snippet from e-list, EdTech [Digest - 22 Jan 2010 to 24 Jan 2010 (#2010-20)] at www.h-net.org >>> These divisions between eager adopters and more cautious adopters may well apply to other audiences one engages in outreach that draws the person out from their accustomed working and thinking routines. Two excellent books - Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (Moore) explain the foundations of this. In the 80's when computers first started coming into schools the ed tech enthusiasts were talking about the technology adoption life cycle. Jump onto the bell curve with the innovators - ride into the early adopters, then the middle adopters, and then over the top to the late adopters. Problem is that it does not work like this. There is a major Chasm between the Visionaries (innovators and early adopters) and the Pragmatists (middle adopters). The reason for this Chasm is that Visionaries are intuitive risk takers and Pragmatists are analytical risk managers. So what works for Visionaries will not work for anyone else. For decades I have been to ed tech conferences with Visionaries making presentations on these way cool new ways to use these technologies - and what they are encouraging is an approach that can and will only be tried by other Visionaries. To reach across that Chasm, you have to have an entirely different approach. Pragmatists do not trust Visionaries because they take too many risks. Visionaries get totally frustrated at Pragmatists because they will not try anything new. And we are only talking about the left side of the bell curve. The other half of the population will not change until the majority does. It has been over 2 decades and if you look at the data, we are still in the Visionary era - the ed tech enthusiasts. And we have been stuck there for a very long time. And oh, BTW, simply giving all students laptops will not create change. 
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