seeds and needs?

[Vince Coleman]

I ran accross the phrase シーズ調査 and ニーズやシーズ... here is some context

地域のニーズやシーズについて調査を行う

So I did a little digging and found that there are some Japanese sites
which use ニーズ&シーズ and translate this into "seeds and needs".... Which
is new English for me. Is this in common use? I checked "seeds and
needs" in google, and found a bunch of pages on planting and plants!!
But what I am dealing here in the original Japanese text is economic
terms.

I know "needs" is a common economic term in English, but "seeds"? Is
it ok to just say "seeds survey" and "conduct a survey of seeds and
needs for regional areas"???

[Vince Coleman]

Note: reading further into the text, it seems that "seeds" could
posibly represent the concept of "potential"... in other words, they
seem to be talking about the "needs and (business) potential of
regional areas"...

[Susan]

Past discussions of seeds and needs can be found in the archives at
http://honyaku-archive.org/ .

Also, here's an explanatory mention from Australia:

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0007/37663/sub043.rtf

What is the balance between the short-term harvesting of intellectual
capital and longer term investment in new capability? What is the
balance between "seeds" and "needs", as the American policy makers put
it: how much relative effort do we put into new thinking to solve
immediate industry needs, compared with effort directed at "seeding"
new economic opportunities?

Susan Mast
Lancaster, PA

[Hanae]

It was a fashionable catchphrase for a while. Maybe there was an English
original once, but I don't recall noticing it except in Japanese. I
think the seeds are supply-side, that is, the idea is that company
products or new technology or something sparks interest or demand in a
market, whereas "needs" are demand-side, originating from the market.

Kindly say if 'tisn't so, fellow Honyakkers!
Regards
Helen H

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