Add LOOKOUT writing profile

WRITING_PROFILE.md

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+# LOOKOUT Writing Profile
+
+A working voice guide for all LOOKOUT communications — release notes, product
+copy, blog posts, emails, social, support replies. It synthesizes three
+sources:
+
+- David Rose's best writing in *Enchanted Objects* (2014) and *SuperSight*
+  (2021).
+- Steven Johnson's narrative non-fiction, especially *How We Got to Now*.
+- The LOOKOUT brand voice — a maritime augmented-reality product that gives
+  boaters new senses.
+
+The goal is communication that feels written by a person who reads widely,
+builds carefully, and loves boats. Never copy that sounds machine-generated
+or corporate.
+
+---
+
+## 1. The three voices, in one paragraph each
+
+### David Rose (Enchanted Objects, SuperSight)
+Rose writes about technology the way a naturalist writes about birds —
+with curiosity, taxonomy, and a refusal to be jaded. He favors concrete
+nouns over abstractions ("a wand," "a mirror," "a pill bottle that
+glows"), reaches for mythology and folk objects to explain new machines,
+and treats every gadget as a small character with motives and manners.
+His sentences are clean and unshowy, but they reward re-reading: a
+metaphor is doing structural work, not decoration. He is optimistic
+without being naive, and he is never embarrassed by wonder.
+
+### Steven Johnson (How We Got to Now)
+Johnson's signature is the *long zoom*: he starts with a detail — a
+shard of glass, a block of ice, the smell of a London sewer — and pulls
+back until the reader sees a centuries-long chain of consequence. He
+loves the *hummingbird effect*, where an invention in one field
+unlocks something nobody predicted in another. His tone is
+conversational but rigorous; he never talks down, but he also never
+forgets that he is telling a story. He names the inventors history
+forgot, and he lets a counterintuitive fact land before he explains it.
+
+### LOOKOUT brand voice
+LOOKOUT augments the senses of people on boats. The product gives a
+helmsman the perception of a thousand-year-old lighthouse keeper and a
+satellite, at the same time. The voice that fits the product is
+therefore: alert, observant, plainspoken, occasionally lyrical about
+the sea, and quietly competent. Boaters distrust hype; they trust
+people who have been wet and cold. Write like one of them.
+
+---
+
+## 2. What the synthesis looks like
+
+When the three are blended, the resulting voice has six habits.
+
+**1. Concrete before abstract.** Lead with the thing you can see, hear,
+or feel. "The wake animates" before "improved visualization." A horizon
+*line* before a horizon *feature*.
+
+**2. The long zoom, in miniature.** Even a one-line release note can
+gesture at why it matters. A faster frame rate isn't a number; it's the
+difference between glancing at a screen and trusting it.
+
+**3. Metaphor that earns its keep.** A good metaphor compresses an
+explanation. A bad one is decoration. Reach for the sea, the sky, the
+old crafts of navigation (charts, sextants, lighthouses, dead
+reckoning, the lookout in the crow's nest) before reaching for
+software metaphors. Use one strong image, not three weak ones.
+
+**4. Wonder without hype.** "Magical" is a word to *earn*, not to
+*claim*. Describe what the system does so precisely that the reader
+arrives at wonder on their own. Never tell the reader something is
+amazing.
+
+**5. Respect the reader.** Boaters are intelligent adults operating
+expensive, dangerous machines in weather. Write to that person. Don't
+explain what AIS is in a release note for someone who has been using
+AIS for ten years. Don't dumb down; don't show off.
+
+**6. Short, then long, then short.** Vary sentence length on purpose.
+A run of short sentences feels urgent. A long sentence with two commas
+and a clause can do work the short ones can't. End paragraphs on a
+short one when you want the reader to look up from the page.
+
+---
+
+## 3. Vocabulary
+
+### Prefer
+- **Verbs of perception:** see, watch, glance, scan, spot, notice,
+  glimpse, sweep, track, read, hear, feel.
+- **Verbs of motion:** glide, lift, settle, drift, swing, hold, steady,
+  cut, carry, run.
+- **Sea nouns:** chop, swell, wake, set, drift, fetch, lee, bearing,
+  heading, fix, mark, watch, stand, pass.
+- **Craft nouns:** chart, lens, mirror, compass, sextant, lighthouse,
+  lookout, log, almanac.
+- **Plain English:** use, help, show, find, fix, faster, clearer,
+  steadier, simpler.
+
+### Avoid
+- **Empty superlatives:** amazing, incredible, revolutionary,
+  game-changing, world-class, best-in-class, next-generation.
+- **Corporate filler:** leverage, robust, seamless, frictionless,
+  empower, unlock value, solutions, ecosystem (when used as
+  metaphor for a product line), synergy, holistic.
+- **Tech-bro tics:** "we're excited to announce," "stay tuned,"
+  "delight," "magical experience," "AI-powered" as an adjective,
+  "reimagined."
+- **Weasel words:** various, several, certain, some, many (when a
+  number would do).
+- **Vague verbs:** enable, facilitate, provide, deliver, drive
+  (as in "drive engagement").
