Diagram 2: Adoption of Innovation

• Innovators: venturesome with multiple information sources.
• Early adopters: educated opinion leaders.
• Early majority: deliberate with many informal social contacts.
• Late majority: skeptical with less diversity of contacts.
• Laggards: risk averse and few contacts.

Targeted outreach dramatically accelerates acceptance of new ideas.

Local governments build partnerships with innovators and early adopters. Some of them come up with novel spins, which deepen the benefits.

Local governments themselves are often innovators and early adopters, which helps diffuse the ideas and builds the skill and knowledge base necessary to spread the innovations throughout the community.

Municipalities adopting LEED standards for their own buildings followed by targeted programs to engage private sector developers is consistent with this approach.

Key leverage points

These are the strategic situations where policies will have greatest impact. The interaction may be at the permitting process, during the annual budget cycle, a parking lot or literally the drawing board.

Key leverage points consider who can have significant impact: end users, such as potential homeowners or residents in a new neighborhood development, or it could be retailers, designers, planners, engineers, builders or developers.

Policy levers will have the greatest impact when you have carefully defined your targeted outreach and key leverage points.