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Proactive vs Interactive - What's the difference?

proactive | interactive |

As adjectives the difference between proactive and interactive

is that proactive is acting in advance to deal with an expected change or difficulty while interactive is acting with each other.

As a noun interactive is

a feature (as in a museum) that can be interacted with.

proactive

English

(wikipedia proactive)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Acting in advance to deal with an expected change or difficulty
    • We can deal with each problem as it pops up, or we can take a proactive stance and try to prevent future problems.

    Usage notes

    Some consider proactive to be a buzzword, and it is associated with business-speak.The good grammar guide, by Richard Palmer, 2003, p. 157 Depending on use, alternatives include active, or “show initiative” instead of “be proactive ”.

    Synonyms

    * anticipatory * forward-looking

    Antonyms

    * reactive

    Derived terms

    * proactively * proactivity * proactiveness

    Related terms

    * proact * proactor

    References

    * The Word Detective, Issue of February 5, 2001 ----

    interactive

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Acting with each other.
    • Two interactive systems.
  • (computer science) Responding to the user.
    • Interactive user interface

    Derived terms

    * interaction * interactivity

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A feature (as in a museum) that can be interacted with.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2009, date=June 26, author=Laurel Graeber, title=Spare Times: For Children, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=The show includes computer interactives , animation, models and live parakeets (for an exercise in species identification). }} ----