What is the Public Context, and why should I correct it?
Your Public Context is what anyone can find out about your business. It is the first part of your business brain, and the part bernard can research for you, because it comes from public sources only.
The prompt
“Show me my Public Context and the places where the public sources disagree about [my business].”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
What is in it
Four short documents, one for each thing a stranger could find out:
- Who you legally are - your company name, company number, where you are registered and who owns and runs the business.
- What you sell - your products and services as the public sees them.
- Who you compete with - your market, and the businesses a customer might choose instead.
- Where you show up online - your website and the other places that mention you, such as directories and review sites.
Two more sit beside them. The knowledge synthesis pulls the four together and lists the places where the public sources disagree. The citations say where every fact came from.
Why you should correct it
Public sources disagree, go out of date and get things wrong. Your About page might say 12 years trading while the company register says 9. bernard cannot know which is right. You can.
Your first real correction is called the calibration gate. It is the step in the Contour Methodology, the method behind your business brain, where the draft stops being a guess and becomes something you have checked. From then on, every answer bernard gives about your business starts from facts you have corrected. See How do I correct something bernard has got wrong about my business?.
Where it fits
The Contour Methodology fills your business brain ring by ring, and the Public Context is the first ring. Its step is called Scope: finding out what is already known before anything else. The next rings, such as Organisational Knowledge, fill from your own answers over time. See What do filled, checked and out of date mean in my brain? for every ring.
To have bernard research your Public Context for you, see How do I get bernard to learn about my business?.
We switch Bernard Brain on for your business when you email hello@bernardmoves.com.
Questions people ask
- Where does bernard get it from?
- From public sources only: your own website, the public company register and what others publish about you online. It does not use anything private.
- Why does my correction matter so much?
- Until you check it, the Public Context is bernard’s best guess from what it could find. Your first correction is the calibration gate: from then on, bernard goes by your version, not the guess.
- Will bernard change it without asking me?
- No. Every correction is shown to you as the old words and the new words, and saved only when you approve it.