Rating: 
Summary: Excellent treatment of neglected subject
Review: "Innovations" are not just new products and technologies. It also includes ideas and the patterns that have been called "memes", indeed all social changes that require the voluntary cooperation of the members of society. This is the best of the books on this important and neglected subject. Indeed, it is one of the few. It should be required reading for anyone concerned about social change. One of the more interesting results of research in this area is that innovations diffuse through a society not as the result of broadcast messages but from direct contact between earlier and later adopters and the example provided to the latter by the former. Broadcast media are mainly useful for reinforcing this process. It is also interesting for the light it shines on competitive diffusion processes, such as the competing ideologies of contenders in a political conflict. Some innovations have a higher coefficient of diffusion than others, and, all other factors being equal, will prevail even if they lack objective merit.
Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST "business" books ever written - INC mag
Review: Dr. Rogers is a brilliant sage whose lifelong quest for understanding how and why people adopt or deny innovation began, he tells me, on his family's farm in Iowa as a boy. At a young age he observed that some farmers were quick to adopt the latest innovations while many others were slower or even resistant to change. He also noticed that adoption didn't always equal success, nor did the refusal to change. So whether your gig is plowshares or computers or languages or healthcare or just about anything, you will find this book fascinating and illuminating. The book takes an "innovation" tour around the globe and through history with poignant examples of how new ways are diffused into societies. INC. magazine recently named this book as one of the 25 most important books written for understanding commerce. Ev is truly one of the wise men of today.
Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST "business" books ever written - INC mag
Review: Dr. Rogers is a brilliant sage whose lifelong quest for understanding how and why people adopt or deny innovation began, he tells me, on his family's farm in Iowa as a boy. At a young age he observed that some farmers were quick to adopt the latest innovations while many others were slower or even resistant to change. He also noticed that adoption didn't always equal success, nor did the refusal to change. So whether your gig is plowshares or computers or languages or healthcare or just about anything, you will find this book fascinating and illuminating. The book takes an "innovation" tour around the globe and through history with poignant examples of how new ways are diffused into societies. INC. magazine recently named this book as one of the 25 most important books written for understanding commerce. Ev is truly one of the wise men of today.
Rating:
Summary: Innovations are the mercy of their host environments....
Review: I found this book very interesting at it provides real case studies of great innovations of our time that failed as people forgot the soft issues necessary for successful implementation. I believe this book is very useful specially to IT professional, as it provides insights into areas at times overlooked in the pursuit of introducing changes through technology.
Rating:
Summary: A Classroom Teacher's Perspective
Review: In my "real life" I am a classroom teacher who is working to establish collaborative study groups in two middle schools for the purpose of researching, examining, and improving teaching practice. Schools are organized to remain the same - not to change. This book has been invaluable in helping me understand the change process, things to consider when implementing change, and ideas for making change more palatable to teachers and administrators. I did not personally find it to be a "quick" read, but I found that the time I spent poring over the chapters paid real dividends.
Rating:
Summary: A Classroom Teacher's Perspective
Review: In my "real life" I am a classroom teacher who is working to establish collaborative study groups in two middle schools for the purpose of researching, examining, and improving teaching practice. Schools are organized to remain the same - not to change. This book has been invaluable in helping me understand the change process, things to consider when implementing change, and ideas for making change more palatable to teachers and administrators. I did not personally find it to be a "quick" read, but I found that the time I spent poring over the chapters paid real dividends.
Rating: 
Summary: Narrowly Focused, But Very Solid
Review: Professor Rogers begins his book by really getting to the heart of the matter. "Getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult," he writes. "Many innovations require a lengthy period, often many years, from the time they become available to the time they are widely adopted"I have often wondered why getting new ideas adopted is so difficult, not only in business and technology, which is Professor Roger's primary area of research, but also in the arts, music, painting, and literature. It seems that whenever someone has a really innovative concept, it gets attacked, trashed, savaged, and often sabotaged by the mainstream? Why? Professor Rogers never really answers this question, and this is my only complaint about an otherwise exceptional book. His primary interest is in figuring out ways to "speed up the rate of the diffusion of an innovation." Within a narrow context of business and policy objectives, he is successful. The strengths of this book are its very competent and exhaustive research, which include case studies, criticisms, and policy discussions. It is a worthy book if you are interested in the focused academic topics it attempts to address. I thought that Malcolm Gladwell did a better job, with a much simpler book, in explaining why and how new ideas get introduced. Still, many questions remain to be answered about innovations. I'd love to read an equivalent book about innovations in the arts. If we are lucky, someone as competent and as thorough as Professor Rogers will take up the topic.
Rating:
Summary: Narrowly Focused, But Very Solid
Review: Professor Rogers begins his book by really getting to the heart of the matter. "Getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult," he writes. "Many innovations require a lengthy period, often many years, from the time they become available to the time they are widely adopted" I have often wondered why getting new ideas adopted is so difficult, not only in business and technology, which is Professor Roger's primary area of research, but also in the arts, music, painting, and literature. It seems that whenever someone has a really innovative concept, it gets attacked, trashed, savaged, and often sabotaged by the mainstream? Why? Professor Rogers never really answers this question, and this is my only complaint about an otherwise exceptional book. His primary interest is in figuring out ways to "speed up the rate of the diffusion of an innovation." Within a narrow context of business and policy objectives, he is successful. The strengths of this book are its very competent and exhaustive research, which include case studies, criticisms, and policy discussions. It is a worthy book if you are interested in the focused academic topics it attempts to address. I thought that Malcolm Gladwell did a better job, with a much simpler book, in explaining why and how new ideas get introduced. Still, many questions remain to be answered about innovations. I'd love to read an equivalent book about innovations in the arts. If we are lucky, someone as competent and as thorough as Professor Rogers will take up the topic.
Rating: 
Summary: bleeahh.
Review: Tedious psycho-babble, and a waste of time and money.
Rating:
Summary: THE classic book
Review: There are so many dull 'contemporary' marketing books about viral, street, grassroots, etc marketing strategies. This is the KEY book about understanding how new products get accepted. Wonderful, deep research.
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