Originally published at: https://quantifiedself.com/blog/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-the-qs-showtell/
The Quantified Self community organized itself around one key activity: sharing first person reports about our own discoveries using our own data. Why does it work so well?
This is an old post, of an even older idea. Teachers often have the best grasp of their material, not necessarily from seniority or prior research, but from the prep for presentation. As a regular presenter, the preparation and actual speaking always clarifies the concepts.
Diffusion theory suggests several concepts that contribute the effectiveness of the Show & Tell format. The adoption of new innovations depends on how well the innovation meets several criteria. The innovation must have relative value, that is, it must seem better to the potential adopter than what they are currently doing. It must be simple to understand. It must have trialability. In other words, the potential adopter must have the ability to stop the innovation if they want to. It must have visibility. If no one knows about the innovation, no one will try it. And it must support rather than conflict with existing norms.Most of the presentations have 4 of these innately and Show and Tell provides a measure of visibility to a group of people who share the culture of self experimentation.
Further innovations spread among adoption categories. The Innovators, ie presenters, represent about 3 % of any population. Early adopters are the next 13%. Those of us who found this web-site are by nature, in this realm, early adopters. Early adopters are willing to try it if it meets the above criteria. They are also willing to share their sense of the innovation, positive or negative. The next group of people, about 34%, are the Early Majority. They don’t trust the Innovators because they feel the Innovators are biased about their innovation. However, they trust the Early Adopters to tell what happened when they tried it.
Check out some of the research stories in this book. Amazing stuff. Disclaimer - I do not receive any financial value from people reading or purchasing this book. I do receive psychological value from helping people see how and why groups of people adopt new things.