Innovators

[morsla]

It's been a while since I posted in here... I've been a bit buried under PhD stuff lately, and have tried to avoid boring everyone by putting it into a separate blog at lineofthought.

I'm starting to work out what I'm studying, which is a good thing. The project has been slowly developing from "I'd like to see how small businesses are using the internet these days" to "how are small businesses promoting themselves online", to "so, how and why do people adopt innovative technologies?"

By extending the project into innovation (adoption, management, etc) it becomes much less of a marketing thing, as I'm really not a marketer. I am interested in learning about innovation, and how best to persuade people to adopt new things.

To take an oft-cited model, Rogers created five different categories: Innovators (first to adopt new things, risk-takers), Early Adoptors (high degree of opinion leadership amongst the other categories), Early Majority (self explanatory), Late Majority (prefers to wait for stable, safe technologies) and Laggards (aversion to change).



Or, if you'd prefer: Moore's variation


So, because I'm curious: which category do you generally consider yourself a part of, when it comes to using the internet? Assume that you're rating yourself from amongst whatever bit of society you most commonly interact with. If you have any other caveats, feel free to leave a comment :)

[Poll #1411938]

Comments

[melbournian.livejournal.com]

I tend to be an early adopter and have even touched on innovator in terms of some mobile technology, though have settled back into the early adopters. For example, back in 2002 I was using mobile internet on a PDA linked via bluetooth to a GPRS phone, and could watch movies, upload photos from my digital camera and use instant message programs. These days all these things are standard and while I currently have a top of the line PDA phone I don't have a need to innovate.

Between about 2000 and 2003 I did a lot of online gaming and went to a lot of LAN parties. I had a lot of exposure to innovation and consider myself an early adopter at the time. I had a little bit of innovation to be at the cutting edge of performance in some of the games. Since then I've mostly dropped out of the gaming scene. My current laptop was a top of the line gaming laptop two years ago.

With a lot of newer technology, and a lot of new popular sites, particularly over the past year or two, I've slipped over the chasm into the early majority. I just don't spend the time, effort and money required to be any more advanced and currently I really don't need to be.

[fetnas.livejournal.com]

I think I'd have to put myself on the cusp of 'Early adopters' and 'Early majority' but then the place really depends on what the technology on offer is and and how much personal value I give it. For some forms of tech, such as MP3 players, I'd have to call myself a laggard mainly because I believe the MD player I have has a better sound. Also, the disposable nature of a lot of the current gadgets really rubs me up the wrong way!

Sorry, reading that back, it seems I'm ranting a bit, but I'm sure you know what I mean! ;-)

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Ranting is good :)

It's an interesting spot, between the early adopters and early majority. One of the theories about why it's hard to market products successfully to both groups is that they look for quite different things.

Early adopters are much like the Innovators: they want something different, to change the way a task is done, or to do something completely new.

On the other hand, the early majority want something the same as they already have: refining or streamlining an existing process, without having to radically change anything.

Innovations tend to be disruptive products, doing things in a very different way. If you market them as new and different, you may get the early adopters on board while scaring off the potential early majority... and not all technologies are successful enough to see all five categories of consumers.

I guess it's why innovators are essentially risk takers, and need the financial security to afford new toys that may not take off. Lots of things fail to attract the majority (and the sales revenue that brings), even if they're clearly 'better' than alternative technologies - and so the Innovators might find themselves left with a dead-end device that works really well, but becomes obsolete.

[vass]

I'd be an early adopter if I had the money.

[harkon.livejournal.com]

I find myself going through phases where I shift between searching out innovation before regressing back into the mainstream before settling in a content late mjority state.

I tend to be happier to experiment a bit in certain areas such as software and food. My theory is that in these areas I have a strong idea of what I want and thus feel I can make "correct" decisions, i.e. ones that I will be relatively happy with in the future.

With personal technology and to some extent, social media, I often fall behind the mainstream as I struggle to find a reason for picking one product over another. For example, Twitter and MySpace were things that I used for about a month before realising they weren't for me and so I guess the classification is that I've fallen off the bandwagon. In part it is because I don't really know what I want, nor what I should expect. I think this is the reason why my mobile phone has always been a relic and I'm yet to own an MP3 player.

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

Like some others, I'm on the edge of Early Adopter and Early Majority. I was using the Internet through gopher protocols back in the day, but still dislike Flash pages and the layout choices made by many sites, Facebook is a great candidate here due to its overworked and poor coding.

My adoption of technology depends on my affinity with it, as we discussed the other night, I have to be slightly compelled to become a Soap nerd to be a really early adopter, or even innovator, otherwise I'm somewhere in the early majority due to no real need to find out about a product. As Mum would say it's about needs, wants and passionate desires; If it falls into any of those categories I'll do the research and learn enough about the product, otherwise I'll look to other people with more of one of those categories for that product or service and ask them.

Slower than a wet week....

[geserit.livejournal.com]

Arrrr! (pirate voice) I be the scurvy Laggard. I don't get my kick from accessing more/newer/better information before everyone else. Because:
1) There is already SO MUCH stuff out there and if you have to go the the newest you-tube clip to be excited by something you're not trying hard enough

2) I like to see, feel and experience.

3) There is an extra 'smug factor' or satisfaction from discovering something real and tactile for yourself, I find. Whether it is a stunningly tailored dress at a market, or an idea in a book.

4) there is something about trust and authenticity.

5) all that said, I know that many of these things which I like experiencing as real things would not come into existance toda without the net - that dress maker is probably a member of a craft network and posts pics of her work and gets ideas from 'friends' in the States or Canada, etc.

So, I am happy to be the bottom dweller, (or surface swimmer) picking up the pieces that fall through, or float up to the surface. There are plenty of gems to be had that way.

(you said ranting was ok!!??)

Re: Slower than a wet week....

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Rants are good! Lots of interesting stuff comes out when people start ranting.

Do you think that you go looking for new discoveries offline instead? Seeking new things is generally an innovator/early adopter trait, though the context it's done in has a huge impact. If you actively look for new things to bring into your life but have no time for the latest internet craze, you might be an innovator in one area, and a laggard in another.

Re: Slower than a wet week....

[geserit.livejournal.com]

Do I go looking for new discoveries off-line instead? Well, kind of. First of all, 'new discoveries' is a relative term - if it is a new discovery for ME, then it is a new discovery. As such, I find a lot of new discoveries in old material. My favourite for the moment, and for a while, is to delve into a 19th century cookbook to get new ideas. Yes, they are old ideas, but they are new for ME. And if we, today, don't learn what was discovered yesterday, then we never get anywhere else.

So yes, i look for new things away from the web, not necesarity cutting-edge material, but things whick stimulate my brain regardless.

None of this is useful for your research, but it's fun to talk about learning and ideas :-)

[kashiichan.livejournal.com]

If it's a free technology, I tend to be an Early Adopter. Otherwise I'm an Early Majority.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

I put myself in "Early majority", but it varies quite a bit depending on the technology and how well it fits me. Also, it depends on whether I'm comparing myself to my friends (who often are Innovators and/or Early adopters) or society in general.

E.g. I started using e-mail in 1988 at uni, but some friends had been using it for a couple of years by then. I poked at the Web around 1994-5, but didn't get interested in it until a bit later, but again, some of my friends were doing stuff with it before that. I started on LJ in 2003 - again, behind some of my close friends, but ahead of the wider use of LJ and other blogging services.

And for some things (e.g. VoIP) I'm closer to Late majority/Laggard, because I'm not a big voice communicator anyway, so making it cheaper doesn't make a huge difference to my life.