Go on, admit it: considering how many business buzzwords you know, you have already played buzzword bingo at least once in your “corporate life”.

Play buzzword bingo on your tablet, phone, computer in your next meeting, seminar, speech, class, or wherever. Take this bingo card on your laptop, tablet, or phone to your next meeting. Click the buzzwords as you hear them - the FREE square cannot be clicked. Buzzword Bingo - Presidential Debate #2 Bingo - Trump Tweet Bingo - More! How to play: Visit Conference Call Bingo and print one copy of this game card for each player, refreshing the page before each print, or have the players print their own bingo cards. The card is filled with “buzzwords” or “key terms” right from your lesson. As you present your lesson, students will mark off the “buzzword” from their cards. The great thing is this game can be played off a printable Buzzword Bingo card or you and your student can download the Buzzword Bingo App right onto your devices. Make your own custom Buzzword Bingo card. Enter a title and 25 or more keywords to generate your own Custom Buzzword Bingo card. Then take the bingo card on your laptop, tablet, or phone to your next meeting. Click the buzzwords as you hear them - the FREE square cannot be clicked. When you get five buzzwords in a row (up, down, diagonally.

You haven’t?

Well, maybe it’s time to start playing!

We have prepared some buzzwords for you. We have added their meaning, their origins, and some examples of how to use them in context. So you know what you are talking about.

We have also sprinkled some tech buzzwords to spice up your reading.

Fun Fact: The Origins of Bingo

A similar game was played as far back as 1530 in Italy.

The modern version was created by Hugh J. Ward in the early 1920s and was further popularized by Erwin Lowe. The name seems to be due to one of Lowe’s friends who yelled “Bingo!” when she won.

Playing buzzword bingo can be fun, but when you’re the one doing the presentation, you might want to avoid them (for the less funny situation when your colleagues decided to play the game without letting you know).

It’s not that you really want to use buzzwords instead of meaningful words, but sometimes you don’t know a good synonym for the buzzword.

We have started the list of buzzwords with our “pet peeves”: agile, proactive, and pivot. We will keep adding buzzwords to the list, so bookmark the article, you never know when you’ll find a “golden nugget”.

Let the Buzzword Bingo Begin!

Agile

Origin: From Latin agilis, from agere “to drive, be in motion, do, perform” + -ilis

First use: 14th century

Original Meaning:
– marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace an agile dancer
– having a quick resourceful and adaptable character an agile mind
– quick, smart, and clever

Origin of the buzzword: It was first used as part of the software development methodologies usually based on incremental and iterative development, and who adopted the Agile Manifesto (2001). Since then the meaning expanded to incorporate all the areas of a business and the company itself.

Playing the agile buzzword bingo. Some examples:
– agile software development
– agile leader
– agile buzzword bingo
– agile management practices
– organizational agility
– IT, marketing, or supply chain agility

You can replace the agile buzzword with:
– Accelerate the activities on the critical path
– React quickly
– Respond quickly to threats
– Learn and adapt fast
– Be quick to change the business models when needed
– Execute strategy faster than the competition
– Keep innovating
– Be quick to respond to customer feed-back
– Be able to anticipate change and implement it quickly
– Initiate action

Proactive

Origin: relating to, caused by, or being interference between previous learning and the recall or performance of later learning (e.g. proactive inhibition of memory).

First use: 1933

Origin of the buzzword: Until recently, the word reactive (as in people who tend to react to a problem only when it’s gotten serious) didn’t have an antonym.

Proactive was coined to describe the opposite of a reactive person.

In this sense, it means a person who is always looking into the future and acting in anticipation of future problems, needs and changes.

Playing the proactive buzzword bingo. Some examples:
– to take proactive steps to improve a situation
– a proactive approach
– a proactive attitude
– being proactive in finding answers to an important issue

What you can say instead:
– far-seeing
– forward-looking
– visionary
– discerning
– insightful
– sage
– wise

Pivot

Origin:
1: a shaft or pin on which something turns
2: a person, thing, or factor having a major or central role, function, or effect; a key player or position
3: the action of pivoting; especially : the action in basketball of stepping with one foot while keeping the other foot at its point of contact with the floor

Buzzword Bingo Online

First use: 14th century

Buzzword Bingo Template

Origin of the buzzword: Pivot has been used in the buzzword form starting from 2008 when Eric Ries published his famous bestselling book The Lean Startup.

Buzzword Bingo online, free

It means “structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy, and engine of growth“.

It implies not only a change of direction but more a sudden, rapid change of direction and focus. It implies that the company is essentially abandoning its previous efforts in order to make a concerted effort towards a new goal.

Translated: when plan A doesn’t work, it’s time for plan B.

Buzzword Bingo Online

Or, as Steve Blank puts it: “changing (or even firing) the plan instead of the executive (the sales exec, marketing or even the CEO)”

As seen in:
– pivot a business model
– pivot or persevere
– startup pivot

What to say instead: If you had enough of “pivot”, you can replace it with:

The initial idea (project, business model or test) didn’t work, it’s time to try something else.