Trainers as Internal Consultants and Facilitators of Change
Being an internal consultant means that … I have a high degree of autonomy over how the training function operates.
—Jay Turner, Training Manager, Gwinnett County Public Library
The idea of trainers serving as consultants within their own organizations is relatively new to libraries and nonprofit organizations. It requires a delicate balance, often filled with unwritten rules governing organizational politics and how to juggle our roles as employees and as agents of change. Trainers-as-leaders within many libraries and nonprofit organizations have admitted that their own staff give more credibility to outside consultants than to an internal employee functioning as a consultant.
No topic revealed more uncertainty as well as discomfort during our interviews than that of trainers-as-leaders playing the role of internal consultants as they help facilitate positive, sustainable change. This actually is not much of a surprise since so many workplace learning and performance practitioners who work full-time within a single organization are, by the nature of their jobs, forced to deal with an overwhelming number of responsibilities. There is little encouragement or time provided for the level of personal development and research at the heart of the consulting process. Politics is also important in consulting on any level, but an outside consultant has the ability to pack up and leave at the end of the job, whereas an internal consultant may be around for years dealing with the consequences of what was done or what he or she tried to do to improve the organization.
If we are going to be effective leaders within our organizations, we are going to have to alter this situation, for it is only through the act of stepping back from short-term duties and challenges, continually scanning the environments in which we and our learners function, and coming back with a comprehensive view of what our organizations need that we will be in a position to create, nurture, and sustain the communities of learning that are essential to success for us, for our learners, and for the organizations and customers and clients we ultimately must serve.
Both of us, in our relationships with short-term clients and long-term employers, have experienced critically important moments of revelation that help us understand when something is terribly wrong and must be resolved. These are lessons not easily learned and absorbed; we, like our colleagues, have had to struggle with the repercussions of such moments.
Let’s be explicit: as leaders in workplace learning and performance improvement, we must determine when training is needed or when another solution is appropriate. Many organizations, rather than deal with poor processes, counterintuitive software, or ineffective leadership, make the mistake of offering training as a solution rather than seeking ways to resolve problems with more appropriate and effective solutions. If we function as trainers/order takers and provide training upon request without any analysis or investigation, we run the risk of standing in front of a class of peers and avoiding any acknowledgment of the elephant in the room that we are all judiciously attempting to ignore. When training is needed, we must take the time to analyze the situation as an outside consultant would and investigate any hidden causes that led to the need for training.
When we find ourselves working beyond our physical, mental, and emotional capabilities and realize that our efforts are not producing the necessary results, we also need to remember that thinking and acting and serving as consultants are aspects of what we always should be doing. We need to use all that we know to identify the overall issues, look for solutions beyond those that are not currently working, and bring those potential solutions to the attention of anyone capable of advocating and implementing more effective ideas and processes.
We cannot be too direct in addressing the dangers inherent in this situation; the risks of suggesting and advocating change can be enormous. If we are too far outside what our organizations are willing to consider, we run the risk of isolating ourselves rather than remaining engaged in the process of change. If, on the other hand, we take no action because we fear losing whatever influence we have managed to develop, we run an even greater risk—that of becoming cynical and dispirited. This, of course, leads to burnout. It also removes any possibility that we can be the leaders needed in workplace learning and performance.
As we read the best books and articles we can find on consulting and talk with other consultants who produce positive results, we are struck by a basic realization that is far from new or revolutionary: effective consulting and training are seamlessly intertwined. Both are grounded in a need for some sort of change, and both produce change through a process of facilitating the development of cohesive communities akin to what we discussed in the previous chapter, on communities of learning.
It is somewhat frustrating, therefore, to find that few of us involved in the day-to-day planning, development, implementation, evaluation, and revision of workplace learning and performance programs think of ourselves as consultants within our own organizations—internal consultants rather than external consultants brought into organizations for a limited period to complete a well-defined, finite project. Because we do not often have enough—or perhaps do not insist on having—the time to hone our skills as internal consultants, we inadvertently contribute to a situation in which our administrators, managers and supervisors, and staff colleagues give more credibility to an outside trainer than to their on-staff colleagues. An irony in this situation is that some trainers-as-leaders appear to garner more attention and praise outside the organizations that employ them than they do from their own administrators—although we must quickly add that many learners do acknowledge and express abundant amounts of gratitude for the effects in-house trainers have when they take on a consultant’s frame of mind and serve as advocates of first-rate learning opportunities.
