The Jamison Group

Much has been made of the profound effect of the “tipping point” phenomenon, the point at which a trend catches fire – spreading exponentially through the population. The idea suggests that, for good or bad, change can be promoted rather easily in a social system through a domino effect. The tipping point idea finds its origins in diffusion theory, which is a set of generalizations regarding the typical spread of innovations within a social system.

In an effort to judge the truth and power of epidemic spreading of trends, I read Everett Rogers’s scholarly and scientific work "Diffusion of Innovations" (1995), which has become the standard textbook and reference on diffusion studies. What I found in this comprehensive and even-handed treatment was an insightful explanation of the conditions that indicate that an innovation will reach the much-hyped tipping point.

In this review, I will outline these basic characteristics of an innovation and its context that correlate with its diffusion. Furthermore, I will show the ways in which these understandings improve our capacity to take action to speed it up. At that point, one can evaluate the claim that the tipping point makes it easy to spread change.

The Mechanism of Diffusion 

Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.  Given that decisions are not authoritative or collective, each member of the social system faces his/her own innovation-decision that follows a '5' step process:

1. Knowledge – person becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea  of how it functions

2. Persuasion – person forms a   favorable or unfavorable attitude  toward the innovation

3. Decision – person engages in  activities that lead to a choice to  adopt or reject the innovation

4. Implementation – person puts an  innovation into use

5. Confirmation – person evaluates  the results of an innovation-decision already made. 

The most striking feature of diffusion theory is that, for most members of a social system, the innovation-decision depends heavily on the innovation-decisions of the other members of the system. In fact, we see the successful spread of an innovation follows an S-shaped curve. There is, after about 10-25% of system members adopt an innovation, relatively rapid adoption by the remaining members and then a period in which the holdouts finally adopt.

I will review Rogers’s assessment of the factors affecting the adoption of an innovation with the goal of elucidating how the earlier adopters of an innovation profoundly affect the innovation-decisions of later adopters.

The innovation-decision is made through a cost-benefit analysis where the major obstacle is uncertainty. People will adopt an innovation if they believe that it will, all things considered, enhance their utility. So they must believe that the innovation may yield some relative advantage to the idea it supersedes. How can they know for sure that there are benefits? Also, in consideration of costs, people determine to what degree the innovation would disrupt other functioning facets of their daily life. Is it compatible with existing habits and values? Is it hard to use? The newness and unfamiliarity of an innovation infuse the cost-benefit analysis with a large dose of uncertainty. It sounds good, but does it work? Will it break? If I adopt it, what will happen? 

Since people are on average tend to be risk-averse, the uncertainty will often result in a postponement of the decision until further evidence can be gathered. But the key is that this is not the case for everyone. Each individual’s innovation -decision is largely framed by personal characteristics, and this diversity is what makes diffusion possible. For a successful innovation, the adopter distributions follow a bell-shaped curve, the derivative of the S-shaped diffusion curve, which over time approaches a normality curve.

Diffusion scholars divide this bell-shaped curve to characterize five categories of system member innovativeness, where innovativeness is defined as the degree to which an individual is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than other members of a system. These groups are:

1. Innovators
2. Early adopters
3. Early majority
4. Late majority
5. Laggards 

The personal characteristics and interaction of these groups illuminates the previously mentioned domino effect.  inovators are venturesome types that enjoy being on the cutting edge. The innovation’s possible benefits make it exciting; the innovators imagine the possibilities and are eager to give it a try. The implementation and confirmation stages of the innovators’ innovation-decisions are of particular value to the subsequent decisions of potential adopters. 

Early adopters use the data provided by the innovators’ implementation and confirmation if the innovation to make their own adoption decisions. If the opinion leaders observe that the innovation has been effective for the innovators, then they will be encouraged to adopt. This group earns respect for its well-informed decision-making, and hence this group is where most opinion leaders in a social system reside. Much of the social system does not have the inclination or capability to remain abreast of the most recent information about innovations, so they instead trust the decisions made by opinion leaders. Additionally, much of the social system merely wants to stay in step with the rest. Since opinion leader adoption is a good indicator that an innovation is going to be adopted by many others.

