There are many difficult challenges facing organisations today. Business faces an apparent crisis of trust or at least a much more sceptical and less loyal customer base than they have enjoyed in the past. Meanwhile, public sector bodies, especially government agencies are struggling to deliver new online servicesto their customers and stakeholders in the face of exaggerated expectations and ambitious policy targets. More generally, organisations of all kinds are wrestling with the need to achieve meaningful interaction between customers, partners and staff, and many see online applications and services as the answer.

Companies, public organisations and governments have invested huge amounts of time and money on intranets, Web sites and networked enterprise software hoping to solve some of these problems and achieve efficiencies and increased competitiveness. Yet many are still struggling with the process of change required to truly exploit new technology, and few can claim to have grasped the human issues surrounding its adoption.

Various studies show that these systems usually turn out to be more expensive, harder to implement, less flexible and significantly less effective than their developers claim is the case. PA Consulting found in July 2000 that 92% of companies were disappointed with expensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations, whilst in the worst cases of failure, companies claimed to be losing over $100mas a result of failed enterprise software projects. In the public sector, there has been much debate about why their IT projects often fail to deliver, with some blaming internal cultural issues and otherspointing the finger at mercenary suppliers . For users, enterprise software, corporate intranets and some public Web sites are often perceived as overly-bureaucratic, inflexible systems rather than tools for innovation and empowerment. For purchasers, the issues are even clearer: increasing investment is producing only marginal returns if at all, and user participation is below predicted levels.

In some respects, this first wave of online communication technology adoption is coming to an end and the key issues now are about uptake, usage and assimilation – in other words: making it work. In most cases, the answer is not necessarily to continue building bigger and more centralised software systems, but to support smaller, simpler distributed networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Continuing to build bigger and more complicated systems is actually the opposite of what is needed to unlock the human potential such systems were designed to tap. Indeed, as we shall see, the concept of enterprise software itself is grounded in out-dated “process thinking” and does not sit well with our current understanding of organisations as living systems.

Whilst the first wave of online applications was characterised by large, centralised top-down implementations driven by a command-and-control mentality, the outlines of an alternative approach that is informed by new thinking about social networks and online behaviour is coming into focus. This approach is driven not by major IT vendors, but by rapid innovation occurring “in the wild”, where free or almost free online social applications are achieving usage levels and a depth of user engagement that enterprise software purchasers can only dream about. It is smarter, simpler and social.

This paper aims to provide an overview of what is being called ‘social software’ or ‘online social applications’, tracing their roots in online community thinking and identifying some of their underlying features. It will also examine some of the emerging perspectives on social networks and online behaviour that might help us understand how to develop better online social applications, and it will suggest a methodology for creating meaningful online social applications around existing social networks and stakeholders.