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)
Description
Pieter H. :
"Social Architecture by analogy with conventional architecture, is the process, and the product, of planning, designing, and growing an on-line community. Social architectures, in the form of on-line communities, are the cultural and political symbols, and works of art of the Digital Society. The 21st century will be identified with its surviving social architectures.
As Social Architects, we participate in communities, we identify successful naturally-occurring patterns, or we develop new patterns, and we apply these deliberately to our own architectures. We apply psychology (our social instincts), economics (how we create common wealth through specialization and trade), politics (how we collect and share power), and technology (how we communicate). We continually adapt our toolkit based on new knowledge and experience. Our goal is to create on-line communities that accurately solve the problems we identify, that grow healthily, and that survive by themselves.
All successful communities are based on the inherent contract of mutual benefit. That is, it is possible to build a billion-dollar business based on volunteer labor, but only if every participant contributes for selfish reasons. Often participants do not realize, or care, that they are part of a community. However, every single act is economic. Thus, "crowd sourcing" (as the exploitation-for-profit of volunteer labor is sometimes called) only works when the crowd really wants to solve the problems you throw at it." (http://softwareandsilicon.com/chapter:2#toc5)
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)
Gender-biased social architecture
Pieter H.:
"Fundamentally, Social Architecture rests on psychology. If you believe human behavior is socially indoctrinated, you will make a poor social architect. If you look at psychology as an evolved set of mental tools that are sharpened and polished by experience, you will do much better. Many of these tools are gender weighted, i.e. they are more male or more female. This affects how we organize. Let me summarize some key differences between the male and female minds:
- Human males organize around problems and opportunities for profit. They create temporary alliances based on mutual need and capabilities. Males communicate by boasting, telling stories, describing possibilities, developing plans and tactics, and expressing dominance. Male power is a function of number of followers. Male minds accept authority, so long as it is competent. They are happy to become part of a larger group, if that group will win some prize. Male social debt is measured in favors.
- Human females organize around knowledge of people and events. They create long-lasting peer-to-peer networks based on mutual value. Females communicate by exchanging knowledge about people and events. While male stories are "What I did last summer", female stories are "what he and she did last summer". Female power is a function of network size and quality. Female minds detest authority. They are happy to be part of a larger group, but not anonymously, and for knowledge, rather than material rewards. Female social debt is measured in knowledge.
We can classify social architectures as more "blue" (male oriented) or "pink" (female oriented). Most of the patterns I've described in this chapter are blue. That is, you will not use them successfully to create communities aimed at women.
However, the top web sites have all succeeded in attracting fairly equal gender ratios. In Facebook and Twitter, women dominate by almost 60-40. The news portals (Yahoo!, Live.com, and QQ) appear to attract more women than men. I can't find figures for YouTube and Blogger but would assume these are fairly balanced, like the search engines. Wikipedia is perhaps the only solidly "blue" architecture, and as I'd expect, heavily dominated by male contributors.
Look at Facebook's slogan: "helps you connect and share with the people in your life". It's aimed directly at women and the way female minds measure status and power: how many people you know, and what they know. Twitter's slogan is fluffy: "Follow your interests. Instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what's happening around the world". It clearly works, but feels alien to my male mind.
Facebook and Twitter succeed with men despite their pink exteriors. Facebook says to men, silently: "helps you stay in touch with women", and Twitter's unspoken slogan for guys is "whomever collects the most followers wins".
So the evidence suggests that to build a web site that gets massive traffic, you need to attract women first, men second. It's the nightclub model. If you want to build a community that thinks fast, and solves complex problems accurately, you should focus mainly on the male mind and its psychology of collaboration and competition.
Male and female society are very disjoint, even when counter-gender indoctrination starts at an early age. But human society is a whole, and male hierarchies do connect to, and depend on, female networks. There are digital architectures waiting to be discovered that connect these elegantly and naturally." (http://softwareandsilicon.com/chapter:2#toc5)
History
Andrew Gent [3]:
- 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]
- 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]
- Christina Wodtke lists the elements of social architecture in her book Blueprints for the Web (summarized in A List Apart). [6]
- 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]
- 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]