Are you an Early Adopter?

I’ve been thinking about Early Adopters lately.  I think I’m an EA and reviewing the definition solidifies my thinking.  I am generally aware of and interested in new technology, but not all types.  I don’t care much about new technology in home theater, tools, sports gear, photography, etc.  I pretty much just stick to computer based technology.

This led me to think about how to categorize and capture the level of EA.  I sketched out some of areas that touch my life in a simple radar graph (5 is high).

Why do early adopters exist?

In thinking about it, I believe there are two reasons people become EAs in their interest areas

  1. Passion for topic – an individual finds themselves on the left hand side of the technology adoption curve when they have true passion on the subject matter.  A person becomes super knowledgeable and engages in the community around the topic.  The passion emanates from within the person, it’s part of their being.
  2. Belief in intrinsic value – sure people can tinker without purpose.  Tinkering is wonderful and creative, but I believe Early Adopters find a intrinsic value in the technology.  Perhaps it’s that the best cameras do a better job at creating art.  Or the best sports gear yields the best sportsman.

Sound right?  Does the combination of passion and value that yield early adopters?  What other factors are at play?

What does your radar graph look like?

Photo credit Pixomar @ freedigitalphotos.net

Klout update

Congrats to Joe Fernandez and team klout for being on the front page of today’s WSJ.  Congrats too for grabbing $8.5 million in new funding!

I did a couple stories a few months ago on klout and I was glad to see they made some recommended changes (not saying I influenced them).

I thought I’d look around and see what others are saying about the service.  Here are some recent stories on klout:

I expect such services will continue to improve.  I’ll really be intersted when influence is combined with context.  When Marketers can see whose is most influencial on specific topics (e.g. personal finance, home improvement, sports cars, web design, etc.)

Do you care about klout?  Should you?

How can Early Adopters drive change?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about innovation and the role of early adopters.  Survey after survey of exectutives describes “innovation” as a priorty for moving their business forward and providing value to their shareholders.  Yet instilling an innovative culture seems to be a difficult task.   A company is made of humans that will have some proclivity for (or against) accepting and embracing change.

BusinessDictionary.com defines Early Adopter as:

In the diffusion of innovation theory, the minority group (comprising about 14 %) of population which, after innovators, is first to try new ideas, processes, goods and services. Early adopters generally rely on their own inuition and vision, choose carefully, and have above-average education level. For any new product to be succesful, it must attract innovators and early adopters, so thatits acceptance or ‘diffusion’ moves on to early majority, late majority and then on to laggards.

 

How can innovators and early adopters inspire change among their late majority and laggard peers?  How can they remove the obstacles to change (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and help others make transitions more smoothly?

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Seen it done well?  I’d love to hear from you.

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Photo credit Pixomar @ freedigitalphotos.net

Review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab

This is a review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab.  My perspective is from that of a Android mobile enthusiast.  I’ve toyed with Apple products and found the hardware and software integration to be refined and the user interface to be straightforward.   However, I’m not a huge fan of the closed architectures (more on that someday).  I’m also reviewing the product as an enterprise device, not as a casual consumer so I did not pay special attention to the lifestyle aspects of playing music, reviewing pictures or it’s ereader capabilities.

I’ve been using the device for a few days and I’ve gotten a good sense of what it does well and not so well.  It’s the first Android tablet to hit the market and at pace of change in mobile hardware, this review will be out of date in the hour it takes me to publish it.

The Galaxy Tab is very similar to android smartphones.  In fact, really,  it’s more smartphone than a tablet.  If you’re familiar with Android you will have no problem getting around the Tab.

One for the ladies?

I’ve been trying to figure out who this device is for.  Reviewing the Samsung website provides some clues - there are six faces on the webpage and all of them are female.  Is the Galaxy Tab intended to be a lifestyle device?  When compared to the somewhat geeky interface of the Motorola Droid and slightly more geeky Droidx interface, the Tab seems simplistic.  Perhaps it’s a difference in design and style ethos between Motorola and Samsung, but the difference is striking.  A friend of mine who recently converted from a Blackberry to a Droid commented on how small the font was and wondered if she could change it.  Well, the font on the Tab is so BIG it reminds me of large print books intended for seniors and those with poor eyesight.  Essentially, apps designed for smartphones with 3″ or 4″ displays are stretched to 7″ on the Tab.  It’s great because the text is easy to read, but the space could be used to maximize user experience.

What worked:

  • Let’s clear up any confusion, it’s not a phone
  • The device is attractive and felt comfortable in my hands.
  • The Galaxy Tab is spry. I found it to be very responsive, easily on par with the iPad performance
  • The 7″ form factor makes sense as validated by the numerous ereaders on the market
  • Calendar app is pretty great.  It’s appropriately built for the 7″ format and it easily combines my corporate and multiple Google calendars.  My only gripe is I would have liked control over the colors of the calendars so I could distinguish one Google calendar from another.
  • Daily Briefing app pulls together: schedule, Accuweather, Yahoo stock watcher, AP news
  • Finally an Android that does screenshots without rooting!

Didn’t work for me:

  • Apps that are built for the 7″ format looked great (Daily briefing, WSJ, Calendar), but most apps are not written for the 7″ tablet.  It’s the same problem the iPad faced when it first launched.  The question is, will developers embrace the 7″ format.  The answer is far from certain.  This is the biggest challenge (and biggest opportunity) regarding UX.
  • Display auto dimming is mindnumbingly useless.  It just never worked right.
  • Happened upon first use – battery went from ~40% to 0% in what seemed like a moment.  The problem did not reoccur.
  • The order of the main buttons (menu, home, back, search) are in a different order than Motorola’s Droids.  More of an annoyance, but some standards here would be nice.
  • Other editions of Android (Droid, Droidx) have an integrated inbox.  The Galaxy Tab does not appear to have that functionality out of the box. Jumping between the corporate, Yahoo and Google e-mail app is an unnecessary problem.

In the end, my conclusion is the device is most suitable for lifestyle activities such as reading, listening and watching.  The hardware really works well.  The size seemed just right and not as awkward to use as a 10″ tablet.  However, the lack of apps developed to take advantage of the 7″ screen is a major drawback.

February poll: Will Android or IOS win?

Recent reports show Android catching up to Apple in mobile OS market share.  I’ve also read that Verizon’s launch of the iPhone may hurt Android’s sales by as much as 15%.  Given these dynamics, which mobile OS do you think will be leading the pack in one year’s time?

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[poll id=”3″]

Photo credit Ambro @ freedigitalphotos.net

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