Diffusion of innovations

Everett M. Rogers · 1962

New things spread through a population in a predictable order, from a small group of the venturesome to a reluctant last.

Its place in the frameworkTime Core›Market Timing

What it does

Synthesised from hundreds of diffusion studies across agriculture, medicine and technology. Alongside the adopter categories it names the properties that make something spread quickly — relative advantage, compatibility, simplicity, whether it can be tried cheaply, and whether adoption is visible to others — which is the part most useful for timing a launch.

Reach for it when: When deciding when to enter, and when early enthusiasm is being read as evidence of a mainstream market.
Where it stops: The curve is drawn from adoptions that succeeded. It is a description of how spreading works, not a prediction that a particular thing will spread.

Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, 1962.

Why it sits at Market Timing

Whether now is the right moment: whether the market is ready, how long the opening lasts, what would tell you it is opening, and what being early or late actually costs.

A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:

Market readinessDiffusion-of-innovation research on adoption prerequisites, and the crossing-the-chasm distinction between early and mainstream demand.
The windowWork on strategic windows and the temporary nature of the conditions that create them.
Signals to watchEnvironmental-scanning practice and the leading-indicator selection problem.
Early and lateFirst-mover advantage research, which finds the advantage far less reliable and far more conditional than it is usually assumed to be.

All of Market Timing

What it touches elsewhere

Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Market Timing lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.

Market CoreWhether the opportunity exists is settled there; whether now is the moment is settled here.
Goal CoreTiming determines when an opportunity becomes a goal rather than remaining an observation.
Business CoreEntering early consumes cash for longer, which is a runway question before it is a strategy one.
Golden OpportunitiesA window opening is one of the ways a golden opportunity arrives.

Filed at the same place

These answer questions that arise at Market Timing too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.

Crossing the chasmBetween the enthusiasts and the mainstream there is a gap, because the two groups buy for incompatible reasons.

Elsewhere in Time Core

These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.

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