EAs: Use Social Technologies To Connect With Empowered HEROes

A challenging trend for enterprise architecture teams is extending their influence across the enterprise, and a prerequisite for achieving this influence is a deep understanding of "what's going on in business areas" — not just the formal strategies but also the frontline needs and initiatives. This grows particularly important as frontline business managers turn to self-service technology such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud, and social platforms to solve their business problems. Social technologies provide EA with better ways to listen to and advise these business HEROes — but only when approached from a community, not a technology, perspective. This report identifies the key challenges and steps EAs should take to engage HEROes.