Vaughn Tan
@vaughn_tan
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uncertainty, not-knowing, open-ended goals, open-ended roles Now: https://t.co/HjUmGnoemk Farcaster: https://t.co/wY16njCHe3
Marseille
Joined January 2008
I’m back on the newsletter game after 3 months off. From relocating back home to Singapore to using tradeoffs to navigate global uncertainty, here’s what I’ve been doing — and what’s coming next. https://t.co/ESsEX18pRI
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This week's newsletter: Machine-made prose looks too finished right out of the box. Your brain shifts from "is this my argument?" to "should I break this sentence?" The slow work of struggling with incomplete thoughts—that's where thinking happens. https://t.co/KtMJP1Sq1p
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How to teach org knowledge that can't be written down: Make work concrete and public ASAP Give outcome-focused feedback Use concrete examples Sounds haphazard/inefficient, but producesx more effective learning than conventional training programmes. https://t.co/qTAqb3tGJ4
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: The most important knowledge in any organisation—what makes your work distinctively yours—can’t be written down or taught through training
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Businesses need cheap small-scale automation which is already feasible. But mindsets and procurement systems built for around expensive-to-build software can't figure out how to buy these Boring Tiny Tools. Imagination failure, not technical barrier. https://t.co/ubKFOzXK4P
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: Small-medium businesses are missing a huge opportunity because of three imagination failures: they believe digital transformation must be big
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This week's newsletter: Organisations need juniors to make subjective decisions but only give seniors practice making them. Then act surprised when they have succession problems. https://t.co/89imApxxDY
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This week's newsletter is about Boring Tiny Tools. Digital transformation fails when you buy Big Fancy Software. What works: narrow-scoped tools that fit seamlessly into existing workflows. https://t.co/fYnBkejqAr
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Your £2.8M digital transformation platform is gathering dust while your team uses spreadsheets. The problem isn't the platform. It's building for millions when you need precision for dozens. I wrote about Boring Tiny Tools—the inverse of VC-mode software: https://t.co/vOuURfZltF
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: This essay is about Boring Tiny Tools—why they’re the way forward for digital transformation. Generative AI coding tools now enable
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Being productively uncomfortable is an everyday superpower. It lets you function and excel when working in unfamiliar situations, facing unpleasant ideas, or doing things you don't know how to do yet. Train it systematically: https://t.co/tUM2BTdg32
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i wrote a reading list for learning how to do nothing https://t.co/iS2iXP8SeN
vaughntan.org
For 3 years during Covid, I lived in crumbling houses in depopulated hamlets on two different mountains in the Haute-Loire, one of the departements
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"Private companies can optimize for a small set of outcomes and stakeholders, and work to short time horizons, but the public sector must serve diverse stakeholders and desired outcomes, and work to indefinite time horizons." by @vaughn_tan
https://t.co/qRgCKMQpyJ
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this week my newsletter is about redesigning workshops for online-ness; finding books in space (with situated memory); headlessness, 3D-printed boats, AI energy usage, climate models, mendacity. https://t.co/kyUc5kx8Hn
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I'm back from a brief hiatus with a new newsletter issue about: Public value and public strategy; what I've been up to; electric anxiety; Rupertness in polyhedra, rewritable pads, tape clips, zip ties; trees, cats, dogs. https://t.co/HwfqXNjRxJ
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just updated my now page for the first time since july. it was a lot of stuff. have a look:
vaughntan.org
The last time I wrote here, it was 20 July, 2025. The late summer and fall months between then and now were unusually densely packed. July I was in
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I spoke today at the Institute of Public Administration on why borrowing private sector strategic thinking and values undermines public strategy — and a practical tool that uses tradeoffs to develop more robust public strategy. Read about the talk here:
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: Why borrowing private sector strategic thinking and values undermines public strategy — and a practical tool for using tradeoffs to develop
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My newsletter this week is about infrastructure for human subjective reasoning; walking in a forest; dynamic moulds, San Francisco malls, Kryptos, television; seven-coloured water. https://t.co/iCEB5UAq4r
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i wrote about what reasoning scaffolds are, why they are interesting and important, and how to develop a practical research program about them. https://t.co/tBYvGaGcz3
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: Every important decision requires subjective reasoning about objective facts—deciding what matters and why. Yet we have almost no explicit
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among other things, i've been prototyping a reasoning scaffold for a couple months. a reasoning scaffold helps its user think more clearly when doing subjective reasoning. https://t.co/w6Hu7SmNbj
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: I’ve been prototyping an AI tool that uses Socratic mirroring to build a reasoning scaffold that helps users develop stronger arguments.
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The tool is fully functional. Testers benefit by improving an actual argument (e.g., for a class paper, a policy plan, a business model, or a strategy proposal). If you want to test the tool and/or learn more about it as it develops, please let me know:
docs.google.com
This form is for collecting general expressions of interest in Confidence Interval, an AI tool for learning critical thinking, and for expressions of interest in testing the first instance of the...
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I’ve been prototyping a critical thinking tool + testing it at universities, corporations, startups, and government. The method generalises: Users doing real work with real stakes find it useful enough to want their institutions to provide it. https://t.co/w6Hu7SmNbj
vaughntan.org
tl;dr: I’ve been prototyping an AI tool that uses Socratic mirroring to build a reasoning scaffold that helps users develop stronger arguments.
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this week, my newsletter is about: An AI tool for learning critical thinking while using AI tools; Tunisia and structured elicitation; various perspectives on how to use AI; developments in zippertech. https://t.co/de7Lxu6PiS
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