Evolutionary systems design: A soft technology for hard challenges

This paper explores the nature of technology as simultaneously socially constructed and society‐shaping. In particular, it examines how soft technologies such as evolutionary systems design (ESD) can create the conditions for the emergence of evolutionary learning community. It is suggested that the purposeful design of societal evolutionary guidance systems need not be considered an issue of planned engineering nor one of fortuitous emergence, but rather is best approached as an issue of co‐creative, purposeful, participatory design. To support this assertion, the following four objectives are dealt with: •• to present the concept of technology as an aspect of culture;•• to distinguish various types and classes of technology, from hard to soft;•• to consider ESD as a soft technology for sustainable human systems development in harmony with general evolutionary processes; and•• to provide a case example of ESD as a means for individual and group empowerment in an emerging knowledge economy.