Abstract: Technology has always inspired social change, but its scale and complexity have begun to bewilder even the politicians and policymakers. Several recent national foresight studies point to a need for socio-organizational or “soft” technologies to help Europe manage change and respond to major new economic opportunities. Research is required in fields such as neuro-linguistic programming, the psychology of knowledge management and the ergonomics of the man-machine interface. “Electronic pets” showed that we can learn to love machines – now the challenge is to embed technology in such a way as to marry science with society.