Unpacking the 5 Core Attributes of Innovation Diffusion Theory: Observability

We have explored four of the five factors impacting the adoption/uptake of any innovation first described by Everett Rogers in his seminal book Diffusion of Innovations. The factors we explored in previous articles were: Relative Advantage; Complexity; Compatibility; and Trialability. In the last article of this series, we look at the final attribute Observability.

Everett defined Observability as: “the degree to which the positive impact of an innovation or idea can easily be seen or experienced by others”

At its core, this factor (or attribute) looks at how we can make the innovation/idea real for others - so they can experience the benefits viscerally or at a ‘gut level’. 

It’s almost obvious that this would result in faster uptake - but we can also understand this attribute by looking at what happens when it’s hard to see or experience the ‘positive benefit’ from a given innovation/idea:

In a recent podcast with Sam Harris, Marc Andreessen shared an interesting anecdote on the journey to monetizing Netscape. The team had little success convincing large companies to build a way for users to accept and make payments early on (circa. 1994). Eventually, they secured a meeting with a CTO of a major credit card company. Marc and the team set up a workstation to demo the technology. When told to click a link on the screen, the CTO touched the screen instead of using the mouse. When told to use the mouse, baffled, he picked it up.

Their demo failed to convince the credit card company CTO of any easily observable benefit from using an internet browser. So Marc & the team decided to monetize Netscape by running ads, instead of pioneering innovation in payments. It’s easy to wonder if this could have been different if the CTO had had a better experience.

On the other hand, an easily observable benefit can do wonders to accelerate the uptake of innovative technologies:

A recent example of this is Midjourney. The company uses AI and machine learning to translate natural language prompts from users into beautiful illustrations - many rising to works of art. In fact,  one of the artworks created on Midjourney recently won an art prize when pitted against other human-created artworks! 

Midjourney is not the only platform for using AI to convert prompts into complex graphics. But it has successfully made the benefits of their solution ‘observable’ - via an easy-to-use free beta and open showcase pages. It has been so successful in its campaign that the company has sparked discussions not only on the technology but also surrounding topics like ownership and the need for artists.

Observability is a crucial factor in accelerating the adoption of any innovation/idea - but it is most powerful when it is combined with all the other attributes identified by Everett. These attributes provide a timeless toolkit that can be used by innovators and entrepreneurs for success (even 60 years later) and can be applied to predict the adoption rate of any advanced technology.

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