Introduction
Being the reference Principle 07 2 min

What publishing really costs

The symptom

You have a useful account of something you did. You do not publish it: too long to write, not sure what can go out.

The signal

Publishing costs little. What costs is checking what is not yours. Do that check once, and publish.

What’s going on

Writing up an experience used to take days. With an AI, the first draft takes an hour from your notes. The review is still your work, and it is short. The cost of writing is no longer a good reason to stay quiet.

The real cost is elsewhere: the information that is not yours. Customer data, names, confidential figures, what a contract forbids. Removing a name is not always enough: a combination of details can still identify a person or a company.

The rule fits in one sentence: publish what you built and learned, remove what belongs to others. A team wants to tell the story of a payment incident. It publishes the mechanism, what it understood and what it changed. It publishes neither the files nor the customer’s name.

When you are unsure about a point, ask once, to someone who can answer. Do not let doubt about one detail block the whole text: remove the detail, publish the rest.

Check this

Take an account you have not published. Write it in an hour, with an AI if it helps.

Read it with one question: what here is not mine? Remove it. Publish the rest this week.

To discuss

Which useful account is sitting unpublished here?

Your notes

Only you read them.