But the bigger challenge is in creating products and services that work for
mass-market consumers. For this audience, the functionality – what the system
does and how to use it - should be transparent. The underlying technology
should be invisible. The user should be able to focus on getting the benefit
from the product that they were promised, not on configuring it and
maintaining it.
From innovation to mass market
The primary focus of this book is on creating consumer IoT products and
services. In this section, we take a brief look at how technological innovations
cross over into the mass market and consider what lessons there may be in
here for IoT.
Innovators are not consumers
In 1962, the sociologist Everett Rogers introduced the idea of the technology
lifecycle adoption curve, based on studies in agriculture^2. Rogers proposed that
technologies are adopted in successive phases by different audience groups,
based on a bell curve (see figure 4.4). This theory has gained wide traction in
the technology industry. Successive thinkers have built upon it, such as the
organizational consultant Geoffrey Moore in his book ‘Crossing the Chasm’^3.
In Rogers’s model, the early market for a product is composed of innovators
(or technology enthusiasts) and early adopters. These people are inherently
interested in the technology and willing to invest a lot of effort in getting the
product to work for them. Innovators, especially, may be willing to accept a
product with flaws as long as it represents a significant or interesting new idea.
The next two groups - the early and late majority - represent the mainstream
market. Early majority users may take a chance on a new product if they have
seen it used successfully by others whom they know personally. Late majority
users are skeptical and will adopt a product only after seeing that the majority
(^2) Everett M Rogers, 2003, ‘Diffusion of Innovations’ (5th edition), Simon & Schuster.
(^3) Geoffrey Moore, 1991, ‘Crossing the Chasm’, HarperBusiness.