Everett Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations” is a popular graph that is useful for breaking up adopters into 5 different categories, depending on what time they opt to adopt a particular technology. For example, early adopters can either benefit extensively from new technology, or fall into “The Chasm” where the technology never takes off to be utilized by the majority. This can be due to several factors, including lack of interest, IT project failures, immature technologies, etc. Technologies that have fallen into “The Chasm” include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer-aided software engineering (CASE), a variety of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and Enterprise social media. There is a plethora of specific corporate examples including AMR Corp’s “Confirm” reservation system in 1992.
The problem with this chart, is that it doesn't take into account how rapidly "Innovators" become "Early Majority." The adoption process for social technologies depend on the complexity of the technology, over a specific period of time. Here is a chart that I've drawn to illustrate this:
This proprietary graph provides us with three pieces of key information pertinent to modern IT that builds upon Everett Rogers’ idea. The adoption curve here has been divided into three categories based on the complexity of the technology and the rate of adoption.
The first stage shows an adoption increase along with the maturity of a new technology. At the end of this first stage, adoption rates will either increase exponentially (i.e. cloud computing) or cease to exist (The Chasm.) The technology is in its prototypical state, and offers a demonstration of a vision rather than a full fledged product.
During the second stage the technology is becoming the norm, and there is controlled risk in adopting the technology. Complexity in this stage continues to increase gradually, as the majority of users will demand new features.
During the last stage, the majority has already adopted the technology and those who do not adopt the technology will perish. For example, VMWare and virtual computing. In this stage, the technology will become increasingly complicated until it is no longer sustainable, or it is limited by currently available information and hardware.
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