Bringing Value
A great beginning point for us as we initially consider the important and effective roles we can play as consultants within our organizations is a brief exploration of what the best consultants actually do. Writer-consultant Alan Weiss suggests at the beginning of his book Million Dollar Consulting that a consultant “is someone who provides value through specialized expertise, content, behavior, skill, or other resources to assist a client in improving the status quo in return for mutually agreed compensation”—certainly a description that often fits those involved in effective workplace learning and performance programs. Furthermore, Weiss continues, consulting “is not synonymous with implementing, delivering, instructing, or executing, although consulting may include any of these activities”—a reminder that many of us must be adept at recognizing and moving between those varied roles. He also provides samples of consulting goals expressed by his colleagues that help us see we are not as far removed from the consulting role as we might initially have assumed: designing and implementing workshops that produce quantifiable change; entering into collaborative relationships; and “enhancing the productivity of their people through needs analyses, enhanced communication, and joint decision making.”1
Peter Block, in Flawless Consulting, is even more eloquent: “The core transaction of any consulting contract is the transfer of expertise from the consultant to the client”—something we believe is inherent in the best of our day-to-day work as trainers-as-leaders. “Most people in staff roles in organizations are really consultants, even if they don’t officially call themselves ‘consultants,’” Block maintains. “Staff people function in any organization by planning, recommending, assisting or advising.” The difference between consulting and managing, he notes, is the difference between guiding actions and taking action: “The moment you take direct responsibility, you are acting as a manager”—which, of course, provides more support for internal consultants who must be able to move facilely from role to role while remaining cognizant of the benefits and risks that accompany those shifts.2
Block’s work has had a tremendous influence on many of us, and one of our colleagues, Denver Public Library learning and development manager Sandra Smith, refers to Flawless Consulting as a “must-live-by [book] for all trainers.” “I was so proud of reading that book a while back and finding out that I was doing so much of what he recommended, and I didn’t know why, other than it worked!” Smith added.
Block, like Weiss, sees clear connections between consulting and training-teaching-learning: “While we usually claim that we are in the business of helping our clients learn, most traditional educational or consulting efforts are more about teaching than learning. If you ask who is really learning at any meeting, communication session, or training event, the answer is usually the person in charge. … To bring value to the participant or the client, we need to design our efforts to support learning at the expense of teaching.”3
Toward the end of Flawless Consulting, Block turns back to a theme we explore at greater length in chapter 4: the detrimental impact of stress and competition on learning. He suggests that as consultants we “are responsible for one another’s learning” and need to do all we can to foster collaboration rather than competition in the learning opportunities we provide.4 Those interested in spending more time with Block and reading his thoughts on internal consulting will find plenty of rewards throughout his book, but particularly in chapter 7.
A substantial and significant role of trainers as leaders is to help learners learn how to learn, and there is no area where the role of trainers as consultants within their own organizations is as clear and essential, as we gather while reading Gordon and Ronald Lippitt’s The Consulting Process in Action: “We believe that systematic planning of any necessary learning session is an ethical responsibility of every professional helper,” they insist. “Developing a good design for participative learning facilitates the client’s readiness and flexibility with regard to changing plans when new needs emerge”5—familiar material for trainers who use the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model or its slightly updated sibling, ARDDIE (which adds a formal research phase into the process).6
The Lippitt brothers, like Block, strongly acknowledge the connection between consulting and training/educating:
Consulting about innovations may require training and education within the client system. The consultant may be a creator of learning experiences or a direct teacher, using the skills of a designer, leader, and evaluator of the learning process. … We believe that every internal and external consultant should be able to function in this role. The capacity to train and educate is essential to many helping situations, particularly when a specific learning process is indicated in order for the client system to acquire competence in certain areas.7
They also discuss consultants’ functions as “objective observers” and remind us that part of “the function of the objective observer is to ask questions that help the client to clarify and confront the problem involved and to make decisions. The consultant may also paraphrase, probe, and be empathic, experiencing with the client the blocks that initially provoked the problem. In this role the consultant acts as a philosopher taking a long-range view”8—again, a reminder that as leaders we need to be helping to define what problems training is designed to address as much as we need to be involved in delivering solutions through learning opportunities.
