The Five Stages of Early Adopter Behavior include:

1. Discovery, QA and Spreading the Word
2. Promotion and Collaboration
3. Mainstream Use and Engagement
4. Sense of Entitlement, Nitpicking and Reduced Use
5. Migration to Something New, Call to Move Followers

You can read the full descriptions of the 5 Stages here.

I like to read insightful posts like this because I REALLY love to think about how tech-centric insights and trends may apply to behavior generally.  If these are trends that have emerged from a set of people who happen to all adopt social technologiy tools ahead of the mainstream and they share enough things in common to produce a set of general trends and characteristics, it isn’t a stretch to think that those behaviors or insights may be applied elsewhere – whether it’s online or not.

Do you think these Five Stages of Early Adopter Beahvior of social technology can be applied to social change adoption?

Are social entrepreneurs and changemakers possibly following these trends in their birth of innovations and campaigns, promotion to colleagues and networks, public engagement, further promotion and partnerships, and then handing over of the project to start the process again…?

I would love to hear what you think about this and am looking forward to a lively discussion in the comments!