#10 Labs · Brand Brain
Everything a brand knows, in one place any AI can read.
A Brand Brain gathers what lives in inboxes, old proposals and people's heads into one organized set of linked notes. Your team can search it. Your AI tools can answer from it, and show where each answer came from.
We run one on our own work, with project notes going back to 2001. It holds client history, so there's no live demo. This page shows how it works instead, with made-up examples.
Where knowledge lives today
- Emails
- Proposals
- Project notes
- Briefs
- Decisions
- Past work
Brand Brain
Cleaned, linked, in an open format
Who uses it
- Your teamSearches it, gets up to speed with it
- AI toolsAnswer with your facts and your voice
How it's built
Five steps from a pile to a map.
Same steps for our brain and for yours. The pieces come together one step at a time.
- 01
Gather
We pull from wherever your knowledge lives now: project tools, shared drives, proposals, briefs, the email threads you pick and past work.
- 02
Clean and redact
Passwords, logins, personal details and anything private come out. The raw files stay where they are. Only cleaned notes move on.
- 03
Write the stories
For each project or topic we write a short, plain summary: what happened, what we decided, what it cost, what we'd do again. A missing fact gets marked as a gap, never guessed.
- 04
Link
Each note links to the client type, the services, the people's roles, the decisions and the other projects it touches. The links are what turn a pile of notes into a map.
- 05
Store it openly
Plain text files with a few labeled lines at the top. Any AI tool can read them, and so can you.
What "open format" means
The brain is a folder of ordinary text files. Each one starts with a few labeled lines (what kind of note it is, a title, a date, what it links to), so a machine knows what it's looking at. The rest is plain sentences.
There's no special database and no software to license. It follows the Open Knowledge Format, a new public standard for exactly this kind of folder. Any AI that can read text can use it, and if you ever leave us, the brain goes with you and still works.
---
type: Decision
title: Launch in two phases
date: 2019-04-02
project: Store rebuild, 2019
related: Shopify builds, Project lead
---
Catalog and checkout went live
first. Recipes and the blog came
six weeks later. The holiday
deadline didn't leave room for
both.The graph
Every note is linked to what it touches.
Here's a small brain with made-up nodes. Hover or tab to a node to see its links. Then pick a question and watch the answer travel.
- Client type
- Project
- Service
- Decision
- Role
Ask the brain
- SearchFinds the project note for the 2019 store rebuild.
- Follow the linksFollows its links to the decision, the client and the project lead.
- Answer, with sourcesThe holiday deadline didn't leave room for everything. Catalog and checkout went first. Recipes and the blog followed six weeks later. The project lead made the call with the client in April.Project · Store rebuild, 2019Decision · Launch in two phasesRole · Project lead
The graph as a list
- Specialty food brand (Client type) links to Store rebuild, 2019, SEO program, 2024
- Industrial maker (Client type) links to Site redesign, 2016
- Nonprofit (Client type) links to Donor site, 2021
- Store rebuild, 2019 (Project) links to Specialty food brand, Shopify builds, Launch in two phases, Project lead, Developer
- Site redesign, 2016 (Project) links to Industrial maker, WordPress builds, Keep the blog on WordPress, Designer, Developer
- SEO program, 2024 (Project) links to Specialty food brand, SEO, Fixed fee, not hourly, Project lead
- Donor site, 2021 (Project) links to Nonprofit, WordPress builds, Keep the blog on WordPress, Designer
- Shopify builds (Service) links to Store rebuild, 2019
- WordPress builds (Service) links to Site redesign, 2016, Donor site, 2021
- SEO (Service) links to SEO program, 2024, Fixed fee, not hourly
- Launch in two phases (Decision) links to Store rebuild, 2019
- Keep the blog on WordPress (Decision) links to Site redesign, 2016, Donor site, 2021
- Fixed fee, not hourly (Decision) links to SEO program, 2024, SEO
- Project lead (Role) links to Store rebuild, 2019, SEO program, 2024
- Designer (Role) links to Site redesign, 2016, Donor site, 2021
- Developer (Role) links to Store rebuild, 2019, Site redesign, 2016
How it's used
Four questions it answers every week.