The Lippitt brothers do not shy away from the potential challenges we face as internal consultants:
The consultant who is subordinate to the same supervisor as the group that he or she is working with frequently is forced into the role of police officer or watchdog. … Role expectations for internal consultants are limited insofar as they are not independent agents and their functions within organizations are specified. In addition to encountering resentment for intervening, the internal consultant must face preconceived notions of how much he or she will tell the supervisor and what specific changes will be effected.9
Block echoes this challenge as well—“As an internal consultant, you are at every moment embedded in some part of the hierarchy and the current politics of the organization”—and goes on to say that the internal consultant has his or her own manager to please and his or her own department’s goals to support.10 Consulting with colleagues in another department can bring conflict where none existed. It is also, on the other hand, an opportunity to step beyond the role of being “just a trainer” and function as one who can bring change and performance improvement to the organization.
The Lippitts’ commitment to the connection between consulting and training-teaching-learning is so complete that they devote an entire chapter to the basics of designing effective learning opportunities—a wonderful resource for anyone new to workplace learning and performance. Their list of resources at the end of their chapter on consultants’ roles is also highly recommended for anyone interested in more information on the topic.
If we want to serve as learning consultants helping others learn how to learn more effectively, we can also draw from resources including Andrew Jefferson, Roy Pollock, and Calhoun Wick’s creatively designed Getting Your Money’s Worth from Training and Development—inventive not only because it is a straightforward, easy-to-digest guide offering learning tips to managers and employees but because it is printed in flipbook fashion, with one half of the book directed to the managers and the other, when readers flip the book over, directed to the participants.11 This gives all readers the advantage of seeing the ways managers’ and employees’ roles in the learning process differ and the ways they overlap and is in itself a learning experience in that it helps cultivate potential leaders while they are in subordinate positions within their organizations.
There is even more to consider as we consultants help others learn to learn. As increasing amounts of learning within libraries, nonprofits, and other organizations move to online environments, we need to be facilitating the dual challenge of learning the subject matter being offered while also learning how to master that subject matter in a distance-learning environment. We can overcome this challenge by sharing and using resources available to us, rather than hoarding those resources, to better understand all that the transition implies for us and for our learners.12
The good news is that online learning is far from new; segments of our audience have had distance-learning experiences via radio, television, or correspondence courses. What is different now is the use of contemporary digital tools including comprehensive online learning management systems such as Blackboard and Angel; online conferencing tools with audio or video capabilities such as WebEx, Dimdim, GoToMeeting, TalkShoe, and others that seem to spring up faster than we can keep track of them13; and even social networking tools such as Skype, Google Chat/Talk, Facebook, and LinkedIn discussion groups become places for online student-trainer interactions.14
As we consider all these various and varied interweavings of workplace learning and performance and what we might do as consultants within our own organizations, we receive confirmation from at least a couple of our colleagues that our leadership in this area is critically important: “Anyone responsible for training must consider the organization they work in—how it works, who makes it work,” Denver Public’s Smith reminds us.
People make things happen and trainers must utilize (or create) their ability to work with individuals and systems. Trainers must see themselves as problem-solvers for the big and small picture, and likewise as personal problem-solvers for every manager—our job is to help them make their jobs successful. … Impactful communication around this is critical and trainers must take the initiative to show that they are solutions and key contributors—and offer the how and whys and any other evidence they can to become at least relevant, if not essential, to the work that goes on throughout the library.
One major change initiative (“Beyond Today”) that Smith helped facilitate in Denver involved changes in the job duties of senior librarians in her organization: “I was brought into the conversation initially on ‘how do we make this happen without them blowing their tops?’ After we figured out the big picture communication, I was ‘consulted’ as to how to determine what the new skills needed to be. Rough ideas were out there but needed to be refined.”
Smith determined ways to communicate the need for acquisition of the new skills and then developed the training program that all senior librarians were required to attend. “The program … was a series of sessions focused on everything from supervising to new technologies, to building management. I was a key person [in producing] the final result of our senior librarians operating successfully in a new role in the organization.”
