There is a famous chart that has been around for many years that purports to show the cycle known as the Diffusion of Innovation. It is a bell curve that starts with innovators and early adopters, rises to a peak with the early majority, and declines with the late majority, finishing with the laggards.
There is another way of measuring the adoption lifecycle, and that is to determine where things stand on the backlash curve.
Think back to the halcyon days of the 1980s and 90s. Pagers and portable CD players were all the rage. We discovered the joys portable game systems. We delighted at the handshake noises coming from our modems, and laughed at Apple’s quirky Newton as it slid down the slope towards irrelevance.
At the time, cell phones – and I’m talking chunky plastic phones with a single row of 8-segment LED or LCD “displays” that could be used to make phone calls, and nothing else – fell squarely in the realm of the well-to-do, upwardly-mobile, and/or self-important bastard. An individual once referred to by the archaic term “Yuppie” (not to be confused with Yooper). For everyone else, the consensus of opinion was “Cell phones are for people who are important: doctors, lawyers, wealthy businessmen.” On the adoption lifecycle, these would be the innovators.
Within a couple years, the prices had come down, and it was plausible that ordinary folk could just about afford a phone. The consensus became “”Cell phones are for people who want to look important. I wouldn’t be caught dead with one.” Now we are into the early adopter phase, because more people started to acquire this life-changing technology.
A few years later, and many more people have phones. Ordinary people. We start up the steep curve of the early majority, and the consensus changes to “I don’t want everyone to call me at all hours! I want my personal space! But it might be nice to have for emergencies…”
By the time the adoption cycle peaked and we were swooning over the original RAZR, and there were no more excuses. Cellphone adoption was rapidly sliding down the curve of the late majority, leaving only the laggards to jump on the bandwagon.
Luckily for our hamster-wheel powered rationalization engines, smartphones arrived, and we were able to start the cycle all over again. But this time, the cycle burned faster. The first smartphones from Nokia, Palm (actually Handspring at the time), were taken up by innovators, early adopters latched on to Windows Mobile and Blackberries. The early majority gets iPhones and Androids.
And then tablets came along, and the cycle sped along with a rapid ramp-up to the peak with the iPad, and now the market is saturated with Kindles, Nooks, Nexuses, and Tabs. In the space of three and a half years, we went from “Why would anyone want this?” to “Gotta have this.” Zero to early majority in an eyeblink.
This year, the buzz surrounding wearable computing devices has increased greatly. We are laughing at Google Glass and Galaxy Gear, and nodding thoughtfully at the Pebble and Fitbit. Clearly, we’re still in the innovator phase, and most people are busy saying they would never be caught dead with these silly toys on their person.
What will those same people be saying in five years?
Related articles
- Riding the hype cycle (avaya.com)
- Smartphone adoption, not even half way (edblogging.wordpress.com)
- The Adoption of Technology – A Wild Ride (thestrategyhq.com)
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