Where You Stand
The first question, answered: either spelling, as long as it's the only one on the list. Then the index card read against the tool map, and how to find where you stand on both.
On this page
Back to where the book began: so, facebook or fb?
It was the Introduction’s first line: “You probably want to know whether it should be facebook or fb.” The book answered it in two words, “Pick either,” then set it aside for two other questions: “What do you need to see in your reports to make better decisions?” and “What system delivers that view every time?”
Eleven chapters went to those two. Before the short answer comes back, look at what they built.
Show who rememberedHide it
Nobody had to.
Every value but one came off a list. At the launch, the list was Dana’s locked sheet (Chapter 3). Since the audit, it’s one builder, whose source menu offers facebook and no other spelling of it (Chapter 9). The one source from outside the list was Marcus’s Facebook, typed straight into the ad platform. It stood out as its own row (Chapter 8), and Dana’s remap reads those rows back.
Take the remembering out, and the screen is still clean.
A list has no shape
By now the book can feel like a long list of rules: lowercase, underscores inside a value, year-first dates, a closed medium list, hidden fields, a changelog. Carry that list out of the book and you’ll try to remember it on every link.
You know how that ends. A remembered rule fails the way every rule beside the path fails: on a busy Friday.
And a list has no shape. Every rule on it looks equally urgent, so a team either tries to fix everything at once or copies the setup of a team that isn’t theirs.
Either, as long as it’s the only one on the list
So: facebook or fb?
Either, as long as it’s the only one on the list.
Those two words from the Introduction still hold, and nothing in eleven chapters changed them. Stride’s list says facebook. Yours could say fb and work the same way.
The spelling was the easy part. The work is everything that keeps it the only one, and the index card holds all of it. Trace the one value across the card, part by part:
- Dimensions. Source is a dimension because a report groups by it, and a team chooses it by working backwards from the report (Chapter 1).
- Rules. One approved spelling, because analytics groups by the exact string (Chapter 3).
- Workflow. The builder offers only that spelling and refuses
Facebook(Chapter 9). Addingfblater would be a change on the record, made by one owner (Chapter 10). - Auditing. A stray spelling stands out as its own row (Chapter 8).
- Automation. The same string reaches the lead and the warehouse (Chapter 7), so the credit read at stage 6 lands on that same
facebook(Chapter 11).
No line in that trace depends on anyone remembering it.
Now go back to the list you might have carried out of the book. Lowercase, underscores and year-first dates are rules. Hidden fields are automation. The changelog belongs to workflow: it’s how one owner changes the rules (Chapter 10). Every rule in the book is one of five jobs at work.
The card and the map are one picture
The system
five parts
- 1DimensionsDecide what to measure, from the report backwards.Ch 1
- 2RulesApproved values and naming conventions that encode the dimensions.Ch 2, 3, 4, 6
- 3WorkflowLinks made in one place, from the approved lists.Ch 5, 9, 10
- 4AuditingCatch drift before it reaches a decision.Ch 8
- 5AutomationCarry the same values into the CRM and the warehouse.Ch 7, 11
Each part lives at stages of the tool map, the route a click’s values travel from the link to the report:
| Part | Where it lives on the map |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | decided from the reports you read; written at stage 1 |
| Rules | written at stage 1; read as the exact string at every stage after |
| Workflow | stages 1 and 2: where links are made, and who writes the final one |
| Auditing | reads stage 3, where a stray value shows up as its own row |
| Automation | carries the values through stages 4 and 5 to the credit read at stage 6 |
Read the table down and the card turns into a route. The facebook from the trace is written once, at stage 1. Every stage after it reads the same letter, in whatever envelope carries it, as the same string.
Five parts, six stages, one picture.
The map names a few examples per stage. For a tool it doesn’t name, The Tool Landscape has more.
Find where you stand
Now read both against your own team, one part and one stage at a time.
For each of the five parts, where does it live for you today?
- nowhere
- beside the path: a document someone has to remember
- inside the path: the place the link gets made
Then the map. Which of your tools sits at each stage? Write its name beside the stage. Leave the stage blank if nothing sits there.
A gap is a position, with a cost. Here is each cost, and the chapter that lays out the options:
- If nothing sits at stage 5, spend and revenue are joined by hand, every time someone asks (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 maps the places a join can run, the warehouse among them.
