your documentation is either a living system or a time capsule. Most of us are running on ancient artifacts.
Exactly Nick!! So, so well said. I still find old prompts and systems in my Drive and keep asking myself, who did those? Was it me?
Imagine if you don't have a system in place, you'd just be drowning in outdated docs. Thank you for chiming in, super important lessons :)
I love the thought behind this, Mia! Building AI Meets Girlboss I have quite a good idea of what my core beliefs and values are. I was really excited to try out the prompt. While the wording of it makes my hair fall out, 😂 it DID give quite a good reflection of my spine rules:
1. We do not teach AI. We train judgment.
2. AI is leverage for people already doing good work.
3. Prompts are disposable. Standards are durable.
4. We fight false competence, not ignorance.
5. Warmth is allowed. Vagueness is not.
6. If it sounds like productivity content, rewrite it.
7. Aesthetic is strategy, not decoration.
🩷🦩
So if I were to choose between these, I'd say I recognize you in:
3. Prompts are disposable. Standards are durable.
7. Aesthetic is strategy, not decoration.
Not to say that the others are NOT you, but these two are "👩🏽🍳😘".
Thank you for sharing! ❤️ You have a strong spine haha, the iceberg's not gonna sink you!
Thanks Mia! It's really great to see it in writing. 🩷🦩
This is such a good example of keeping your voice and standing out, even while you're using AI.
Thanks for reading Andy! :)
Feel lucky to have found this post early on in my substack journey. As someone interested in too many things - thinking about that category spine is a really helpful analogy for me!
Keeping this one saved for sure!
awww thank you! I'm 100% sure it will help a lot, especially since you're at the beginning of your journey. Rooting for you!
Yes I’m sure it’ll keep me in check! Post most definitely saved ✅🤗
I like the category spine part. It made a lot of sense to me. Overall, this was a nice read.
Thanks Tox :)
this prompt was AMAZING and tore my publication to shreds! lol well, kinda shreds.. thank you!
oh no!! I hope you put the pieces back together haha ❤️ thank YOU Caitlin! :)
A masterclass in combining great storytelling with practical application. Adding the sinking of the Titanic analogy to the core idea of a robust content strategy instantly makes that idea more interesting and appealing.
Substack is home to readers looking for a great story to read! Give them one! Well done as always, Mia!
Thank you my friend! :)
Most brand advice is 'trust your intuition' and 'be authentic' which is completely useless to someone who thinks in systems.
But this Mia? This is root cause analysis.
I can work with this. It's helpful!
We have CI/CD for code. Why don't we have CI/CD for brand? Every asset should pass the Category Spine tests before it ships, just like every commit should pass tests before it merges.
Thank you Neela ❤️ and I agree!! It's funny because "be authentic" is generally the worst advice for people who struggle with authenticity.. And "just trust your gut" is the last thing I want to hear when I'm sweating over a launch 🤣🤣
I guarantee you that if I just “be authentic,” I would be banned on all platforms hahahahaha 🤣🤣🤣
I SWEAR! SAME
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Mia, this is awesome! Saved to use later on today 🤩 I've overhauled a lot in the past week but have been trying to resolve the final niggles. This feels like the missing piece!
Love how much you analyse things and dig deep in the most unexpected ways.
thank you Dallas! ❤️ I absolutely love your progress and behind-the-scenes so please please keep it up!! 💫
Loved the idea of evaluating your content with your own consitution-style quality benchmarks. Thats how we prevent our content from submerging under generic stockpile. And the Titanic-simile to denote slow-drowning of rotten work generated by AI is spot on! 🛳️
Thank you Raghav! A constitution doc is suuuuper important for everything! Content, branding, positioning, all the good stuff! Thank you for reading ❤️
I will run my "Ship" into this 😍. I'll let you know what came out when I do it 😁
Beware of the icebergs!! 😀😀 Cannot wait to see your results Gamal ❤️
Full steam ahead! 😁❤️
The Category Spine idea clicks hard. I've been calling this "constraint documentation" but yours is sharper. I'd add another question: what's the review cadence?
I plan ahead and prepare a document with instructions to follow and guidelines, ship for weeks, and only remember they exist when I’m debugging a mess I basically introduced myself.
Now I'm gonna go check something I should've done a few weeks ago 😶🌫️
hahah you're welcome Dan! 🤣
Review cadence is a good constraint to add. And I'm probably not the best person to answer this as I like to review my docs waaaay too often. But I'd say every time you feel a shit in how you write, how you position yourself, what your audience perceives about you, is a good time to revisit :)
This is a brilliant post and prompt Mia. Going to try it with Slow AI later on, but even in just reading this article I feel better about myself as I think I do have a core set of beliefs and non-negotiables I can stand behind. The key now is for me to avoid drift but I think this prompt should help me to avoid becoming the literary equivalent of that string quartet that insisted on playing on as the ship sank around them. 🙏
I think you're all good, to be honest! You've got plenty of unique value props, beliefs, common enemies with your audience, etc. It's just a matter of organizing those so they aren't disconnected from one another and are reflected in all you do :)
And hey, don't throw shade at my favorite string quartet! I love those guys 🤣
Haha. Ok, sorry! I give you this in way of an apology: https://open.spotify.com/track/5gjuCeR0XczOHYI7NibXEp?si=Xu5hskeGTiyBtwig6e5gLw
hahahaha THANK YOU!!!
Exactly! It's not just a "watered-down CTA". It affects everything and then you slowly drift your brand into that watered-down prose that wasn't yours to begin with.
Thank you for reading and I'm happy you're adding this to your workflow! :)