Simon Wardley Profile picture
Dec 1, 2021 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
The civilization graph. Call it the 'Map' - medium.com/@trentmc0/star… ... no, why not call it the "Graph" ...
Maps and Graphs are not the same thing. In a map, space has meaning which is why they are useful in exploring landscapes.
A 16 year (so far) mission to get the world to look at its topology (not just geographic but economic, social and political). This does require people to look at maps and not graphs.

Graphs are better than no graph but we can do better with maps and eventually better maps.
X : Why does it matter?
Me : Context. You will never understand how China plays the game, where digital sovereignty matters, how to organise yourself or even how to apply basic methods without context.
X : I disagree.
Me : Ok ...
Me : Take a really simple systems graph. On this graph, tell me what you should outsource, what you should build in-house? It's all guess work that varies with time in patterns that you cannot see without "hand waving" ...
Me : Now turn it into a chain. Add a focus like users at the top. You can call it what you want - a value chain, a supply chain. Try telling me what you should build in-house, what to outsource. Again, all guess work.
Me : Now, turn that into a map. Suddenly we can start to have more sensible discussions on what to outsource, what to build in-house ...
Me : For reference, this is how you would run that project (in 2012), which they did - delivering ahead of schedule and under budget in a world where 74% of "digital transformation" failed ...
Me : This is the general pattern learned from a decade+ of mapping which they applied ...
Me : That pattern is one of 30 common economic patterns derived from mapping which themselves are a subset of over 180+ general patterns ...
Me : Now try looking at more complicated issues such as nation state competition without a map using graphs i.e. supply chains. You have no hope of seeing what is actually happening. Don't get me wrong - graphs are better than stories but you need maps to understand a landscape.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Simon Wardley

Simon Wardley Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @swardley

May 9
dX: How do you deal with strategy?
Me: First, we need to answer the Where question, which depends a lot on the what and why.
dX: And?
Me: Ok, some very simple steps ...
Step 1: Visualise your environment. That means getting people to discuss, collaborate & challenge in order to create a "good enough" map of your environment. Should be a couple of hours.
Step 2: Look at what's changing which is competitor moves, your moves & economic patterns.
Step 3: Using the map, determine where you could invest/focus on. You're not making a decision yet, you just want the options. By now, you could have spent four hours on the exercise.
Step 4: Decide where you should invest i.e. look at the options using why & what
Read 8 tweets
May 5
Those born in the 1890s experienced electrification, telephone, radio, television, nuclear age, penicillin, two world wars, commercial flight, computer age and a moon landing. By the 60s we had AI, VR and 3D printing.

Today, we have the internet / www and have improved stuff.
Is it me, or is human progress slowing down? Great breakthroughs, moments of change, and radical transformations seem like a thing of the past. What we call "revolutions" in industry today seems mostly a marketing slogan.
If you think back to 1957 and the Mark I Perceptron machine that was built at Cornell, then consider the changes in the previous 60 years ... you can't help but think they would be bitterly disappointed with how slow we have progressed in the following 60 years.
Read 17 tweets
Mar 25
No surprises, this was clearly signalled back in 2015.

During this decade has the US disentangled its reliance on China in the semiconductor industry?

I'll let you guess.
We will be entering a phase in which the US high-tech industry (including the military complex) is highly dependent upon China, whilst China is not dependent upon the US.
For those who doubt how clear the intentions were ... go read Made in China, 2025.

China's government made its intentions evident in 2015. The US sabre rattling of sanctions reinforced that purpose whilst the US essentially continued with a misguided "market knows best" policy.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 5
A couple of prompts with Claude 3 creates a Wardley Map for economic sovereignty in the defence space.

Not bad at all -

On par with political, military and defence folk I've spoken to. I'm also finding I can have a reasonable discussion about mapping with Claude 3.onlinewardleymaps.com/#clone:XvHskIi…Image
It's not perfect but it's not bad. There's more I want to interrogate Claude over ... i.e. the link to secure sourcing, the positioning of some components etc. But it's almost good enough that I can start a discussion over strategy and investment.
Anyway, upshot is that Claude 3, from my perspective, has left ChatGPT4 in the dust. Of course, I'll use Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to cross-compare for now but if I do start building anything more complex then the obvious path is AWS Bedrock which gives me Mistral etc.
Read 15 tweets
Feb 28
dX: What is the single most significant problem facing AI today? Safety? Lack of skills? Inertia?
Me: Overinflated expectations by the business.
dX: You don't think AI will become widespread?
Me: Of course, it will; industrialised components are rapidly becoming cost of doing business. Don't confuse that with expectations. There will be an awful lot of disappointed businesses hoping it would create some advantage.
dX: I don't understand.
Me: Imagine you're just finishing off your plan for how AI will revolutionise your business. Six months for budget approval, one year to build team, 18 months to deliver something ... that's 3 years from now. Any advantage you thought of is long gone.
Read 9 tweets
Feb 16
For those who don't know, I'm working increasingly on and with Glamorous Toolkit - ... I have become fascinated by our willingness to blame humans for problems that are created by our toolsets ...gtoolkit.com
... I saw this last night at Cloud Camp. Apparently, the issues with understanding, explainability and observability in AI are down to humans' inability to deal with complex environments... no, they're not. The problem is with the tools and the type of tools we are creating ...
... we've imported concepts from a physical world where tools are constrained by physics - hence a hammer is a hammer, a drill is a drill - into a world without such constraints. Rather than building contextual tools, we've built constrained tools.
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(