Yesterday and today the MEDICHI Workshop on the Methodic and Didactic Challenges of the History of Informatics takes place here at the Klagenfurt University. Yesterday Michael S. Mahoney opened the workshop with a keynote talk about the history of software. The talk of Niklaus Wirth has been read by Ann Dünki, as Niklaus Wirth couldn’t come. Both talks were very interesting and recordings will be available on the Klagenfurt University Campus TV. However Ann Dünki said something very interesting: She tried to distinguish between complex and complicated systems:

Complex systems can be defined as systems that have emergent properties, which we observe but cannot understand easily.

My question: Social Software also has emergent structures and properties. So can we define social software as complex system?