Field notes · FN-001 · Field notes — why we're writing them at all
Drawing G2-FN-001 · Field journal · entryTone & voice

Field notes — why we're writing them at all

By Andrew Maryasov · Grow2.ai2023-06-04 · 4 min
Entry FN-001
Filed 2023-06-04
Read 4 min
Category Tone & voice
Languages — EN
Entry №
FN-001
Field log

This is the first entry in Grow2.ai's field journal. It's mostly a contract with ourselves about what this journal is, what it isn't, and the standard the future entries have to clear before they get published.

What this is

A working file. The version of Grow2.ai that runs into a problem in eight months will read these notes and remember how the previous version of us solved it — what was tried, what failed, what shipped. The audience is, first, the studio itself.

What this isn't

A blog. Blogs run on cadence; this journal does not. We publish when something is worth publishing — a problem we worked through, an evaluation we ran, an opinion strong enough to defend in writing. We do not publish to fill a content calendar.

A marketing channel. We do not write field notes for SEO. The notes are Engineering-, Operations-, Tone-, or Industry-coded; if a sales conversation comes from a note, that's a side effect, not the point.

The standard

Three filters before anything goes live:

  1. Defensible. Every claim is something we'd say in a courtroom. Numbers cited are numbers we have. Opinions are tagged as opinions.
  2. Specific. Generic advice ("always test before you ship") gets cut. Specific advice ("run the agent in shadow mode for ≥48h on real inbound before live") stays.
  3. Useful in 8 months. The version of us in February 2024 should be able to read a note from this June and learn something that still applies. Short-term venting and weekly status updates don't make it.

What you should expect

Irregular cadence. Most notes between 4 and 12 minutes long. Categories: Engineering, Operations, Tone & voice, Industry view. Numbers, names, real cases (with client permission). No comment sections. No newsletter to sign up for.

If a note describes a problem you're hitting, that's usually a good sign we should talk. Otherwise, just keep what's useful.

Have a problem this note describes? Bring it to a call.

Field notes are written for the version of Grow2.ai that will run into the same problem in eight months. If one of them describes your situation, that's usually a good sign we should talk.

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Field notes — why we're writing them at all · Grow2.ai field notes · Grow2.ai