Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Post 3: Create Your Own Adopter Categories

For this posting, come up with your own adopter categories. Name each one of them and describe the characteristics of each group.

2 comments:

Av DG said...

You would not believe it but I started off with a Percolation Theory and Soil Horizons analogy, but that was just too serious. I wanted to give a funny twist to my adopter categories so I tried again and here they are.

In a town called Innovasia, live five people who are very different from each other but nonetheless are friends. A merchant of a new kind of telephone went to the town mayor and asked him about the people who live in Innovasia and what they might think about his new product. The mayor told him this:

Visionary Victor always catches wind of a new technology or product first. He is very bold and so is unafraid of risks that might hurt his venture if he does buy or use the new technology. Aside from this fearless attitude Visionary Victor also has technical training (goes on technical seminars as often as he can) and won’t be daunted by the difficult processes that the technology involves. He also keeps in touch with like-minded visionaries like him through email, chatting and via his personal website.

Esteemed Ernie would buy the technology next. His neighbors always look up to him and emulates him because of his respectable position in society. He is well-educated (has several degrees from very reputable schools) and well-travelled (went on the classic European tour of the continent and has 1 million miles on his WorldPerks). Esteemed Ernie has money and thus has more resources at hand and is not so fearful of a technology not being able to deliver. If it does happen, he will just chalk it up to experience.

Thinker Tad takes time to observe and see if the new venture is reasonable and if his neighbor Esteemed Ernie has bought into the idea. He wants to make sure that he has thought the process through and that he has safety nets in the case of failure. Thinker Tad’s favorite words are logic, reason and sense. If the product does not involve any of those keywords, too bad but Tad would just have to pass it up.

Wary William is very slow to catch on the technology. He demands that the new technology perform well first in the hands of his neighbors, Tad and Ernie. In fact, it’s not enough for a salesman to bring him statistics of other people in other places, he has to be able to make sure that the technology works in his neighbors’ backyards. Like the doubting Thomas of the Bible, Wary William has to see to believe.

Tardy Terry is the last of all to know about a technology. But even if he already knows about it, he still would not buy it until everyone else has. He is a firm believer in what we call ‘herd instinct’. Until Tardy Terry notices that all his neighbors but him has bought the product, you won’t find him anywhere near the technology.

Ko-Jung said...

Adopter Categories
The criterion for adopter categorization is social-political system of the country, in which people use different thought toward the innovation adoption. Although these different social systems may not exclusive to each other, the purpose of the Adopter Categories is to generalize the adopter in different countries.

1.Democratic Adopter (Open)
People in this social-political system receive freely the innovation information without filtration from any government or administration system whatever this innovation is favor or disfavor to these systems. Democratic adopters are open and willing to accept any innovation and the government or administration institution also adopt the innovation without make any regulations or limitations. The innovation-decision of people is always made by individual-decision process, through the mass media and interpersonal communication channel. The opinion leaders in this system have limited influence on others who have not adopted the innovation and only when the number of opinion leader accumulated to an enormous quantity, the adoption rate could rise up. In addition, the S-curve in the adoption rate tends to perform a normal S-shape. The representational country is U.S.A.

2.Monarchism Adopter (Following)
The adopter in social-political system of monarchism is deeply influence by the king in the country although the king does not have any power to prohibit people to take some innovations. People always take kind as a reference or standard when they receive some innovations. Neither the king nor any government or administration selects or prohibit any innovation information. The attitude toward the innovation depends on whether the king and administration favor it or not, and people in this social-political would likely to choose to follow because of this conform of the society. The king usually equal to the opinion leader in this society and have a great effect on people and the rate of adoption will rise quickly when the king favor the innovation, on the other hand, when king disfavor the innovation, the rate would go up slow. The representational country is U.K.

3.Socialism Adopter (Coercion)
People expose to information of innovation which selected or chosen by the government or administration system, and they usually don’t have no choose or attitude toward the innovation. Emphasis on unified society, people are limited to express their opinion which must favor to the government and forced to adopt the innovation which also favor to administration system. Innovation in this stage especially software innovation seem as disfavor to government which think that will endanger the foundation of society. People in this category usually have finite fortune, access, and exposure of media, and the adopter who usually have greater fortune and access but limited exposure of media which control by government system. The innovation-decision of people is made by authorities-decision process, through the mass media channel own by administration. Therefore, the administration or government system is the opinion leader in this stage and the adoption will suddenly rise up when the administration decide to adopt the innovation. Moreover, the S-curve can be divided into two different shapes either the adoption rate rise so steep or the rise so gentle. The representational country is China.

4.Authoritarianism (Prohibition)
In this category, the people often isolated from innovation of information by government or administration system. The administration system blocks all information of innovation which people don’t have fortune, access and opportunity to contact the innovation. Thus, people in authoritarianism countries hardly adopt any innovation. On the other hand, the government or administration system always plays a role of adoption which benefit to the dictator or country like adoption weapon or nuclear technology. The innovation-decision of adoption is control by authorities-decision process also through the mass media which is a propaganda tool of the government system. Accordingly, the dictator of this system is the most powerful opinion leader who can totally decide people adopt which innovation and the rate of adoption is similar to category of socialism adopter. The S-curve of this category has two extreme shapes either steep rising in rate of adoption or rejects the innovation adoption for a period of time. The representational country is Cuba.