Social Architecture

= Social architecture is the intentional use of social media in the design of how people work. [1]

Definition

"Social architecture is the conscious design of an environment that encourages certain social behavior leading towards some goal or set of goals." [2]

or: Social architecture is a user experience oriented approach to the design and analysis of social tools. (Stowe Boyd)

Discussion

Andrew Gent:

"By environment I mean a bounded set of physical or virtual structures, functions, or events where people interact.

I say "certain social behavior" because you are designing for specific interactions with the aim of achieving some goal. You are not designing a generic space where people congregate and interact in whatever way they please. (Unless, of course, that will achieve your goal.) You are designing towards some purpose, such as encouraging conservation (wiserEarth) or grassroots sharing of ideas and innovation (barcamps).

On the other hand, I am intentionally vague about what constitutes an "environment". If we are just speaking of digital spaces, then there is very little difference between "social architecture" and "information architecture" or "interaction design". Designers of social software might very well call themselves "social media architects". But that is not inclusive of everything that is needed to instigate and drive social behavior. Barcamp is an example that requires digital spaces to organize, but also a physical space and event logistics to pull off." (http://incrediblydull.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-architecture.html)

History

Andrew Gent [3]:

1. Stowe Boyd defined it in 2005. Although he appears to define it as an existant state ("the foundation of the blogosphere") rather than as a specific activity. [4]
2. Sam Huweatt describes it in his blog. His definition is very similar to what I outline above. He also makes a distinction between social architecture and social media architects. [5]
3. Christina Wodtke lists the elements of social architecture in her book Blueprints for the Web (summarized in A List Apart). [6]
4. In his slide presentation on Social Architecture: Modeling the Next Generation, Sean Madden makes the point that "social networks have limitless potential but we need to work towards designing them that way." [7]
5. Amy Jo Kim, in her bio, defines herself as designing "social games and social architecture[s]". Her book Community Building on the Web pre-dates much of what we now consider social software, but is still the pre-eminent text on designing for social interaction. She also calls her blog "Musings of a Social Architect". [8]

More Information

1. Value Sensitive Design
2. Protocollary Power