Everett M. Rogers (1931–2004)

Hindsight lesson learned and shared for future readers...unless you have to read this for academic purposes, it's probably best to read the very good summaries at the end of each chapter and then decide if you want to dig further. This is enormously tedious. I am in a year long certification program this year and one of the lectures cited some good stuff from this book. I didn't ask, nor had a reason to ask, if the book was worth reading beyond the couple of sound bites. Fair warning to the casual reader...the concepts are not difficult, and may even seem obvious (and also dated, despite this being the fifth edition), but ...flat.… (más)

Anyone who's been to a library or technology conference will have seen some excited thought leader talking up the S-curve of adoption of new technologies -- the innovators, early adopters, etc -- as if this was some new discovery. This book makes it clear that pattern has been known for about 100 years, and a whole lot more besides - certainly a whole lot more nuance than a pro-innovation conference speaker ever provides.

This edition may be 35 years old (even the latest edition is 15 years old) but it packs in an insightful overview of the field of research: its history, its major discoveries, areas needing further research, and areas of bias. It shows glimmers of then-future directions into network analysis which I expect have blossomed thoroughly with both the ability of computers to enable such analysis, and the advent of social media to increase its productivity.

It's given me a lot to think about at work where I frequently want to diffuse some new technology or process: firstly in rethinking which innovations are appropriate to diffuse, and secondly in how

Highly recommended.… (más)