The adoption of new technology

This article at http://www.hightechstrategies.com/profiles.html discusses the very first articulation of the now well known ‘technology adoption life cycle’. The concept was first developed to track the adoption of hybrid seed corn by farmers in 1957. According to the study, there are five distinct psychographic profiles among the population each with its own reasons for adoption of a new technology. They are the ‘innovators’, ‘early adopters’, ‘early majority’, ‘late majority’ and ‘laggards’.

What I find interesting is that this concept has applied equally well to technologies in the digital age. It has also applied equally well to societies that are completely different from farmer societies. For example, the urban centers show a very similar pattern of technology adoption. Moreover, businesses as opposed to the general population follow the same pattern as well. Let us look a little deeper at some of these categories and see how they translate from farmer societies to urban societies and to businesses.

Innovators – There are many important attributes identified in the article about early adopter farmers. They are rich, well educated, young, ‘do not enjoy high prestige within their community’ and ‘have extensive contacts outside their community’. While the first two are basic requirements required for the ability to adopt new innovations, the last two point to specific personality traits. It is very easy to identify such individuals in our own societies as well. These are the people who don’t seem to ‘fit in’. They seem to have their own thing going and their ‘weird’ interests brings them in contact with people different from the mainstream. If you have seen someone ride a Segway, you might be looking at someone from this group. What has really changed since 1957 though is that the innovator groups can connect much easier and form virtual communities now.

How does the profile of ‘innovators’ apply to businesses as opposed to societies? The question is important for companies that sell to other businesses rather than consumers. The really interesting fact seems to be that among businesses, it is the wealthy that may be least likely to adopt a new innovation. A small nimble footed startup with much less resources may be more likely to adopt a brand new technology. I can think of two reasons for this. The first is that the wealthy companies are also likely to be big and thus slowed down by formal control and planning systems. The second is that the same people who are innovators in a society are more likely to be working for a small company or a startup.

Early Adopters – What is different about this category compared to the ‘innovators’ is that these are people who fit in very well into the society. They furnish a ‘disproportionate amount of the formal leadership’. These are people who have their eyes open for new innovations and jump in a little later than the innovators. The basic motivation of this group may be to adopt the innovation and guide their followers into it. So they want to fit in and lead the society in a fresh direction.

Early Majority – They must be sure an idea will work before they adopt it because the economic and social costs of failure are high. I think one can draw an easy parallel to ‘intrapreneurs’ within a company. They do go after a new innovation, but only after a rigorous analysis of the costs and risks involved.

Late Majority and Laggards – The older population with high degree of risk aversion and inertia to change may fall naturally into this category. It is tougher to find this category among businesses because they will very likely go out of business very soon.

Does the adoption life cycle apply exactly to very poor societies? There may be some interesting observations to make from the adoption of cell phones in poor countries. A deeper study of each of the psychographic profiles and its relation to extremely poor societies will be the topic of my term paper.