Change Is Fine—as Long as It’s for You, Not Me
At the heart of this chapter is the idea that trainers as internal consultants are facilitators of change—a process that does not come easily to most of us and certainly is not easily completed within libraries and nonprofit organizations. Karen Hyman, former executive director for the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, facetiously and memorably captured a truism she called “The Rule of 1965” for libraries (and, we would suggest, many other organizations with well-established traditions) in an article she wrote for American Libraries magazine in 1999: anything done before a certain point in time (in this case, before 1965) is seen as basic; “everything else is extra,” she writes. “For decades libraries have dealt with change by setting limits that marginalize what we do and ensure that library services are sometimes good but rarely essential to any but the neediest or the most determined. Often the limits hang around forever, well beyond growing pains or economic imperative, defended vociferously by those born after the original change took place.”15
This, Contra Costa County Library deputy county librarian Janet Hildebrand says, is where trainers as consultants are critical:
The trainer-consultant should passionately believe in the power of learning—that to most human beings, even those who seem jaded, worn out, set in their ways, there is something life-affirming and contagious about learning and being successful at something you couldn’t imagine being about to do. So, especially when looking at a whole group or staff of a library, one should never assume that they won’t change, or they can’t possibly become what our library has become. When managed well from the top, when building from the small beginnings and focusing energy on building it, this [change] will come about because, fundamentally, most people like to feel good about themselves, and learning is the path to that.
There is no denying that we have to recognize and laugh at our own foibles and limitations if we are going to be effective in facilitating change in others. It is a great reminder, as we participate in meetings where we are planning changes for others, or when we are at the front of a classroom or in the facilitator’s seat during a live online webinar, that there are certain things we, ourselves, do not want to alter. Suggest, for example, that we switch from a coffeehouse or restaurant that we adore to something new and therefore unfamiliar, and we immediately recognize that it is not just our learners who are not always ready to embrace change as much as we and others would love to see it embraced. Try to master a new tech toy like a recently upgraded smartphone or even a simple piece of office equipment like a photocopier with enhanced features and we quickly become far more empathetic toward our learners.
When we are ready to become more serious about the challenges change presents to all of us in our roles as internal consultants, trainers, teachers, and even learners, we have plenty of resources at our fingertips. A quick search of a library online catalog using the term change management, for example, readily produces dozens of options, including the somewhat humbling Complete Idiot’s Guide to Change Management—not that any of us need to consider ourselves idiots for wanting to engage at any level in the process of change.16 On the more serious side of the spectrum is Everett Rogers’s seminal The Diffusion of Innovations—a book as amazing for its comprehensive overview of the topic as it is for the number of ideas that have become standard fare in the area of change management and change facilitation.17 Those who lack the time or inclination to make their way through this 551-page volume will find serviceable introductions, on Wikipedia, to Rogers and to the overall theme of how change spreads.18
Benefits and Risks of Consulting within Our Own Organizations
If we believe an administrator’s promise that the door is always open and that we can walk through that door with a consultant’s eye toward innovation and problem resolution and attempt to make use of that offer, we need to be ready for the angry and sometimes explosive reactions from the managers we bypass in attempting to move things to a higher level. Then again, what else should we expect when we are suggesting something that threatens the status quo?
“The paid employee as consultant has to be more mindful of political minefields,” Jay Turner, training manager for Gwinnett County Public Library, suggests. “I think that you have to be more diplomatic with how you present your viewpoints/findings if they are contrary to what people want to hear. You have to stay as objective as possible, justify everything, communicate through the right channels, and keep your feelings to yourself.”
Management can nurture the development of internal consultants, Lee County Library System continuing education coordinator Catherine Vaughn believes:
First, management must assure the [other] employees that this person is not here to try to find fault, identify mistakes, [and] point out who does what better, but to help the organization grow and to become more efficient. We are looking at processes, not singling out individual behaviors. When the results are announced, it must be presented in that very way. … I believe management sets the positive or negative tone of any organization. And I also believe that enough staff are not recognized for “looking at the big picture” while working. … I would like to add that trust needs to be a factor when using an employee to be an internal consultant.
