Most People are No Adopters
March 12th, 2008 | by Brad King |The New York Times has a piece today about the large percentage of people who aren’t looking to upgrade to the latest and greatest technology tools.
It’s a good read, particularly coming off the SXSW Interactive festival where those of us using Treo mobile phones were openly mocked by the iPhone hipsters. It’s easy to get caught in the revolution, running with the bulls. It’s hard to remember that many folks are perfectly content using older technology with which they are familiar. (For instance, there are nine million dial-up AOL users, despite Time Warner’s hint that it may sell off the bastard child.)
Here’s the rub of the article:
“Laggards have a bad rap, but they are crucial in pacing the nature of change,” said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. “Innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works. If this was a world in which only early adopters got to choose, we’d all be using CB radios and quadraphonic stereo.”
I’m not sure if I completely buy into the argument that late- and no-adopters pace the change. We have to continually innovate ahead of that wave, else our businesses face serious problems when the tipping point is reached. Mobilizing and changing a work force takes some time.
Still, the piece raises several good points.
