Fostering services for the early adopters
When we find a new web tool that we are pretty sure will benefit our users, when should we launch it? When users request it? When we first hear about it? When no-one else knows about it or has shown any desire to use it? After another library has introduced it and received good feedback?
I had thought that it was stupid to introduce a service that hardly anyone would use. Now I’m fine with it. Why? Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Curve.
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Other library bloggers have noted it before. It’s a bell curve showing the uptake of change in an organization over time. First the innovators take it up, then a few more (the early adoptors)…finally, even the laggards make the change. It’s copyrighted, so I won’t reproduce it, but here’s the distribution:
- Innovators: 2.5%
- Early Adopters: 13.5%
- Early Majority 34%
- Late Majority 34%
- Laggards 16%
I imagine there would be a process of refinement, where the innovators and early adopters- who are happy to navigate the rough spots - iron out the wrinkles so that if the change reaches the laggards, it is a very accessible service. There would also be a “drop off” of some innovations where early adopters would jump in, play with the possiblities, then discard the change when it doesn’t live up to its potential.
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For libraries, it means we can implement ideas we think will be “goers” very early on. The early adopters will take them up and refine them. We can expect not to have a majority uptake immediately. Email reference service is a good example. I count the stats for this in my library, and know that usage has steadily increased over the last few years.
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Probably comments like “not many people have broadband” or “not many people know about RSS” shouldn’t discourage us. Some do. More will.
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We often aim our “user education” classes at the late majority and the laggards. We certainly should be helping them to adopt change. I wonder what would happen if we also designed some of these services primarily for the early adopters. What delivery method would we use? What would we tell them about? Would it become a more collaborative than pedagogical? Would it give a new meaning to “user education”, where the users actually educate us? I think we can learn a lot from early adopters - if we can convince them that there is a place for them in our libraries.
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