Louise Whitaker, training coordinator for the Pioneer Library System, agrees on the importance of having supportive administrators if trainers-as-leaders are going to function as consultants within their own organizations. Whitaker is able to function as an internal consultant, she says, because “it is recognized that I have a lot to offer; the value is recognized, both from staff and the administration. I guess just the fact that people are willing to ask me, because they know that I’m available to help [encourages her to take on the role of internal consultant]. That’s one of the things we’ve stressed with all staff: if you need someone to help staff a desk, call me. If you need help with training, call me.” Her success in this area comes from creating a feeling that she is available, accessible, and willing, she adds.
Conflicts, on the other hand, can develop when paid employees try to serve in this capacity, Whitaker acknowledges: “I think it’s more personality-based. Some people have all of the skills, but they just rub someone the wrong way. I’ve not seen it cause any problems for the organization [Pioneer Library System]. I think it causes problems more on an individual basis than for the organization.”
To be effective as a consultant within one’s own organization, “one has to be knowledgeable about all aspects of working in the library, from shelving books to intellectual freedom. They have to be accessible, and … people have to feel comfortable asking them, knowing that the person is going to help them rather than putting them down,” Whitaker concludes.
Sandra Smith echoes this sentiment and explains how she “partners with library managers” so that they see her as a resource to enhance their management skills rather than a competing or conflicting source. She recalls in her first weeks as learning and development manager for Denver Public Library taking each manager out for coffee to chat, explaining what her role was, and establishing good rapport with each manager.
Since leaders are, by definition, instigators of change, and change is what the well ensconced are most averse to seeing, it is no surprise that we can find ourselves in the middle of a conflict when we become part of that process. We then must ask ourselves how far we believe we can go in doing what we think is right for the organization and for all we serve while still being cognizant of and willing to accept the long-term risks we take vis-à-vis our ability to continue functioning effectively within our organizations.
We certainly, as internal consultants, have a level of experience, depth, and understanding of our organization that external consultants simply cannot obtain in the short time given to them when serving as external consultants. If we have been successful in developing the sort of relationships that nurture workplace successes, we understand how to pull the key players—the real change leaders—together to expedite the process we are meant to be facilitating. We also have a level of commitment to the organization and its customers and clients that few external consultants have the luxury of developing—unless they/we are lucky enough to be working with organizations in their own communities.
“We, as trainers, need to remember … to have a big picture focus,” Smith suggests:
We need to see the workings of the library from the third-eye. I do this every day [by asking questions such as] “What is the view of the library from the rooftop looking in? What’s happening on a daily basis? On a systemic basic? What is the atmosphere people are working in? What’s working well? What barriers are there to achievements? What are the needs of the staff collectively? Individually?” … We must broaden our viewing lens to see the view from 30,000 feet to be able to see what place our skills can make a difference, and also the path to making that happen. … And I’ll add that the path we need to take to be successful must be purposefully navigated, with skills, insight, collaboration, good intent, and a bit of luck!
Turner is equally explicit in describing how he approaches his dual role as trainer-as-leader and internal consultant:
To me, being an internal consultant means that, while I have a high degree of autonomy over how the training function operates, I still work alongside relevant stakeholders to ensure that the organization’s training and development needs are met. This allows library administration to articulate what the performance measure should be from the top down, while allowing me to make the roadmap of how we’ll get there from the bottom up. I also feel that my input is valued by my peers and superiors if there is a disconnect somewhere in between the two. … Taking the consultant role does help further the learning opportunities available to staff, because as the person in the middle between admin and the branches [and] departments, I can distill a pretty clear vision of what the real learning needs (and wants) are. I’m able to implement a program here at Gwinnett that I think consistently addresses both with a wide variety of opportunities.
In the best of all situations—where external consultants work effectively with staff willing to and capable of functioning as internal consultants, the results are fantastic, our colleagues note. “We have used outside trainers … and there was no resentment at all,” Janet Hildebrand observes. Members of library staff “could never have spent the time to give every employee in our organization a full day’s worth of training, and they have benefited tremendously from the project by having more competent staff to work with and a pool of peer trainers to help design other rollouts with them in technical areas.”
