Toronto City Planning has, on several occasions, recommended the use of a “Charrette” or “Design Charrette”. This was recently recommended in connection with the development of a North Downtown Yonge Street Planning Framework. A one-day event was held on 2011 September30 as a part of developing that Planning Framework. It was called a “Charrette” and a representative cross-section of stakeholders were invited to participate.

Background: Urban Planning and Design is both a local and a provincial concern. Toronto has a fully qualified professional urban planning staff. Their recommendations are developed after consultation with all stakeholders. Those recommendations are reviewed by the appropriate Community Council consisting of elected officials. The recommendations of the Community Councils are then reviewed by the entire City Council. Errors in law are subject to review by the courts. The Ontario Muncipal Board, or the OMB, is a "special" body.

There is unlikely to be one best way to organize your thoughts. How you ought to proceed will depend on a host of factors. It could depend on: you, your background, the subject, its depth of treatment, and the audience. The concern, here, is with a more modest question of the best (open source) software to use in helping organize your thoughts.

Years ago, I had the good fortune to work with Eric Trist. He introduced me to the socio-tech view of systems, and to Search Conferences. Soon thereafter, I decided to test the ideas that I had been professing as an academic. I joined a national management consulting firm. The socio-tech way of seeing the world has proved its value on numerous occasions in the years that followed. But I never found a way to apply Search Conferences in my consulting work.

Introduction

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone developed the Computing Body of Knowledge? In my view, that’s an unattainable goal. The problem is that computing is too broad a field. This article is my effort to explain what might be achieved, and what will forever remain an unattainable mirage.