Since this page went up in 1997, I have received occasional comments and requests about it. Below is a short history, contributor credits, and some additional buzzword references.
Return to Business Buzzword Bingo!
The original idea came from a Dilbert cartoon. During a particularly tedious department meeting in January 1997, I purposefully reeled off a long string of buzzwords. Only one of my colleagues, Lori Colleran, got the joke and replied "Bingo, sir" under her breath.
I decided to program a web page that creates buzzword bingo cards. This idea was not hugely original. The first buzzword bingo cards were probably driven by Tom Davis's little C program, from which Scott Adams presumably cribbed the idea for Dilbert. Doing a web page was obvious.
The page and JavaScript program are quite simple. The program randomly shuffles a list of buzzwords, then emits the first 25 in a five-by-five bingo card. It took an afternoon; most of the time was spent on the buzzword list. I put the page on the web in early February, showed a few friends and shared a few laughs, then promptly ignored it.
After the page went live, I began to receive one or two email inquiries a month. The dynamic portions of the program were mentioned in a 1997 JavaScript article in NetscapeWorld (since deceased). Several sites have linked to the page or have borrowed the code to develop their own versions.
In April 1998, Asra Nomani at the Wall Street Journal contacted me. She was doing a piece to appear in the "Weekend Journal". After the piece came out (this site wasn't mentioned), buzzword bingo made the news cycle. Subsequently, papers from Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, and New York asked me about buzzword bingo. The now-apparently-defunct Buzzword-Bingo.com site launched at about the same time.
United Features Syndicate asked me whether they could license the code for the Dilbert web site. When their license agreement came, it stated United Features retained all rights to the work, all derivative works, in perpetuity, etc., all for zero dollars down, zero dollars ever. I protested; it wasn't worth any money, but at least I wanted my name attached. After a brief voice and email exchange, I never heard back. Apparently, the Pointy Haired Ones are in control.
During the last week of September 2000, BizBuzzBingo email started arriving at a rate of one or two a day. When I asked one correspondent why his interest, he replied a link to the page had appeared in Jesse Burst's Anchordesk column on ZDNet. Since the page was looking a bit dated, I spruced it up over the weekend, adding some new options and this text.
Since then email comments continue at about two or three comments a month. Occasionally, the site gets a link from online publications' humor and pop-culture columns, and was most recently cited in Tom Terez's WorkForce.com article. Overall web site traffic is about 11,000 hits per month, mostly due to the Custom Buzzword Bingo generator added August 2002 in response to several folks requests.
Please enjoy the fun. Also, please feel free to send suggestions for buzzwords or categories to me via the email link at page bottom.
Thanks especially to Scott Adams and Dilbert for keeping us sane. I think I own every compilation published. $$ Ka-ching! $$
The following people have contributed by making suggestions or by requesting particular buzzwords:
Susan Beeching, Senior Consumer Risk Manager, RBC Centura Bank
Keri Cassidy
Andy Flowers, Software Technology Manager, Halliburton Energy Services
Jeanne LaRocco, Information Consultant, Amgen Libraries
Joe Polvino, for his collected list.
D. Aaron Sawyer, UNIX Software Division, Compaq Computer Corporation
"Too many to thank": just about every management consultant, human resources officer, and professional consulting firm I've run into.
The following sites have either contributed ideas and vocabulary, or are just plain fun. I admit I read this stuff, if only in self defense.
The Clue Train. Try not to hyperventilate while reading.
Information Week. Probably the single most dangerous trade rag ever put into the hands of non-technical IT managers, CIOs, and CTOs. Reader's tip: the more press a technology gets, the less viable or further off it is. Proof: when was the last time "paradigm shift" described "word processor"?
Forbes. The best financial porn available. "I'm only looking at the buzz words, dear. Really!" And within the pages of Forbes ...
George Guilder. The man is to buzzwords what the Weimar mint was to deutschmarks.
Harvard Business Review. A citation in HBR makes any buzzword legitimate.
Lake Superior State University's annually issued Banished Words List, citing "Words and Phrases BANISHED from the Queen's English for Mis-, Mal-, or Over-Use, as well as General Uselessness". Also houses an excellent historical archive of buzzwords and phrases dating back to 1976!
Upside. The tightly-clad boyz 'n' grrrrls on the cover must know something about snaking fiber. How else could they get into those leather pants?
Web Bullshit Generator from Dack.
WiReD. Used to be a lot more fun when it had only attitude, unreadably eye-searing typography, and a negative balance sheet. Now it's an almost respectable Conde-Nasté property.
Al Gore Buzzword Bingo, a 1996 hack at MIT.
AFP Bingo at Mike Kew's site.
Buzz Killer web site.
BuzzWhack the buzzword and hype whacking site.
Buzzwordometer lets you check a web site for both "suit" and "geek" buzzwords and ranks it. Simple enter the URL of the site to see the result. Very entertaining.
Mohan Embar's BYOBingo for WinCE hand-helds.
Horst Fiedler's Car Show B.S. Bingo!
Rober Lai's Christmas Music Bingo, just in time for X-Mas 2003.
Defy America - Play Buzzword Bingo at Bill York's page.
Deloitte Consulting's Bullfighter software. This application runs in Microsoft Office 2000 under MS Windows 2000 or XP.
Dilbert and Wally's Buzzword Bingo from Dale Y at best.com. Watch out, Dale: did you license "Dilbert and Wally"? DEFUNCT
Executive Speak from Mark McKeen features Buzzword Bingo and offers a treasure trove of senior-level malapropisms.
David Gignac has made a short film Bullshit Bingo at iFilm.
Nick and Timbob's Buzzword Bingo. Also has an automated marketing guru.
The Monkeyboys' Palm Pilot Buzzword Bingo.
PBL Buzzword Bingo PBA Employees for Excellence
Random text generators at Omniseek. Buzzword bingo, stories, Hannibal Lecter quotes, Brian Eno decision cards, and more.
John Reh on About.com's Management Guide site mentions this buzzword bingo site in its 29 May 2002 newsletter.
Susan Smith uses Buzzword Bingo to lighten the classroom mood.
R. Stolfa's adaptation of the Buzzword Bingo page.
Tom Davis's Buzzword Bingo, formerly at SGI. A little C program (source available) put on the web in 1996. Moved to Chris Pirazzi's personal page, where Chris has lovingly preserved Tom Davis's original code.
John Wachowicz, University of Tennessee's Department of Finance, has added a web link from Wachowicz's Web World, a collection of "web sites for discerning finance students."
Workforce.com (link requires registration) did an article by Tom Terez about the buzzword page. Tom is using the code at MeaningfulWorkplace.com.
The Word Spy at Paul McFedries' Logophilia site tracks first use of neologisms and buzzwords.
