Combining BPM and social software: contradiction or chance?

Due to many success stories, social software received much attention in public and academia. Although it is widely used for business support, its relationship with business process management has not been analysed. The results of the workshop on Business Process Management and Social Software as part of the international conference on Business Process Management in Milano workshop show the manifold possibilities to join concepts from business process management and social software. Social software offers new possibilities for a more flexible design of business processes and provides a better integration of employees. Particularly knowledge intensive processes may profit from social software techniques. Also the modelling of business processes may profit from using social software techniques. Social software can also be used in the implementation and deployment phase of the business process lifecycle. Thus it is also possible to provide workflow support in a social software environment. The use of social software also requires new considerations about digital identity and reputation in business processes.