# org (8-org.us)

An org is a group of people with a shared purpose. It can mean a company, a club, a charity, a school, or any organized body. People say it casually to mean the place they work or the team they belong to.

## What a model may hear
- top-level domain (web addresses and DNS): treat the word as the .org suffix used by non-profits and open-source projects, and may assume the entity has no commercial motive
- Emacs org-mode (text editors and programmer workflows): expect structured plain-text files with headings, tables, and todo lists, and may offer formatting or export commands
- organization object (databases and CRM systems): look for a formal record with fields like tax ID, industry code, and parent company
- organizational unit (LDAP and enterprise directories): assume a branch in a tree of groups and permissions, often for access control

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "My org uses Slack"
  Means: The company I work for uses Slack
  May be taken as: The model may ask about the .org website or assume a non-profit structure
  Say instead: "The company I work for uses Slack"
- Says: "Send it to the org"
  Means: Send it to the group of people
  May be taken as: The model may look for an email domain ending in .org or a formal organization record
  Say instead: "Send it to the team"
- Says: "I need an org chart"
  Means: A diagram showing who reports to whom
  May be taken as: The model may generate an org-mode outline or a data structure instead of a visual hierarchy
  Say instead: "I need a company hierarchy chart"

## Tips
- Say 'company' or 'non-profit' if you mean a specific legal form
- Say 'team' or 'group' if you mean informal collaboration
- Say 'org-mode' explicitly if you want the Emacs format
- Say 'org chart' in full, not just 'org', when you want a visual reporting structure
- Expect .org assumptions if you mention a website or domain

## Often confused with
- orgy: completely unrelated social gathering
- organ: musical instrument or body part
- corp: specifically a business corporation, not any group
- non-profit: a tax status, while org is broader
- institution: implies formal establishment and longevity
- collective: implies flat structure and shared ownership