Löhr and Veluwenkamp recast conceptual engineering as a participatory design problem governed by competing values rather than by philosophical ingenuity alone. Drawing on Value Sensitive Design, they argue that the assessment and creation of concepts should incorporate empirical inquiry into stakeholders, contexts of use, conflicts and indirect consequences. Their case of the technologically disrupted concept of the “colleague” demonstrates that conceptual transformation occurs where social roles, institutional norms and technical agents collide; no purely semantic repair can settle such a field. The paper’s key methodological operation is tripartite: conceptual investigation clarifies the structure of the concept, empirical investigation identifies situated values and practices, and technical or design-oriented investigation explores feasible interventions. This framework constrains the authority of the conceptual engineer by distributing judgment across affected communities. Its wider significance is political: concepts are infrastructures of recognition, and redesigning them is therefore inseparable from deciding whose experience counts, which futures remain available and how disagreement is incorporated into the architecture of collective meaning.