A New Interpretation of Technology Adoption Process:)))

Hi Everyone!

I am sorry for the last week. I was extremely busy and did not have much chance to write to the blog.

Thanks to being so busy last week, I have a lot to tell you:))

I had a strange meeting last week! I call it strange because it was the first meeting I had without a "Top Manager".

We only had the "Junior - Young Engineers" and "Senior Engineers".

They were all very nice and kind. this was the common thing amongst them. But after the first 30 minutes of the meeting they were divided into 2 poles like North and South.

Young ones were extremely impressed with BIM and willing to learn more.

But the senior ones were totally against it.

Yes, this is not something new for me but since during all my recent meetings the Top Managers were also available, I have not seen the segmentation of opinions in relation with ages so obviously for a long time. (I hope I won't be like that in the future:))

Normally Top Managers are interested in a new technology because it develops their business and the headache of the implementation doe not affect them directly.


Well, this meeting reminded me the famous Technology Adoption Process graph in Geoffrey Moore's book Crossing the Chasm.

You will see this graph in all internal presentations of technology companies.

But I feel like it needs a new make up so I added some more information on it depending on my experiences:))

I used new terminologies!

Image from AmbeRed

For instance, the graph says "Innovators"! Who are the innovators in the construction business. These are the "Rock Star" architects and engineers who are always ahead of everyone whatever the cost is. When I was still a student, all the "wow" architectural offices were ArchiCAD users in Ankara and I also did my summer practice at one those offices. Believe me the chief architect in the office was a real rock star. He was even designing his own clothes, playing drums at the age of 60 etc.

What about "Early Adopters"? These are the employees of the companies which has forward looking Business Development Managers or CEOs. They always research how can they keep their company as a market leader or how can they be the market leader and when they find the tool, they implement it with 100% commitment. AIDEA, from Philippines is an great example for this. They implemented ArchiCAD BIM 7 years ago and they grew from a 20 men company to TOP 86 in the world. Here comes an interview with Aidea's CEO, Abelardo Tolentino.

Another example is Adnan Saffarini Consultancy! They were the market leader in the UAE and wanted to keep it. Hassan Saffarini, Operations Director, saw the 2009 recession as an opportunity to develop their company and start implementing ArchiCAD BIM. Hassan Saffarini's interview"

Early Majority! From here onwards it's not only companies who adopts but also the individuals who starts getting involved. Early majority is the "Hardworking Young Professionals" who are very competitive and wants to be the best in their profession. They want to learn anything which helps them to achieve their aim. We usually try to select the BIM Teams in the large companies from these people.

Image from Michelle Meiklejohn

Late Majority! Off! These are the lazy ones which is almost impossible for me to understand. Unfortunately they do not notice how big is the opportunity they are missing! They are usually content the way they are and do not change unless they are forced to.

Laggards! These are the Senior Professionals! We can call them "Rebels" as well:)) They usually feel threaten with the new technology because they think their skills will be no longer valuable and the young ones will perform better than them. So they start sabotaging the meetings or implementations:)) Yes, but there is no reason for them to feel threaten. First of all, it's their experience what makes them so valuable not their skills with the tools they use. Secondly, if they want they perform as good as the young ones.

In one of our recent implementations, we assigned the most senior engineer as the BIM Manager since he ended up learning the process much better than the rest of the team. Although he was at least 15 years older then them.

Ohh!!! It became such a long post! Time to stop and say see you tomorrow:))

Have a great day!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com