Book excerpt: All of us have learned a lot during this exercise, and the enormous success of the first edition of this book shows the great international interest for the topic and the results. A French edition appeared last year and met with equal interest. Springer-Verlag has therefore decided to publish a second edition of this book, which is not just a reprint but brings the literature and results to the newest state. This is a rare occurrence in the history of the LNCS series. We congratulate Thomas Schael on this success, and we are sure that reader- scientists and practitioners - will likewise profit from it. Aachen and Milan Giorgio De Michelis, Klaus Henning, Matthias Jarke August 1998 Preface to the Second Edition This book is a bit of a mixture of scientific and management literature. It is based on my research activities in the CSCW community, and also reflects the last ten years of my professional experience in consulting. I have had the opportunity to live in different cultural settings, to work in many companies, and to meet people all over the world, which has helped me to reflect on what I was doing and to focus on the content of this book. This second edition reflects the fast moving field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and the discussion on Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). It contains the latest developments in the scientific and managerial discussion of the issues developed in the first edition.