This text discusses the emerging trend in product development and research that focuses on the increasingly important relationship between computer systems and social systems. The text emphasizes the significance of building tools to help people work together and the need for the identification of key factors within an organization to create systems more beneficial to users. Also contained are reviews of current research and discussions of both established tools, such as electronic mail and computer conferencing, and those newly developed programs that emphasize "work group" productivity over individual productivity.