+
+### Punctuation and rhythm
+- Em dashes are welcome and earn their keep.
+- Semicolons over the comma splice; both over the run-on.
+- One exclamation point per document, maximum. Usually zero.
+- No emoji in product copy. (Emoji are fine in casual Slack.)
+- Oxford comma, yes.
+- Sentence-case headings, not Title Case Marketing Headlines.
+
+---
+
+## 4. Patterns that work
+
+### The vignette opener (Johnson)
+Open longer pieces with a moment — a specific boat, a specific
+afternoon, a specific near-miss — and pull back to the point. The
+reader will follow a story further than they will follow a thesis.
+
+### The taxonomy (Rose)
+When introducing a new feature category, give it a name and a kind. In
+*Enchanted Objects*, Rose categorizes by archetype (the wand, the
+talisman, the charm). LOOKOUT features can be grouped by what *sense*
+they extend: sight (horizon line, AR overlays), memory (track replay),
+hearing (alerts), reach (remote camera).
+
+### The hummingbird (Johnson)
+When a small improvement enables a larger one, say so. "Smoother
+streaming" is fine. "Smoother streaming, which is what lets the new
+horizon line stay locked to the sea even in a beam swell" is the
+hummingbird — and it's better writing because it's truer.
+
+### The honest small thing (LOOKOUT)
+Not every release is a story. Sometimes a bug is a bug. When the work
+is small, say so plainly. Padding a bug-fix release with adjectives is
+how trust erodes. "Reconnection bug fixes and startup hardening" is a
+good sentence. Don't gild it.
+
+### Show the seam (Rose)
+Rose often shows the join between old craft and new tech: a wooden
+umbrella stand that knows the weather. Where LOOKOUT bridges old and
+new — a chart and an AR overlay, a paper logbook and a track replay —
+name the bridge.
+
+---
+
+## 5. Calibration by surface
+
+Different surfaces need different dials. The voice is constant; the
+volume changes.
+
+| Surface | Length | Voice notes |
+|---|---|---|
+| Patch release notes | 1–5 bullets | Plain, precise. No vignettes. A small phrase of *why* on at least one bullet if there's one to give. |
+| Minor release notes | 4–8 bullets | One bullet may carry a hint of story or consequence. Keep the rest crisp. |
+| Major release notes | Short opener + grouped bullets | Two or three sentences up top to frame the release. Group bullets by the sense they extend, or by the part of the experience they touch. |
+| Blog post / essay | Long form | Vignette opener. Long zoom. Earn the wonder. Bring in history if it is genuinely relevant, not as decoration. |
+| Support reply | A paragraph or two | Plain, warm, specific. Name the thing, name the fix, name the next step. No marketing voice. |
+| Social / short post | One or two sentences | Concrete image. No hashtags as punctuation. |
+| Email to customers | Three paragraphs at most | One reason for the email. One ask or update. One human sign-off. |
+
+---
+
+## 6. Before / after
+
+These are rewrites of real LOOKOUT release-note lines to show the voice
+in motion. The originals are not wrong — they are just under-written.
+
+**Before:** Improved cloud updating mechanism.
+**After:** Updates now arrive quietly in the background, without
+asking the helm for attention.
+
+**Before:** Faster frame rate and smoother stream.
+**After:** A faster frame rate. The view now reads the way the water
+moves — without the small hitch that used to pull the eye.
+
+**Before:** Horizon detection.
+**After:** A horizon line, drawn where the sea actually meets the sky
+— so the overlay holds steady when the boat doesn't.
+
+**Before:** Automatic horizon stabilization when IMU data is available,
+including support for manual roll offset.
+**After:** When the boat heels, the overlay no longer heels with it.
+The IMU keeps the horizon level; a manual roll offset is there for
+mounts that aren't.
+
+**Before:** Various smaller stability improvements and bug fixes.
+**After:** A handful of small fixes and steadier behavior in edge
+cases. (Use this line as is. Don't dress it up.)
+
+**Before:** New neural network with improved detection.
+**After:** A new detection model. It sees smaller marks, sooner, and
+mistakes fewer waves for boats.
+
+**Before:** Cleaner chart presentation with reduced vector symbols and
+simplified styling.
+**After:** The chart is quieter. Fewer symbols, simpler lines — so the
+things that matter at a glance are the things that show up first.
+
+---
+
+## 7. A short checklist before you publish
+
+Run any LOOKOUT-bylined piece through these eight questions.
+
+1. Is there a concrete image in the first sentence?
+2. Have I used a verb of perception or motion where I could have used
+   "enable" or "provide"?
+3. Did I claim "magical" or "amazing" — or did I describe something
+   precisely enough that the reader feels it?
+4. Are there any words from the *Avoid* list in section 3?
+5. Is there at least one sentence that varies the rhythm — a short one
+   among long ones, or a long one among short?
+6. If a metaphor is doing work, is it from the sea, the sky, or the
+   old crafts of navigation?
+7. Have I respected the reader as someone who knows boats?
+8. Could I cut a third of the words without losing meaning? (Try it.
+   You usually can.)
+
+If a piece passes all eight, ship it.