Friday, December 08, 2006

zeitgeis

German word, technical term used in Planning
literal meaning: "zeit = time; geis = spirit"

I attended a lecture on planning today conducted by a German Professor Mattens (?).
It means combination of technical, practical factors combined with the social aspect or human feeling (in other words). Experience taught the Germans that it's vitally important to consider and establish participation and commitment from the people benefiting in order to ensure the continuous success of any project. Hmm, that's what we have been doing all along in public administration. A more familiar term is People's Involvement or People's participation. In public administration, stakeholder analysis is very important.

zeitgeis, as I got it, refers to an overall consideration and weighing of stakeholders in order to achieve a better planning output.

2 comments:

friend said...

My understanding is that it is the spirit of the age - it can be good or bad depending on the people and what they value at a given time - right now in America the Zeitgeist is - get, acquire, buy all to accumulate and to self-medicate and entertain - not the greatest zeitgeist - after 9-11 the zeitgeist was fear, patriotism and a return to faith - the faith part didn't last long, nor the patriotism, but I am sure the fear is still a part of our zeitgeist.

I pray for a revival of the Holy Spirit - and then the zeitgeist (or spirit) of the age might be compasison, mercy, justice, truth.

Pinay said...

Oh i see. it must be like that. thanks for sharing.