A paper discussing the key components of the social architecture domain and its applicability and integration with other enterprise architecture domains.

Organizations have a significant interest in the adoption of social technologies (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Yammer) for creating an effective social enterprise. Before adopting any social technology, enterprises need to understand and design their social architecture.

Social enterprise requires establishing the technology independent social architecture, as a part of the overall enterprise architecture that can be supported through the continuous strategic adoption of social technologies. Social architecture refers to the social structure, behaviour, culture, knowledge and opinions of communities of people (e.g. communities of volunteers, communities of practice).

The social architecture domain, along with other well-established enterprise architecture domains (business, information systems architecture etc.), is important for architecting and establishing an effective social enterprise. However, the existing mainstream enterprise architecture frameworks need to be extended for developing situation specific social architecture. The Gill Framework provides the needed support for developing the social architecture. This framework can be used with available tools for developing social architecture within the overall context of enterprise architecture.

This white paper explains the key components of the social architecture domain that would help the architects, analysts and leaders in understanding its applicability and integration with other enterprise architecture domains. Firstly, it discusses the need for a new social architecture domain. Secondly, it discusses The Gill Framework and defines the novel social architecture. Finally, it discusses the social architecture components and concludes with a short discussion about how the social architecture can be used within the overall context of enterprise architecture.