1. Chris Winn
5-17-10
MOPED
Week three's presentation focused on the generation of innovations. Innovations go through a
six step process. These steps are need/problem recognition, research, development, commercialization,
adoption/diffusion, and consequences. Innovations start their development from someone noticing that
there is a need or want for a change. These changes can be noticed either through political means
(change has a high priority due to society) or science (discover a problem through discoveries in their
research and seek a change). The majority of innovations need some sort of research involved in its
development. Development is finding an way to put the innovation into a form that the potential
adopters will likely accept. Commercialization is producing the product along with all the steps
required to get it out to the adopters. The diffusion/adoption stage is when the innovation is released to
the adopters and they decide if they will adopt it or not. Lastly is the consequences, which can widely
vary in effect and delay.
In the movie, The Road to Wellville, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg promoted healthy living through
a variety of means. His primary mean was his innovation of the corn flake. This seems to be his only
innovation that succeeded in making it through all six stages of an innovation. He had many other
innovations that he developed, yet the majority of them did not get too or past the commercialization
stage. It does seem like he tried to skip the commercialization stage since he stated early on in the
movie that he did not care for making money off his inventions. Even without commercialization he
had his own group of people he could give his innovations too that would readily accept or at least try.
Outside his group of followers though, his innovations did not catch on due too no commercialization,
and the fact that they did virtually nothing to improve health.
Week four involved the Innovation-Decision process. This is a five step process that a person
goes through when adopting or not adopting an innovation. The first stage is knowledge, which is just

2. becoming aware of the innovation's existence. Followed by persuasion, which is when the individual
starts to make judgments about the innovation, whether favorable or unfavorable. Next is the decision
stage where the choice is made to adopt or reject the innovation. Stage four is the implementation
stage. This is where the adopter begins to use the innovation and possibly change it to fit their needs
better. Lastly is confirmation. This is when the adopter checks to make sure they made the correct
decision, and possibly change it.
Surrogates is a good example of the Innovation-Decision process. The main Innovation-
Decision stage I noticed in the movie is the decision stage. Society is broken into 2 main groups at the
decision stage, those who adopt the surrogates and those that break off from society. Tom Greer falls
into the small third category where he did adopt it but then decided not to. This makes up the three
categories for the decision stage; adoption, active rejection and passive rejection. Despite the way they
act, the group that outright rejects the surrogates are considered the passive rejecters because they
rejected it without trying it out first.
Week five dealt with the attributes of innovations. The following are the main traits of
innovations; relative advantage is how much more useful the new innovation is compared to a current
counterpart. Next is compatibility, which is how close an innovation is to past experiences and values
of the adopters. Next is complexity, which is how easy the innovation is to use. Trialability is the
measure of how easy an innovation can be tested. Lastly is observability which is the measure of how
easy the effects of the innovation are noticeable to others.
The NS5 robots in I, Robot are good examples of an innovation that ranks high in most of the
attributes. The NS5s are extremely compatible with the lifestyles the NS1 through NS4 have
established in society. The were easy to use and it was easy to see their effects due to them being out
everywhere in the streets. The only attribute I see them not having a high rating in is trailability,
mainly because they tried enslaving the human race.

3. Next, we'll be skipping to week seven when we covered the consequences of innovations. An
innovation's consequences can vary greatly. They can be anticipated or unexpected, irrelevant to world
impacting, good to evil. These break down into three main categories of desirability, directness and
anticipation.
In the movie Iron Man, Tony Stark develops a new energy system along with combat
technology with the intention of helping people and defending them. Unfortunately, his business
partner, Obadiah Stane, has different plans for his new innovations and causes some unexpected
consequences. These consequences have a very large impact on the city and the world. There is also a
large dissonance between the good reasons why Tony Stark develops the technology and the evil views
Obadiah Stane uses them for.
Lastly, we have week eight's topic of change agents. Change agents are people or groups that
try to persuade potential adopters to use a new innovation. There are seven main tasks for change
agents to perform. First is to develop a need for change for the clients. Next the change agent needs a
form of communication with the client. Then they need to diagnose problems. They need to create an
intent to change in the client. Then they need to make the client act on the intent. Then they need to
make sure the client sticks with the change and then terminate the relationship with the client.
Pirate Radio is a story about the change agents. The crew of Pirate Radio were getting the
clients, the British people, to become involved in the innovation that is rock music. They were able to
setup an information-exchange relationship with hundreds of thousands of people in England by
broadcasting over the radio. They diagnosed problems by taking user feedback about the music they
played. They were able to keep people from discontinuing by playing new and the most popular music.
The movie did not cover if they achieved a terminal relationship with the clients since it could be
possible that they established a new radio station.