Early Adopters, Long Tails and Laggards

A trend happens when a fad goes mainstream and stays for a duration long enough to attract increasingly larger percentages of the population. A fad is therefore a trend in diapers. We have no idea if it will grow up to be a Nobel Laureate or a serial kisser. Both begin with some brave souls who are tired of conforming to the norms of the larger group. That large group could be defined as your little fiefdom in the office map or the society at large. The need to be "different" is the mother of all fads and trends.

Every group will have a few of these "Early Adopters". They will be the first to try out a new technology, a new benefit plan of the company, try out exotic food or even buy the stock of a new company that promises to make pigs fly. Early adopters will sign up to try beta versions of software that may make their computers crash - but that's part of the pioneer's risk taking ability. Not everyone has it in themselves to be an early adopter. It needs an appetite for adventure and the ability to live with a certain amount of ridicule when everyone turns up to laugh at you for believing maybe that new technology would be able to introduce pigs to the aviation industry. If Christopher Columbus had waited for a Frequent Flyer Miles program to be launched, he would have missed discovering the New World.

When someone creates a sustainable business model catering to the niche markets, often made up of evangelistic Early Adopters, that's also called a Long Tail. Chris Anderson used this term to refer to the group of persons that buy the hard-to-find or "non-hit" items in the market. This customer demographic is called the Long Tail. Go into any of the social networking sites and you will find evidence of a passionate group that has the money power and passion to fund an entrepreneur's efforts at meeting the group's needs.

The Early Adopters need followers if they have to succeed. When they try something different from existing group norms, the rest of the members have a choice - whether to follow or to ignore that behavior. The early adopters form the core group and seek to build their numbers. Here is where the "cool factor" comes in. If being seen as part of that group is desirable then more group members sign up. Therefore having a "cool" spokesperson makes it easy for the second wave to join the pioneers - the Followers. When the Followers join in, what started as a Fad will move towards becoming a micro trend. Imagine a micro trend to be the adolescent version of a fad. In the interesting book called Microtrends, Mark Penn says, "One percent of the nation, or 3 million people, can create new markets for a business, spark a social movement, or produce political change."

The Laggards join when the fad has grown to be a trend. They are the most risk averse and need constant reassurance that it is OK to join the mass movement. Laggards have a huge fear of failure. They need the comfort of numbers to validate their decisions. They hate being "different" as much as the Early Adopters hate being part of the mass of Laggards. When the Laggards start growing in large numbers, it is time for Early Adopters to find the next big trend. While the Earlies warm the hearts of innovators and bring joy to the Marketing department, the Laggards create the mass market that warms the cockles of the Finance heart.

So you want to be a trendspotter. Where do you start? Try to tune in to the talk in the cafeteria and the water cooler and identify the different interest groups in the organization. What are their concerns? What do they consider to be cool? Who are the icons of cool in the office? What are the issues that get the cool group hot under the collars? Join the group for a postprandial or for idle chat over coffee. Then try to sift out what is common to all the groups? And then zone in on the fads that the cool folks are into. Mass media is a good place to practice the fine art of trend-spotting. The themes that are highly controversial could be fads or even possible micro-trends. The stuff that moves into the mainstream pop-culture zone exists because of its acceptance across the lowest common denominator. Get it Spotty - that's what a trend-spotter will be called for short, right?

The early bird catches the worm say the Early Adopters. It is the early worm that gets caught the Laggards will warn.