Champions Fax Archive

THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION – PART 2

Volume 3, Number 5

March 9, 1998

Part one of this series of Champions Faxes shared the adopter categories found in the seminal book, The Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers. This fax shares the characteristics of key adopter categories. Why is this important? By knowing what to look for in a denominational or local congregation system, change agents, such as Church Champions can maximize their energies when transferring best practices.

Rogers describes the characteristics in three categories: socioeconomic, personality and communications behavior.

Early adopters are not different from later adopters in age. Age does not appear to be a significant factor in determining whether or not an individual is an early adopter or a later adopter. A few studies indicate that early adopters are younger, while other studies suggest that they are older. Half of the studies show no relationship. The early adopters do have more formal education than later adopters. They have a higher social status based on items such as social class, occupation and income. They tend to have a great deal of upward mobility in a system. The early adopters are also in larger organizations than later adopters. There is some evidence that early adoption of a practice leads to becoming a larger organization. Larger organizations also have the resources to try new ideas.

Earlier adopters have greater empathy than later adopters. They have the ability as individuals to put themselves into the roles of other people. They are open to new ideas and deal with abstractions well. They don’t necessarily have to see a model as much as see it in their mind. Later adopters want to see it work somewhere else first before committing. Early adopters tend to be more intelligent and have higher aspirations than later adopters.

Earlier adopters have more social participation than later adopters. These are the networkers who like to interact with others about ideas and practices. They are connected in the system and outside the regular system. They have more contact with the change agents in the system. They can have more opinion leadership in a system. When norms are favorable to change, opinion leaders are more likely to be innovators.

Do you want to communicate new, innovative practices to your church or organization? These descriptions should help a Church Champion design a tailored strategy for reaching those key individuals in the system who can bring the rest of the system along.

We will be offering a workshop in August for Champions that will help them to work more effectively with individuals in this important category. Call Linda Stanley at 800.765.5323 and ask about the moderator training workshop.

The Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers, The Free Press, 1995 is available through www.amazon.com or from your local bookstore. The final fax of this series will focus on the role of the Change Agent and The Diffusion of Innovations.