Page 158 - The Power to Change Anything

Harness Peer Pressure 147

the one suggesting the new idea prevented people from listen-
ing to it. Perhaps Dr. Rogers could get a farmer to embrace the
new strains of corn. Then a person from within the farming
community could point to the better results, and everyone
would be jumping on the bandwagon. If Dr. Rogers could find
a person who would be interested in trying the latest strains,
he would be halfway home.
Eventually he enticed a farmer into giving the most current
strains of corn a try. He wasn’t much like the other farmers. He
was a rather hip fellow who actually wore Bermuda shorts and
drove a Cadillac. He had a proclivity for embracing innovation,
so he tried the new strains of corn and enjoyed a bumper crop.
Now his neighbors would see the better results and be moti-
vated to change.
Only they weren’t.
The farmers didn’t adopt the new corn because they didn’t
like the weirdo in Bermuda shorts who spurned their lifestyle
any more than they liked the pretentious academic who had the
nerve to tell them what to do.
This unvarnished failure changed the course of Rogers’s
life. He spent the rest of his career learning what happens to
innovations as they move through a social system. He wanted
to learn why some ideas are adopted and others aren’t. He also
wanted to uncover why certain individuals are far more influ-
ential in encouraging people to embrace an innovation than
others.
As Rogers set to work, he examined every known study of
change. He reviewed how new drugs catch on among doctors.
He looked at how new technologies, such as VCRs, become
popular. He studied the latest gadgets and discoveries. As he
pored over the data, he was startled at how many great ideas
simply die. For example, when Vasco de Gama made his tri-
umphant voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, he took 160
men with him. Only 60 returned because the rest died of
scurvy. Fortunately, in 1601, an English sea captain named