Early Adopters: Don't Believe The Hype

Who are these early adopters? There are no identification cards or membership criteria, but I am often referred to as an early adopter, so I feel obliged to own and defend this label. It is about time someone speaks up to debunk some myths about us.

1. Early adopters have standards: We don't adopt just anything. 

Often we are considered freaks, like the Mikey of Life Cereal, we will "eat anything". Sure, we do a lot of test-driving, but let's not confuse trying with "buying". Truth be told, early adopters do not love everything we try, and even the things we love, may not remain an open tab in our browsers or an icon on our homescreens. We can be fickle and it takes a lot to win our screen real estate. This is where early adopters' guilt comes in, so read on...

2. Early adopters have feelings, too: In fact, we are pretty neurotic, and many of us suffer from early adopters' guilt.

Have you ever wished you used an app more frequently, furtively deleted it, or let updates slide past unnoticed?  Signed up for beta trials with good intentions and guiltily stopped using the app, even ignored emails requesting the feedback you offered to provide? If so, you may be an early adopter suffering from from early adopters guilt.

Sometimes us early adopters err on the other side, too, and remain supportive and active too long, when it is clear that a product or app will not survive.

Why? We get just as attached to the people who build amazing things as we do to their products and apps, even when it is clear that we should move on. Deleting an app feels cruel when you know and adore the people behind it. It hurts us (almost) as much as it hurts you.

This is a tough one. Robots are cool and shiny, but try as we may, early adopters are not robots. The early adopters' path of adoption is often bumpy and far from a controlled environment. We are human beings and don't live in static environments with clearly defined use cases. We adore exploring new things and supporting the people building things, but we do not operate in a vacuum. Our opinions can be imperfect, emotional, and may even lack logic (gah!), because we are 100% human.

If this resonates, you, too, may be an early adopter. Don't be ashamed of it and join me in accepting the label. Keep downloading, trying and caring about fixing the little problems and big, hairy problems. I know it is not always fun, dealing with app break-ups, early adopters guilt and especially admitting that we are not robots, but consider the alternatives...

Who really wants to be a late adopter anyway?