Listing Characteristics

how much better the new innovation is perceived to be

Certain key characteristics greatly affect how easily an innovation can be diffused. The first is relative advantage: how much better the new innovation is perceived to be. People will be more eager to adopt an idea if is benefits are obvious. Balanced against this is complexity: the more difficult people perceive the innovation to be (the more complex the procedure, the more technical the product) the less likely they will be to adopt it.

Other important factors are visibility--it can be useful to offer demonstrations of the benefits of your new idea--and whether it can be trialed--training and trial runs are important to help users come to terms with new products and procedures. Finally, the product must be compatible with the market--it must fit the people who you want to adopt it. Try to minimize mismatch by developing variants for different groups of users.

ACTION POINT: Understand the advantage, complexity and compatibility of the innovations that you undertake.