Works
- Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, 1962
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
Attributes that speed adoption. Rogers identified characteristics of an innovation that shape how fast it is adopted, named in later editions relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Innovations that can be tried on a limited basis, and whose results are visible to others, spread faster.
Opinion leaders. Adoption spreads through a social system largely by interpersonal communication, and opinion leaders, people others turn to for views on an innovation, have outsized influence on whether it is taken up; in his adopter categories, early adopters hold the most opinion leadership.
What it explains
Rogers explains why a change spreads when people can try it in small form, see it working, and hear about it from colleagues whose judgment they trust. Persuading the respected few early carries a proposal further than addressing everyone at once.
Tactics that draw on Everett M. Rogers (8)
- Briefing the Opinion Leaders
- Demo Over Deck
- Fair-Test Pilot
- Hands-On Trial
- Lighthouse Customer
- Peer Company Visit
- Peer Testimony
- Pilot-First Request
In Thinking Tools
Known for
An American communication theorist who originated diffusion of innovations theory and the term early adopter. He sorted adopters into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards along a bell curve.