How to generate ‘word clouds’ from the output from AI events

Wordle.net is a free web-based application that generates ‘word clouds’ from whatever text you paste into it. That makes it great for creating a quick visual summary of the themes, values, wishes etc that come out of an AI summit.

You can change the colour, font, background and layout until you find one you like. You can also limit the number of words and screen out common words like ‘the’ – in a variety of languages.

The most frequently used words appear largest in the cloud. It also gives you a handy word count which ranks words by frequency and tells you how many times they occur.

Here’s an example generated from an article about the ‘Wholeness Principle’ in Appreciative Inquiry and limited to the top 30 words:  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3602489/Positive_Principle_2_%2830_words%29

The random arrangement of words can often trigger new ideas as well!

Thanks to Steven Houghton-Burnett and Lucy Herrett (enthusiastic participants in a previous Practical AI facilitator training, and all-round good people) for putting me on to this!