Made up, but typical. Every answer comes back with the notes it came from, so you can check it.
Drafting a proposal
QuestionWe're quoting a store rebuild for a specialty food brand. What did similar projects cost, and what ran over?
What comes backThree similar rebuilds since 2019 took 8 to 12 weeks. Two ran over on cleaning up product data, so newer proposals price that as its own line.
SourcesProposal · Store rebuild, 2019Project · Store rebuild, 2023Decision · Price data cleanup separately
What did we decide?
QuestionWhat did we decide about free shipping last spring?
What comes backFree shipping over $75, starting in April. Average orders sat just under $75, so the bar nudges people up. The note says to revisit after the holidays.
SourcesDecision · Free shipping thresholdMeeting notes · Spring planning
Getting a new person up to speed
QuestionI'm new. What should I know before my first call with this client?
What comes backThey've worked with us since 2014. They prefer email to calls, approve all copy in writing, and their busy season runs October to December. Read these three notes first.
SourcesClient mapProject · Site redesign, 2016Playbook · Client handoffs
Giving an AI assistant your voice
QuestionWrite a product description for the new holiday gift box.
What comes backThe assistant pulls the brand's voice notes (short sentences, no hype words), the product facts and the words to avoid, then drafts. A person reviews it before it goes anywhere.
SourcesVoice guideProduct sheet · Holiday gift boxWords we don't use
Keeping it fresh
A brain is a loop, not a project.
A brain that's six months out of date is worse than none, because people stop trusting it. So the updates run in a loop.
- 1
New work lands
A project wraps, a decision gets made, a proposal goes out.
- 2
We write it up
We clean it, summarize it and link it, the same way as everything already in there.
- 3
The index rebuilds
Every morning the search picks up whatever changed.
- 4
Freshness check
We compare the brain with the project tracker and list anything new that isn't written up yet. That list starts the next loop.
Guardrails
What never goes in, and who gets to ask.
What never goes in
Passwords, logins, keys, personal contact details and payment info. Raw email dumps stay out too. The original files stay where they are, and only cleaned notes go in.
Redaction, twice
We scrub every note when we write it and mark it once it's checked. The search then masks anything that looks like a password and sets it aside for a person to review. A separate pass looks for people's names, because a password scan misses those.
Who can ask
Only your team and the tools you approve, over a private connection. The search can read but never write: it can't change a note or send anything. There's no AI inside the search itself, so a cleverly worded document can't talk it into anything.
Answers show their work
Every answer lists the notes it came from. Anything a customer or client will read gets checked by a person before it goes out.
By the numbers
Our own brain, by the numbers.
Real counts from the brain we run on our own work. No client details, just its shape.
From archive to brain
- About 25,000files in our archive
- About 3,600text documents worth reading
- 54cleaned, linked documents in the brain
- 78links between them
We distill, we don't dump. Most of the archive is design files and old copies. The brain keeps what's worth knowing.
- 2001oldest records it draws on
- 98projects in our tracker since 2005
- 33project stories written up
- 11kinds of documents
- 5sources searched with one question: project history, decisions, working notes, how-to playbooks and hand-off notes
- Project stories33
- Case studies6
- Website copy4
- Indexes3
- Other8
54 documents. Other includes the pricing reference, a playbook, the client and capability maps, an analysis, a reference note, the catalog and an overview.
Want one?
Your brand's brain, built in 4 to 8 weeks.
We build a Brand Brain for your company as part of our AI work: your voice, products, policies and past work in one open-format source that every tool and teammate can draw on. It's $5,000 and takes 4 to 8 weeks. You own it, and it works with whatever AI you use next.