DISQUS

Is it not likely that adoption follows paths which are well known: involving "innovators", "early adopters", "early majority", "late majority", laggards"? These were, of course, identified by Everett Rogers back in 1962 and referred to in Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" (for which chasm, Rogers says, there is no evidence, by the way!)?

This does not mean that the same product makes it through the whole sequence, on the contrary, it seems that a product appeals typically to one group, but it might take a product that appeals to two groups for it to bridge across and trigger adoption by the next group. The whole thing works by referral and I suspect that we are still learning about what information it is that is transferred across each transition.

Once the word is out that some new capability is potentially available, the viability for its adoption by each group depends not only on the validation of the objective by the previous group, and not even by the features (because in many cases each group expects fewer features than the previous group) but, I suspect, mostly by the removal of barriers to adoption which are more difficult to surmount for those who are more innovation-averse.

In other words, innovators will put up with a lot more pain to achieve the purpose than the early majority.

These points are timely and well made. However, on having a theory and a name, surely this is the "pattern" known as "separation of powers"?

Is it personal? Is it a brand? Is it you? What is in a name?

It seems that we all have different "faces"/facets; even the Beatles sang about it in "Eleanor Rigby". But, underneath, it is the same person.

Surely, we put on different behaviours and fronts depending on the role that we are taking at the time? As you point out, this is appropriate behaviour and, yes, in a sense it is about "fitting in" or being "similar"; it is also about being effective in that role.

Is this something new, or specific to online interaction? I don't think so. For centuries, some people have specific occupations where they are either "on duty" or "off duty", and their behaviour differs accordingly. Even if their roles are less delineated, many people's behaviour differs between the environments of the home, the office, and the pub.

Most people would be fairly horrified if they were boarding a scheduled flight and noticed the aircraft captain in his jeans with a beer in his hand and talking to an air traffic controller without conforming to normal aviation phraseology. But in a couple of hours time, that might be exactly what he will be doing!

The same applies to most (all?) professionals: doctors, police officers, fire fighters, and many others. But is applies no less to people in any other job. It is called "doing your job"!

Now, let's forget all that. Let's go to the pub! Actually: let's set up a "pub forum", ...

The reframing by amce is interesting. However, everyone and every activity has a "customer"!
The visionaries who play with new things for fun with little or no commercial interest are, if they are relevant to this discussion, not doing so idly. They are seeking the future for themselves and for others. Their "customer" is the early adopter who needs a steer on what is new that has a chance of working, so that he can explore its commercial value. "His" customer is the early majority who are more risk averse, yet wishes to be using whatever is newly proven to be beneficial.
It seems likely that the research/discovery process need not be as random as acme suggests. The view of people like Dean Hering is that the innovation process can be made manageable in the same way as the sales process was, and the quality process before that.

Naturally, communication is an important part of what "social media" is it about; and whether the communication is between individuals or within communities depends on its purpose. Some of the points made here relate to those which communication professionals tell us, such as: all communication takes place within a conversation; all meaning is situated in context; messages can only be communicated fully over channels which are richer enough (bandwidth and opportunity for feedback). ... and so on.

But, there is another aspect: the value that people put on the meaning obtained through whatever communication is taking place.

In discussions such as these, if there is lack of clarity of the context in which the value of technologies and applications are being compared, then the messages are somewhat meaningless and much of the discussion is "at cross purposes".

In the technology adoption lifecycle: visionaries, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards all have different criteria for attributing value. This is well described by Geoffrey Moore in "Crossing the Chasm", mentioned in the quote about Twitter.

Which group(s) are being discussed here? This needs to take into account that identifying a company may not be sufficiently precise because, within corporations, different divisions (especially research) may fall into different groups.

Visionaries are using Twitter without caring whether it has any commercial value, but their experience generates testimonials which are valuable to early adopters in selecting things to evaluate, and so on down the line.

On the other hand, the early majority are reaping benefits from Web2.0 applications (which benefit from increased user participation), including well known services such as Amazon (stores, rather than AWS yet) and less well known services such as the amazing Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

So, it seems to me that, much of the above is at "cross purposes" unless it is clear which group is under discussion.

"Some of the things that we ask software developers to do are equivalent to asking a metallurgist to build a motor car", Bob Bridges

"There are two types of programmers in the world: those who believe it is possible to write a program which works first time and those who don't" Scott W Sloan