‘Ideate’ tops Forbes Jargon Madness brackets
In a heroic competition that saw top seeds such as ‘unicorn’ and ‘The Uber for X’ fall, ‘ideate’ dominates the magazine’s basketball-inspired cliché competition.
The college basketball season is over, somebody undeserving (i.e., not you) won your office pool, and besides, you probably just swiped your brackets from the Internet, anyway.
But jargon? Admit it, communicator, this gets the blood throbbing in your temples.
So you will be pleased to hear that others share your disdain for “ideate” and other teeth-gnashing corporate cant. The word won Forbes‘ third annual Jargon Madness tournament final, crushing “The Uber for X” by 219-160 votes.
Jargon Madness is the business magazine’s NCAA-style bracket featuring “the 32 terms most abused by startup founders, developers and marketers, plus the [venture capitalists] who fund it all.”
Forbes defines ideate as a “nonsense word meaning ‘think,’ ‘dream up,’ or ‘conceive of an idea.’ Formerly known as brainstorm.”
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