So a large subsection of the social system follows suit with the trusted opinion leaders. This is the fabled tipping point, where the rate of adoption rapidly increases. The domino effect continues as, even for those who are cautious or have particular qualms with the innovation, adoption becomes a necessity as the implementation of the innovation-decisions of earlier adopters result in social and/or economic benefit. Those who have not adopted lose status or economic viability, and this contextual pressure motivates adoption. 

The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or be isolates in their social system. If they are traditional, they are suspicious of innovations and often interact with others who also have traditional values. If they are isolates, their lack of social interaction decreases their awareness of an innovation’s demonstrated benefits. It takes much longer than average for laggards to adopt innovations.

So, we have seen potential adopters’ uncertainty about an innovation is assuaged through a stepwise social process. The tipping point is marked by opinion leader adoption. Well-informed opinion leaders communicate their approval or disapproval of an innovation, based on the innovators’ experiences, to the rest of the social system. The majority responds by rapidly adopting. This analysis suggests that the spread of an innovation hinges on a surprisingly small point: namely, whether or not opinion leaders vouch for it.

The Diffusion of Innovation in Practice 

Now that we know the mechanisms of diffusion, we have a basis for considering what efforts are most successful in encouraging the spread of an innovation. What did we learn from delving into the research? The biggest insight seems to be that, no matter what industry your company is in, what geographic region you reside in, or what audience you are targeting, large organizations tend to go through common stages of change as they adopt and use social technologies for business.

This process of change is called "social maturity", and we've outlined the steps to accelerate from one stage to the next by combining survey data of 95 respondents involved in social media at companies with more than 1,000 employees, interviews with more than 30 companies at all stages of maturity, and a wide range of existing research, we were able to plot each stage onto the following bell curve that reads right to left. You may recognize this model from the "Diffusion Of Innovations" theory:

* Ultimately, we did find that most companies fell within the five stages (In reverse order):

Stage 5: Laggards - Dormancy: it is estimated that one in five companies is currently not using any social media. These companies tend to be highly conservative, heavily regulated, or just not interested. To get beyond this stage, we recommend that interactive marketers help garner “small victories” – focusing on the best opportunities that can be used as case studies within the organization to get the ball rolling.

Stage 4: Late Majority - Testing: While most companies are using social media, it tends to start organically in pockets. This stage can be described as “distributed chaos,” and to move beyond it, We recommend that a senior interactive marketer step up to play the role of “shepherd” to help coordinate efforts across the organization. It’s important to note that this role is sometimes manifested in a “social media strategist” or similar role. But, this is not required, as many companies mature successfully through existing interactive marketing teams.

Stage 3: Early Majority - Coordinating: At this point, management recognizes the risks and rewards of social media and begins to put the resources and governance in place to create consistency across the organization, from “distributed chaos” to a more centralized approach. To move beyond this stage, we recommend that interactive marketers work with a steering committee made up of key stakeholders to develop a foundation of shared resources, policies, processes, and budget in place for the long-term so the focus can shift to optimizing results.

Stage 2: Early Adopters - Scaling and Optimizing: These leaders (such as: Coca Cola) have already coordinated their social organization and are now focusing on optimizing their social media activities – from improved processes to more advanced metrics to integration with other marketing activity. The next big step for this group is to determine who within the organization is suited for using social applications to solve internal or external customer problems and for the shepherd to help lead the creation of a plan for empowering all relevant employees with social media.

Stage 1: Innovators - Empowering Employees: At this stage, all relevant employees have been trained and empowered to use social media – though centers of excellence are still needed. Only a few companies have even just entered this stage (such as: Zappos). But, it is likely that many more will follow in the near future.

Conclusion

So what does this all mean? Essentially it means that it is important for companies not be mislead by all the hype around "Social Media". Simply creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account is not going to make you the leader pack. In reality, Social Media is still in its very early stages of development and optimizing the benefits involves a lot of hard work. The good news is that theory and innovative practices are pointing the way to a promising future from the effective use of social media methods. Therefore, making it worthwhile for organizations to explore opportunities and plan strategies for accelerating their company’s social maturity.