---
id: "prereq-technology-adoption-lifecycle"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["¶1", "¶6"]
tags: ["marketing-theory", "adoption"]
related: ["concept-curiosity-window", "claim-found-time-drives-exploration"]
reason: "Necessary to understand why 'searches aren't adoption, but they're a low-risk first move' and why the authors focus so heavily on the exploration phase."
sources: ["commercial"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-commercial"
originDay: 5
articleStem: "hbr-foci-66-customers-willing-try-new-tech"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/11/research-when-are-customers-willing-to-try-a-new-technology"
sourceTitle: "Research: When Are Customers Willing to Try a New Technology?"
---
# Technology Adoption Lifecycle

**Prerequisite:** The article assumes familiarity with the standard **technology adoption lifecycle / funnel** — specifically the distinction between:
- **Passive awareness** — knowing a term or product exists.
- **Exploration** — taking the first *active* step to learn more (which precedes actual usage or purchase).

**Why it matters:** The whole thesis targets the *exploration* step. It explains why the authors treat a search as meaningful — 'searches aren't adoption, but they're a low-risk first move' — and why [[concept-found-time|found time]] is framed as what unlocks the move from awareness to exploration (see [[concept-curiosity-window]] and [[claim-found-time-drives-exploration]]).

**Enrichment link:** the counter-perspective that hype helps a technology *cross the chasm* (diffusion of innovations) lives in the same lifecycle vocabulary — see [[contrarian-hype-does-not-equal-readiness]].