How to be a Smart Early Adopter

Last week, a story on NPR heralded Sony’s Blu-ray as the victor in the high-definition format war. I’ve always been critical towards people that are early adopters of technology, but in the context of being somewhat early (late 2006) to the Ruby on Rails world, my previous criticisms of early adopters was inconsistent. I mulled it over on the way to work one day and I think the pros and cons of adopting a new piece of technology vary widely depending on the scenario:

Scenario 1: Two new high definition media formats are trying to get into your living room. You carefully make a decision to purchase one very early on.

Upside:

You get to watch movies in HD from the day you purchased your system until the day the format war is over.
If you made the right bet, you get to enjoy your purchase longer.

Downside:

The format you chose ends up losing. You slap yourself in the head for not remembering the lesson you learned with LaserDisc.
You’re basically paying inflated prices for doing market research and beta testing.
You end up feeling kind of dumb in 2 years when you’re still making minimum payments on the credit card for that thousand dollar player and 40 dollar movies when the same player will probably cost about 10% of its launch price. This assumes the format you chose won the format war.

Scenario 2: You’re a developer and a new framework comes on the scene and you read lots of good articles and blog posts about it. You decide to buy a book on the subject and do a little coding at night on fun little pet projects

Upside:

You learn and become a better developer.
The framework ends up doing well and you have the experience to get a better job (could be better pay, more enjoyment or both). Because you were early to the scene, you have the potential to be a master at it and that could pay off in spades.

Downside:

The framework ends up being a flash in the pan and goes nowhere. You have given up much of the upside, but you’ll have learned some things that apply to what you do at work. You chalk it up to continuing education.

Overall, the smart bet is to keep the gadget lust low and keep the focus on education. Be aggressive towards learning and passive towards consumerism. Keep that in mind and you’ll come out ahead when it comes to technology adoption and decision-making.