Tipping Points

Tipping Points

Welcome to my blog, my name is Nicole. I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. I studied Spanish at the University of Southern Mississippi. Currently, I am a Marketing Communications Coordinator at a major health insurance company. I decided that I enjoy working in the field of communications and want to learn more, so I enrolled Troy University’s Strategic Communications graduate program. I feel that continuing my education will help me excel in my current position and advance my career in the future. Over the next nine weeks, I will be posting weekly blogs about leadership and communication strategies.

Diffusion of innovation is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. Some members of the social system will adopt the change immediately, while others may lag behind. Once we reduce the unfamiliarity of an innovation to the public they are more likely to adopt a change. A change agent is needed in order for the product to reach the “tipping point”, the point in which it spreads like wild fire throughout the population. Technology is continuously evolving; there is always a new trend.

I think of myself as someone who easily adopts the new trends. My 72 year old mother, I would consider a lagger when it comes to new technology. I always want to share pictures of my children with my mother since she lives in another state. We first tried getting her a laptop so we could email pictures to her, but she was always forgetting her password or could not get it to connect. Next, I convinced her to get a I Phone. Once I was able to show her how easy it is to use, she was on board. Now, I can text pictures of the kids to her and we can even facetime each other. For me the tipping point of the I Phone was the information provided in the advertisements promoting its new features. My mother required a conversation with me, someone she knows and trusts, in order to adopt the innovation.

There are many channels of communication that we use to spread information. Mass media can inform the public on the latest innovations, but it’s those face-to-face conversations within the social system that gets people to adopt the change. Once people see something working well for the people around them, they are more likely to follow in their footsteps.  

Please feel free to express your thoughts on the topics that I will cover. The link to my blog is http://nicoleijohnson.blogspot.com/. I look forward to reading your response.