Sunday, March 19, 2017

Guess who's back?!

Remember how I said I might not be updating as frequently as I used to last week? Surprise! I’m still going to be posting here once a week on http://paigewester.blogspot.com/ for a little while longer! If you’re new to my neck of the Internet woods you can go read a little about me on my About Me page or go read my first post titled “I am not throwing away my shot” (which, yes, is a Hamilton reference.) If you remember, this blog started out as a way for me to work through different types of emerging media that are available and how we, as strategic communicators, can utilize them to their full potential. I would now like to take the blog and turn it around a little bit. I would like to focus these next few weeks on Leadership and Media Strategies and how we can utilize these strategies in our day-to-day lives as strategic communicators for various organizations.

Diffusion of Innovations theory. Did you just die a little on the inside, because I know I did the first time I read that phrase. Diffusion of Innovations theory is actually pretty interesting though if you give it a chance and can be one of the most useful theories for us as strategic communicators. It effects just about everything in our lives, from technology we use to the food we eat. Plus, it’s a great jump off point for us with this new blog direction! Diffusion of Innovations theory is based off work by Dr. Everett Rogers. Originally published in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations (1995,) the theory itself offers three valuable insights: what qualities make an innovation spread, the importance of peer-peer conversations and peer networks, and understanding the needs of different user segments (A Summary of Diffusion of Innovations.)  So let’s break down the theory and what this all means for us.

Diffusion is defined as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system” (Diffusion of Innovations.)  Essentially diffusion is how things like new advances in technology, etc. are trickled down into mainstream society. There are four main components found within this diffusion definition provided by Rogers: innovation, communication channels, time, and social system. All these elements culminate to form the Innovation-Decision Process (Detailed Review of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Educational Technology-Related Studies Based on Rogers’ Theory.)  The Innovation-Decision Process is a five step one: 1) knowledge 2) persuasion 3) decision 4) implementation and 5) confirmation. Each of these steps in the process is also accompanied by five characteristics of innovations: 1) relative advantage 2) compatibility 3) complexity 4) trialability and 5) observability. Since I just listed two lists I’m not going to bore you with the intricate details of each one. For the most part they are fairly self-explanatory but if you are interested in going in depth about any of these concepts I highly suggest checking out any of the readings listed above.

The main focus that I want to talk about concerns the Innovation-Decision Process and those who embark on this process. First up are the innovators. These are the visionaries, the dreamers. The innovators “often lavish great time, energy and creativity on developing new ideas and gadgets. And they love to talk about them.” To me, the innovators are the Steve Jobs types. Next you have the early adopters. These are the people who are always “on the lookout for a strategic leap forward in their lives or businesses and are quick to make connections between clever innovations and personal needs.” AKA Hipsters. These are the people who knew about stuff before it was cool to know about them. After the early adopters you have the early majority-the rest of us who are “pragmatists, comfortable with moderately progressive ideas, but won’t act without solid proof of benefits.” Between the two “early” categories you have almost half of the population who participate in a given Innovation-Decision Process. Now let’s move on to the other half.   The late majority “are conservative pragmatists who hate risk and uncomfortable with your new idea.” These are the people who take a lot of work to adopt any kind of new anything. The want to fit in though, so eventually they’ll come on board. Last but not least are the laggards. What a nice name right? These are those guys who “hold out to the bitter end” (A Summary of Diffusion of Innovations.) These are those who may never get on board with your new innovation no matter how hard you work to impress them. Each type of “personality” is different and not everybody is the same personality for each innovation they may encounter in their lives. The important thing is that each personality will exist somewhere in the process and we have to be aware of who they are and what they want in order to get our innovations off the ground.

Now that I have metaphorically talked your ear off about Diffusion of Innovations and the very basics of the theory, how do we apply it and all it encompasses to our jobs as strategic communicators? The biggest, and in my opinion most obvious, takeaway is how important peer-to-peer communications and peer networks are to the development of innovations (see the personality types listed in the above paragraph.)  Without the early adopters and innovators talking with their peers and family members, some of the most innovative stuff to ever happen might not have gone mainstream (think of the iPhone, Facebook, etc. Those spread because people who were first to use them told their friends about them and so on and so forth until everybody now utilizes these two innovations.) It re-establishes the fact that even though we are now officially in the digital age, more “traditional” forms of communication are still the most useful. Talking with others is still the best way to distribute ideas and to invoke change. Thing about your organization that you work for. Do the best innovations come from a memo telling you what to do or do they happen more organically? I know in my personal experience, my company recently transitioned to a new CRM system. While we were all put through the same basic training, after about a month you could clearly see who the early adopters were and how they were helping the early majority, late majority, and laggards understand and utilize this new technology to its fullest potential. Each innovation is different but the personalities who help the innovators achieve the Innovation-Decision Process rarely change.


Hopefully you were able to find something useful in all that! I hope you enjoy the new direction the blog is heading and stick around for the next few weeks to learn even more with me! Have a great week everybody!

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