Better connected

You don’t need to be a diffusion expert to know that the people who make up your target market don’t adopt innovations all at the same time. According to the theory, individuals adopt innovation over time, depending on their ‘innovativeness’ – the degree to which they’re willing to adopt new ideas earlier than others in their social system. There are five adopter categories – innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards – with individuals in each category displaying similar degrees of innovativeness. Diffusion research has found that innovativeness is often associated with interconnectedness – the extent to which individuals are linked through interpersonal networks. This is evidenced by a 1954 study into the adoption of Tetracycline – a novel antibiotic – among doctors in Illinois.

Tetracycline – a wonder drug whose side effect profile gave it relative advantage over older antibiotics – enjoyed rapid adoption. Two months after its introduction, 15% of doctors in the study had tried it. This grew to an impressive 50% two months later, and almost 100% adoption after just 17 months. Positive interpersonal communication is cited as a major factor in the spread of the drug.‍

Researchers found that ‘innovativeness’ in adopting Tetracycline was associated with seven measures of network interconnectedness:

• Hospital affiliation as a regular staff member

• Frequent attendance at hospital staff meetings

• Sharing an office practice with other doctors

• Being named as a source of information and advice by peers

• Being named as someone with whom peers discussed patients’ cases

• Being named as a social friend by peers

• Reciprocating sociometric network links reported by peers

According to the study, doctors with more network links were more innovative, indicating that interconnectedness was a better predictor of innovativeness than personal characteristics or exposure to communication channels. ‘Friendship’ variables – including the number of times a doctor was named a ‘social friend’ by peers – were the strongest predictors. Isolated doctors – who practiced alone or had few nominations as social friends – were slower to adopt Tetracycline, with more than half not adopting it even ten months after its introduction. Conversely, interconnected doctors adopted it rapidly through a chain reaction. This spread involved early adopters sharing their experiences with peers, who then adopted the drug and, likewise, shared their experiences, creating a snowball effect. Within a few months, almost all the interconnected doctors had adopted.

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“People who make up your target market don’t adopt innovations all at the same time"

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The Tetracycline story suggests that the meaning/value of innovation is socially constructed. When individuals are uncertain about a new idea, they turn to their peers to help them make sense of it, thereby underlining the importance of interconnectedness in the spread of innovation. If people are persuaded to embrace new ideas through the experiences of their close peers, then it follows that the more interpersonal communication they have with those peers, the more likely they are to adopt an innovation. Understanding and leveraging network links is therefore the key to diffusion. In short, we’re better, connected!