ow do people embrace and start using new technologies? The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario has published research that suggests that the learners fall into six groups. They are: purposive planners, explorers, visionaries, problem solvers, reluctant learners and 'pinballs'. The author Deborah Compeau defines these as follows:
"Purposive planners" are very structured and self-disciplined in their approach. They plan carefully and with a lot of attention to detail, and once they’ve made their plan they act on it.
“Explorers” find time to learn on their own because they find it fun or useful. They might for example, stop in the middle of a task and spend some time looking at menu choices or drilling down into new areas.
“Visionaries” are people who find out about new technologies and think about what these could do for them personally and in their organizations. Visionaries are sometimes explorers. They tend to be lateral thinkers, and look at technology from a very strategic perspective.
“Problem solvers” are not necessarily interested in technology, but are very interested in mastering their workplace tasks. They tend to have a strong task-oriented mindset.
"Reluctant learners” ...are people who don’t really see the value of technology in their jobs. They simply focus on what they have to learn to survive in the organization.
“Pinballs” are people who don’t think about learning, but simply bounce around between technologies, picking up knowledge while they’re being buffeted about. They tend to do a lot of incidental learning, and some actually become quite capable users of technology.
So where do you and colleagues fall in this classification? For myself, I find the 6 groups interesting but not compelling. Much more insight is to be gained from discovering the Myers-Briggs personality types your comrades belong to.