Solution: Diffusion at Work

As the school librarian responsible for the implementation of the new list serve program, Ms. Jele found that applying the Diffusion of Innovation theory ensured consideration of several key issues that were essential to success. These key issues included defining the problem and selecting an appropriate implementation, increasing the user's technical knowledge, and consideration of the social utilization by understanding and defining the users in adopter categories.

After investigation of list serve implementations, Ms. Jele has decided to use a moderated, announcement-only program. This type of system will ensure a ělack of complexityî which according to the Diffusion of Innovation theory will lead to a more rapid adoption. A set of guidelines defining appropriate message subjects has been outlined and shared with all appropriate members of the school community. This will guarantee that all messages sent on the list serve are school related. Other implementations of list serves would allow anyone to post messages that might include, for example, personal business advertisements, political announcements, or children's birthday messages, all of which are inappropriate for school to home communication. This method allows for any member of the school community to propose a message for distribution that Ms. Jele can approve or reject based on the guidelines.

To increase the user's technical knowledge, the school will send home information via flyers and newsletters. These flyers will inform families that the purpose of a list serve is to provide timely school related information by email. It will also describe the guidelines for types of messages that they will receive. Families interested in participating in the list serve can return the sign-up form at the bottom of the flyer. The sign-up sheet will request the family name and email address. For users that are technically savvy (the innovators and early adopters), the option to register on the school website will also be given.

In order to provide an opportunity to recognize the advantage of adoption, Ms. Jele will offer a list serve question and answer session at a regularly scheduled parent teacher organization meeting. By definition of Rogersí Diffusion of Innovation theory an information session such as this will provide families with a chance to see an advantage for adoption of the innovation and will provide them with the availability of testing the innovation before adoption. By offering a face-to-face meeting, any users who are uncertain about the list serve program can get their questions answered during the group session, see the list serve program in action and therefore recognize observable results.

Through this information session, Ms. Jele hopes to effectively influence the families to adopt the list serve system. Ms. Jele has asked those school families members that she knows to be innovators and especially early adopters to attend so they can help influence the early majority and late majority adopters through interpersonal communication. She has applied Rogersí Diffusion of Innovation theory throughout implementation and has learned that she can effectively influence the adopters by guiding them through the five stages of the decision process. During the information session Ms. Jele hopes to achieve this through teaching the families about how the list serve works, persuade them of its merits, and help them to decide to adopt the system and put it in place through influence of others so they can confidently reaffirm their decision. By teaching them about the list serve system, showing them its merits, and demonstrating the ease with which it can be implemented, she can guide them to diffusion.