# Objective to Pillars — turning "grow my LinkedIn" into an editorial constitution

"Build my personal brand" is not an objective. It is a wish with no failure
condition, which means no post can ever be judged against it and no post can ever
be refused. That is why feeds drift: without a stated objective, every idea is
equally on-topic.

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## The six real objectives

Each one implies a different audience, a different proof requirement, and a
different definition of a good week. `positioning_brief.py` accepts only these
six, on purpose.

| Objective | The audience that matters | Proof it demands | The thing people get wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| **career-change** | Practitioners and hiring managers in the *target* field | Evidence of doing the new thing, however small | Writing to their current colleagues, who cannot hire them into the new role |
| **consulting** | The person who signs the invoice | One artifact a buyer can evaluate in 60 seconds | Writing for peers, who are flattering and never buy |
| **thought-leadership** | Practitioners who could disagree competently | A position that could be wrong | Writing agreeable summaries nobody argues with |
| **hiring** | The specific person you want to hire | The team's real working conditions, stated publicly | Job-ad language, which repels the candidates worth having |
| **fundraising** | Operators and angels in the category | A dated public track record of the thesis | Starting three weeks before the raise, which is legible |
| **community** | People with the same problem, who would recognise each other | A recurring format they anticipate | Broadcasting instead of convening |

**Pick one.** Two objectives produce a feed that serves neither, because the
audiences do not overlap as much as they appear to. If two genuinely matter, run
one for a quarter and then the other; sequencing works, blending does not.

## Pillars: two to four, and the arithmetic matters

A pillar is a recurring subject you have standing to speak on. The brief requires
each one to carry three fields:

- **name** — what it is about, in the audience's language
- **why you** — the specific standing you have. If anyone could post it, cut it.
- **proof** — the thing that already exists: shipped work, a measurement, a repo,
  a hire, a talk. Empty proof marks the pillar experimental.
- **share** — the percentage of your output. This is a budget, and its job is to
  decide what gets cut in a busy week.

Rules the tool enforces, and why:

- **Two to four.** Under two is a monologue; over four is a magazine nobody
  subscribed to, and it prevents any single association forming.
- **Shares sum to 100.** If they do not, there is no budget, only preferences.
- **At least one pillar proof-backed.** Otherwise every pillar is a claim you
  would have to invent evidence for — see the fabrication refusal in
  `policy_and_account_safety.md`.
- **At least one pillar at 10-20%.** The experimental slot. Next quarter's main
  pillar comes from here, and without it the plan can only shrink.

## The exclusion list is the actual positioning

`positioning_brief.py` refuses a brief with fewer than two exclusions, and this
is the rule people push back on hardest.

A positioning that excludes nothing is not a positioning; it is availability.
Naming two or three topics you will not post about does three things: it settles
the "should I comment on this news cycle" question in advance, it stops the feed
drifting toward whatever is trending, and it makes the pillars mean something by
contrast.

Good exclusions are specific and reasoned:

- "Generic AI commentary — I have no edge there and neither does anyone posting it."
- "Hot takes on other companies' layoffs."
- "Vendor comparisons that would compromise client confidentiality."

Bad exclusions are performative: "politics", "negativity". Nobody was going to
post those anyway.

## Success criteria that someone else could verify

The brief emits observable 90-day criteria per objective. They share one
property: **another person could check them.**

Follower count is deliberately not among them. It moves for reasons unrelated to
whether the objective is being met — one post reaching an adjacent audience adds
followers who will never engage again, and a quarter of excellent, well-targeted
work can add very few. Optimising the number you can see instead of the outcome
you want is the most common way a LinkedIn strategy fails while appearing to work.

Better criteria, by shape:

- **Conversations you did not start.** Inbound is the honest signal.
- **Specific references.** Someone citing a specific post in their first message.
- **Invitations.** Podcast, panel, guest post, referral.
- **The sentence test.** Can you name the one idea people now associate with you?

## Reviewing the brief

Quarterly, not weekly. A brief revised every month is not a constitution; it is a
mood. At the review, three questions:

1. Which pillar produced the outcomes, as opposed to the engagement?
2. Did the experimental pillar earn promotion, or should it be replaced?
3. Has the audience description got vaguer? (It always drifts toward broader.
   Drag it back.)

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## Sources

1. Ries, A. & Trout, J. **Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind** — a position is
   defined by what it excludes.
2. Porter, M. **"What Is Strategy?"** *Harvard Business Review*, 1996 — strategy
   is the deliberate choice of what not to do; the exclusion list is that idea at
   the scale of one feed.
3. Clark, D. **Stand Out** — building a public identity around one distinctive
   idea rather than a portfolio of competences.
4. Ibarra, H. **Working Identity** — career transitions proceed by public action
   in the new field, not by private decision followed by announcement.
5. Kleon, A. **Show Your Work!** — process as publishable material, which is what
   makes an unproven pillar survivable before the proof exists.
6. Doerr, J. **Measure What Matters** — objectives paired with observable key
   results; the 90-day criteria are that pattern at personal scale.
7. Godin, S. **This Is Marketing** — "the smallest viable audience", the direct
   answer to an audience description that keeps drifting broader.
