Word Cloud

Word Cloud is an open-response activity. You ask a question, everyone answers in a word or two, and their answers grow into a live cloud on the big screen. The more people say the same word, the bigger it appears, so the room's shared thinking becomes visible in real time. It's a great opener, a mood check, or a quick way to surface ideas.

How players experience it

1. The question appears at the top of their screen.
2. There's one text box and one send button. The player types a word (or a short phrase), taps send, and it drops straight onto the live cloud, with no waiting for a round to end.
3. If the host allows more than one entry, a little counter shows how many words they've sent and how many they have left. They can keep adding words until they've used their allowance.
4. The same word can't be sent twice by the same person, and each word can be up to 25 characters.
5. Once all their words are in, they see a cheerful "All your words are in!" message and simply watch the cloud fill up with everyone else's answers.

There are no right or wrong answers and no points. Word Cloud is about collecting and celebrating what the room thinks, not scoring it.

Setting one up as a host

Word Cloud is quick to build:

• Write the question. Use the open-question editor to ask whatever you'd like people to respond to, such as "One word for how you're feeling today?", "What's this project really about?", and so on. Open, short-answer prompts work best.
• Choose words per participant. Pick a number from 1 to 5. This is how many words each person is allowed to contribute.

That's the whole setup: there are no answer keys or choices to write, since the "content" of a Word Cloud is simply what your participants say.

Tips

• Ask for one or two words, not sentences. Short answers cluster and repeat, which is what makes the cloud meaningful. The popular words grow.
• Allow a couple of entries if you want richer ideas or a busier cloud; keep it at one word each for a clean, punchy snapshot.
• Great on the big screen. Because the cloud updates live as answers land, it's fun to run during a discussion and let people watch their contributions appear.
• Perfect as an icebreaker or a wrap-up. A mood check to open, or a "one word to describe today" to close.