M | Materials: Business intelligence and knowledge
I learned early in working with AI that the quality of the knowledge behind it matters. For us, effective training began with having that knowledge stored and organized so it could inform the work.
Materials started as a development style guide. We wanted the approaches we had worked out to remain available to the people and agents building our software. As our work grew, the library grew with it.
It became a place for the things we wanted to carry forward: standards, proven methods, business information, reference material and the lessons from each new project.
From a style guide to a shared foundation
The Atomic Style Library is one part of Materials. It is a thorough, interactive digital style guide, catalogued and inventoried through our synaptic organization framework.
Alongside it are our playbooks. They cover work such as security, App Store submission, onboarding and authorization. Each documents an approach or method we have developed, giving agents a reference for planning and execution.
Together, these resources help us bring the decisions we have already made into the next piece of work. The library holds the knowledge that gives those decisions their context.
A familiar shell for recurring work
Many of the apps and websites we build also need management applications. We and our clients use them to track performance, make administrative and content changes, and receive notifications about engagement.
That recurring need led us to a standard UI shell. It includes common capabilities such as an article CMS and mailing-list management.
It is a practical example of what we want our standards to support. A new management interface can draw on an established foundation, with the work shaped around the particular project and client.
Each business has its own library
Materials is part of Meridium, our approach to building a business operating system around the business itself. Our own library reflects Whispering's work, expertise and ways of operating.
Every Materials library is unique. A business's library typically combines its actual business data with references for generative AI work, standards, guidelines and the knowledge it wants to instill in the work of its people and agents. It can also include strategic knowledge and insights.
That combination reaches beyond software design. It captures what the business knows and the principles it wants to bring into the work ahead.
Make the knowledge useful across the work
Collecting information is part of the task. We also run the knowledge through a complex set of filters to make it useful and relevant in other aspects of the work being done.
The purpose is to carry useful context between different kinds of work. A library needs to serve the business in the situations where its knowledge is called on.
Within Meridium, Studio refers to Materials for our software design, development and distribution standards. Nano provides access to managing the wider system and its knowledge resources. Materials gives that work a business-specific reference point.
Let each project improve the next one
Almost every project teaches us something or gives us a chance to improve an approach. We point Materials to the relevant project session, then guide the updates based on what was learned.
That keeps the library connected to the work that produced it. A useful lesson can become part of the guidance available for future planning and execution.
Materials has grown well beyond its first development style guide. Its role is to hold the knowledge a business wants to preserve, shape it for use, and keep developing it as the business learns.