- If your builder lets anyone type a value, every open field with no rule is a way in, and a format rule holds the form but not the word. Try to break your own rules with it, as Chapter 9 does, and you’ll see which fields let a wrong value through.
- If nobody owns the taxonomy, it changes anyway, off the record (Chapter 10).
- If no audit is on the calendar, a stray row stands out only to whoever happens to look (Chapter 8).
One more place to look sits upstream of stage 1. If your campaigns are planned before anyone makes a link, in a project tool, a brief or a CRM campaign, that’s where the campaign value starts, whether links are then made in one stage or two (Chapter 9). The question at that point is whether the value reaches the builder by hand or is offered in it.
Where you stand decides which chapter’s options you weigh next. Placing yourself is your call: the book doesn’t pick a stage for you, and nothing here is decided by how many people you have.
One practice at every scale
The placement works at any size, and one line says why:
At every scale, the core job is the same: define the rules that produce clean analytics, then embed those rules into the way people already work. Growing doesn’t switch you to a different practice. It deepens the one you have.
The taxonomy is the asset. UTMs are one delivery mechanism.
The letter outlasts every envelope it travels in, and every tool that opens one.
What changes
| Decision | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| What you leave with | a list of rules to remember | five parts, six stages; each rule placed on both |
facebook or fb | taste, argued with each new hire | either, if it’s the only one; the work is keeping it so |
| Where to start | where the report looks worst, or a team your size’s setup | your own placement, then the part you’d most like to move |
| A gap in the stack | a failing, fixed at once | a position with a known cost, closed if your questions need it |
Where the rule lives
Every part of the card has a rule, and each rule lives in one of three places: nowhere, beside the path, or inside it. Dimensions and rules are a document someone reads, or the menus of the form where the link gets made. Workflow is a habit, or the only way a link can be made. Auditing is a date on a calendar, or on nobody’s. Automation is hidden fields and a pipeline, or someone’s Monday sheet. Placing yourself is asking, part by part, where yours lives today.
Check yourself
A team keeps its approved values in a shared sheet, makes links in a free URL builder, reads GA4, and has no CRM fields or warehouse. Place it on the card and the map.
Show answerHide answer
Dimensions and rules are written down, in the sheet. At stage 1 the rules sit beside the path: the free builder’s fields are open, so every value is typed from the sheet. GA4 sits at stage 3. Nothing sits at stages 4 and 5, so automation is empty and any join of spend to revenue is done by hand. Which gap to close depends on the questions the team needs answered.
A new hire says the team should switch from fb to facebook, because facebook is more readable. What does the book say?
Show answerHide answer
Either spelling works. The switch is a change, so the owner makes it on the record, with a mapping from fb to facebook and the old rows remapped. The only wrong outcome is both on the list.
A colleague says the guide boils down to lowercase, underscores and year-first dates. Which part of the card are those, and what does the list leave out?
Show answerHide answer
They’re rules, part 2. The list leaves out where the rules come from, where they live, who checks them, and what carries them past the visit: dimensions, workflow, auditing and automation.
Where Terminus fits
Terminus publishes this book, and the Stride builder you tried to break in Chapter 9 is built in it. Here’s where it sits on the map, in the same terms as every other tool:
- Rules: your approved values and patterns live in one published governance model.
- Workflow: links are made in forms, a grid, a CSV import or the API, and each one is checked against that model before it exists.
- Automation: approved records go to your data warehouse through connectors, and the API and webhooks pass them to anything else.
What it doesn’t do: choose your dimensions (Chapter 1), see where a link gets posted (Chapter 8), make the owner’s calls (Chapter 10), or decide who gets the credit (Chapter 11). Those stay with your team, whatever tool you use, and they matter more as more people, channels and teams make links.
If your rules live beside the path today, run Chapter 9’s five breaks on Terminus before you decide. To see it at work first, watch the short demo. Try it with your own taxonomy
In one line
facebook or fb: either, as long as it's the only one on the list. Everything else in the book is what keeps it the only one: five parts, each living at a stage of the map, and where each lives for you decides what you weigh next.
Before you go
Write the five parts down the side of a page. Beside each, write where it lives for you today: nowhere, beside the path, or inside it. Reread the chapter for the one you'd most like to move.