What makes that possible at Contra Costa, Hildebrand adds, is
the kind of leadership we’ve had from the top for twenty years. … [County librarian] Anne [Cain] has always led us by example and by her direction to her administrative staff that we bring to a project for it to be its best, and we ask lots of questions and we consider everything. … We do not guard, protect, compete. She has always been a person who leaves ego outside the door and thinks of questions to ask that don’t even occur to other people. That’s what she expects of everyone. And when decisions are made, everyone knows why. So the expectation is that we work as a team, and we figure out what is best moving forward.
If we briefly return to the subject of the previous chapter—communities of learning—we can see a natural and wonderful process falling into place. If we are in an organization where strong cohesive communities of learning exist, we have a natural constituency from which to draw. We can seek advice and gain a preliminary sense of whether we are embarking on a challenge worth pursuing or are about to take a lemming-like leap off a cliff with no hope of having a safety net to catch us. The result for everyone involved is a level of achievement and satisfaction upon which other achievements and causes for celebration can be developed.
“I think that it’s important for any trainer-as-leader to love wholeheartedly what they do,” Turner suggests.
As a leader, it’s important to demonstrate that level of commitment to learning or whatever else. If you truly love your enterprise, I think you have no other choice than try to act as an internal consultant. So in this light, there are no pros and cons—you just have to do it. In exchange for potentially having more of a stake and say-so in organizational learning, you just have to accept the mantle of additional responsibility and subsequent accountability.
Through every action we take in our day-to-day jobs as trainer-learner-leaders, we demonstrate our own knowledge, skills, and aptitude not only in training but in nearly every area of the organization. Pat Wagner says that after a while you “develop a certain kind of expertise that’s respected. Then it’s pretty easy no matter where you are in the organization for people to respect you.”
Notes
1. Alan Weiss, Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 4, 37.
2. Peter Block, Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000), 27, 2.
3. Ibid., 328–330.
4. Ibid., 338–339.
5. Gordon and Ronald Lippitt, The Consulting Process in Action, 2nd ed. (San Diego: University Associates, 1986), 99.
6. On ADDIE, see Elaine Biech (ed.), The ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals (Alexandria: ASTD Press, 2008), 196–197, 202–210. On ARDDIE, see Benjamin Ruark, “The Year 2013: ARDDIE Is In, ADDIE Is Out,” T+D 62, no. 7 (2008): 44–49, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_200807/ai_n27996027/. We extend the discussion of ADDIE and ARDDIE in chapter 4.
7. Lippitt and Lippitt, Consulting Process, 64.
8. Ibid., 70.
9. Ibid., 74.
10. Block, Flawless Consulting, 130.
11. Andrew Jefferson, Roy Pollock, and Calhoun Wick, Getting Your Money’s Worth from Training and Development: A Guide to Breakthrough Learning for Managers (San Francisco: Pfeiffer: An Imprint of Wiley, 2009); and Jefferson, Pollock, and Wick, Getting Your Money’s Worth from Training and Development: A Guide to Breakthrough Learning for Participants (San Francisco: Pfeiffer: An Imprint of Wiley, 2009).
12. See Paul Signorelli, “E-learning: Annotated Bibliography for Library Training Programs,” 2009, http://paulsignorelli.com/PDFs/E-learning_Annotated_Bibliography_June_2009.pdf.
13. See Paul Signorelli, “Dynamic Web Conferencing and Presentation Skills for Effective Meetings, Trainings, and Learning Sessions,” http://paulsignorelli.com/PDFs/Bibliography--Webconferencing_Resources.pdf.
14. See Paul Signorelli, “Skype and Low-Cost E-learning Delivered at the Moment of Need,” Building Creative Bridges, http://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/skype-and-low-cost-e-learning-delivered-at-the-moment-of-need/; and “E-learning, Google Chat, and Innovation,” Building Creative Bridges, http://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/e-learning-google-chat-and-innovation/.
15. Karen Hyman, “Customer Service and the ‘Rule of 1965,’” American Libraries, 30, no. 9 (1999): 54–56.
16. Jeffrey Davidson, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Change Management (Indianapolis: Alpha, 2002).
17. Everett Rogers, The Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. (New York: Free Press, 2003).
18. Wikipedia, “Everett Rogers,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Rogers; and “Diffusion of Innovations,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations.