Writings

All writings by Simon Wardley, from 2006 to present.

2026

(47 posts)

[Me & X] SaaS is dead?

On why 'SaaS is dead' misses the nuance of evolution from timeshare to rental to utility — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] UK supply chain department

On why the UK needs a department of the supply chain for technological and economic landscape awareness — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] UK values and defence

On British strategic principles, standing by values under pressure, and the tradition of pragmatic statecraft — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] AI sovereignty and China

On China's AI regulations, training data sovereignty, and the coming battle between open and closed AI — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] A thousand hours of vibe coding

On discovering that complex AI-built apps often reduce to spreadsheets and the real value of vibe coding is finding the right questions — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] Three schools of thought on AI

On the three schools of thought about AI and software engineering: Replace People, Replace Tasks, and the mythical No Change — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] Healthcare not sickcare

On the NHS, PROMs vs ClinROs, and why a blank-page target operating model should start with healthcare not sickcare — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Thoughts on OpenClaw

On PicoClaw, AGI emergence, a satirical Reuters 2072 report, and the cathedral vs bazaar of intelligence — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

On the question of debt

Four types of debt in systems: technical, evolutionary, cognitive, and epistemic — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

[Me & X] Epistemic debt

On executives not looking at code, delegation of comprehension, epistemic debt and the Roman Empire parallel — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Reasoning vs output

On reasoning vs button pressing, commoditisation of output and earning power — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Winners in vibe coding

On winners in vibe coding, timeline predictions, intelligent agents and spimescript — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] AWS Sovereign Cloud

On AWS Sovereign Cloud, the CLOUD Act, and territorial vs technological sovereignty — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Is Eric Schmidt right?

On Eric Schmidt being wrong, AI wranglers, and contextual tools you build not buy — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Happiness or production?

On optimising for happiness with prototypes vs production with understanding and lots of swearing — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

2025

(60 posts)

[Me & X] Dismissive of AGI?

On AGI emerging from 100 billion dumb things, competition etymology, online gaming, and a satirical Reuters 2072 report — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Data centres in space

On data centres in space, jurisdictional arbitrage, GDPR vs CLOUD Act in orbit, and private banking in space — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] AI for Prediction

On AI limitations in prediction, hallucinations worth exploring, ah-ha moments, and truth vs coherence — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Brexit, the EU and Elon

On Brexit, EEA/EFTA, the European Commission and Elon Musk's suggestion to break up the EU — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Agentic Engineering

On whether software engineering is evolving into agentic engineering, craft vs engineering, and coherence engines — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Social Media Ban

On banning social media for under 16, AI for under 30, the market as tool of society, and coherence engines — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Do You Trust AI?

On not trusting LLMs, non-deterministic outputs, Condorcet jury theorem, and domain-dependent accuracy — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] Prompt Metadata as Signals

On prompt metadata as signal for future change, the ILC model, and the same pattern as cloud 2006-2010 — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Healthcare vs sickcare

On why we have sickcare systems that treat symptoms rather than healthcare systems that make people healthy — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] How to decide where to use AI

On using maps to decide where to apply AI: methods, team structure, investment, value assessment, and sovereignty — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] GPTs as Warfare

On GPTs as non-kinetic warfare, capturing decision-making, vendor-controlled values, and a chilling closing — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] AI for contracts

On using LLMs for contracts, probabilistic systems vs legal precision, and Meng Weng Wong — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] Critical thinking and AI

On why we don't teach enough critical thinking, education as economic production, and a civilisation fluent in everything except truth — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] HS2 and project management

On HS2, project management failures, weak executives and over reliance on large management consultancy firms — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] AI predictions

On why most AI predictions are already happening, surprisingly dull or wild guesses — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] How easy is it to learn to map?

