| Innovation Adoption Curve |

you see, my boss asked me to type out a business plan for him today. he said i could input whatever i thought was appropriate. so whilst i was doing up the business plan, i thought of the Innovation Adoption Curve, or Temasek Poly Marketing students would know it better as Diffusion of Innovations Theory.

2 years since i left school and i had to do some research on it before i could remember what was it all about. *tsk and here are my findings.



The Innovation Adoption Curve of Rogers is a model that classifies adopters of innovations into various categories, based on the idea that certain individuals are inevitably more open to adaptation than others. Is also referred to as Multi-Step Flow Theory or Diffusion of Innovations Theory.

Innovators
Brave people, puling the change. Innovators are very important communication.

Early Adopters
Respectable people, opinion leaders, try out new ideas, but in a careful way.

Early Majority
Thoughtful people, careful but accepting change more quickly than the average.

Late Majority
Skeptic people, will use new ideas or products only when the majority is using it.

Laggards
Traditional people, caring for the "old ways", are critical towards new ideas and will only accept it if the new idea has become mainstream or even tradition.

The diffusion of innovations curve (innovation adoption curve) of Rogers is useful to remember that trying to quickly and massively convince the mass of a new controversial idea is useless.

It makes more sense in these circumstances to start with convincing innovators and early adopters first. Also the categories and percentages can be used as a first draft to estimate target groups for communication purposes.

Diffusion research focus was on five elements:
1) The characteristics of an innovation which may influence its adoption;
2) The decision-making process that occurs when individuals consider adopting a new idea, product or practice;
3) The characteristics of individuals that make them likely to adopt an innovation;
4) The consequences for individuals and society of adopting an innovation; and
5) Communication channels used in the adoption process.

*the above is taken from this site