On the gap between how easy mapping sounds and how hard it is in practice, when most companies barely understand their purpose — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] New practices in vibe coding

On why the new practices in AI and vibe coding are still emerging and why population studies take a decade — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Energy and AI

On energy demand from AI, grid infrastructure, mechanical inertia and why this has been foreseeable since 2013 — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] ChatGPT for search

On using AI for search, the explosion of search activity, beliefs vs facts and the danger of AI as religion — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Beliefs embedded in AI

On demonstrating how US/Libertarian beliefs are embedded in AI training data and the danger of AI as Wormtongue — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Energy sector mapping

On mapping the energy sector, social benefit vs market benefit and why only one out of 36 high priority areas aligned to the market — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] Vibe wranglers vs software engineers

On the difference between vibe wrangling and software engineering as distinct aptitudes and why wranglers mean more engineering not less — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Opinion] Vibe wrangling

On spending a day vibe wrangling with lovable.dev, why the tools fight you, and why pen and paper still wins — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

[Me & X] The evolution axis

On the origins of the evolution axis in Wardley Maps, six months of hell, 9221 publications and why nothing worth having is ever easy — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

On Reason

On an unreasonable fascination with language, medium, tools and sovereignty — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

[Opinion] Digital sovereignty without maps

On ChatPPT consultants discussing digital sovereignty without maps, DVLA automotive mapping, and why there are no borders without landscapes — by Simon Wardley.

LinkedIn

2024

(7 posts)

Map evolution not maturity

Why vendors want you to “map” maturity and why you shouldn’t. — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

A quick and easy guide to measurement.

I’m frequently asked, “What are Wardley Maps good for”? Well, they are ideally suited for asking and exploring questions about a dynamic… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Wardley Maps and Cynefin

I am occasionally asked how to combine Wardley Maps with Cynefin. They are complementary tools, not a replacement for each other nor… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2023

(8 posts)

Are virtual roads the future?

Autonomous vehicles, digital twins, last-mile delivery, ridesharing, micro-mobility, transport hubs, hyperloop, decarbonisation, flying… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Maps as Code

Why the fuss about conversational programming? Part II — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2022

(3 posts)

Look before you leap

On the different types of situational awareness. — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2021

(5 posts)

2020

(4 posts)

2019

(6 posts)

2018

(3 posts)

What is an expert?

I often see examples where people add characteristics to a map or use new definitions for one of the axis. There’s nothing wrong with this… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Rebooting GDS

There has been a lot of chatter recently about rebooting GDS (Government Digital Service). Don’t get me wrong, GDS has made mistakes but… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2017

(20 posts)

Blue pill or red pill?

The strategy cycle is one of those simple mental devices which hides a world of complexity. On the surface, it’s all about observing the… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

… in 11 diagrams

To begin with, understand that strategy is a cycle. As you loop around the cycle then you will learn more about your environment and the… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Map Camp

Starting to think about what we need — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Map Camp — Day 1

I tweeted the idea of creating a Map Camp, a place where people who use mapping to understand complex environments can meet up to discuss. — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2016

(42 posts)

The map is not the territory

As the saying goes all models are wrong, some are merely useful. A map is simply an imperfect representation of the territory. This is… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

Why the fuss about serverless?

To explain this, I’m going to have to recap on some old work with a particular focus on co-evolution. — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

How to master strategy, as simply as I can …

Understand that strategy is a continuous cycle. You don’t have all the information you need, you don’t know all the patterns and there are… — by Simon Wardley.

Medium

2015

(60 posts)

2014

(115 posts)

2013

(99 posts)

[Archive] Future

Future — by Simon Wardley.

blog.gardeviance.org

[Archive] Open

Open — by Simon Wardley.

blog.gardeviance.org

2012

(50 posts)

2011

(39 posts)

2010

(19 posts)

2009

(67 posts)

2008

(211 posts)

2007

(163 posts)

[Archive] FOSDEM

FOSDEM — by Simon Wardley.

blog.gardeviance.org

2006

(64 posts)

[Archive] Zimki

Zimki — by Simon Wardley.

blog.gardeviance.org