How to Get People to Embrace Technological Change

Nowadays when large companies announce a product or service, they often hedge its newness with assurances of familiarity and ease-of-use, in order to avoid alienating consumers who might be put off by the prospect of learning to use something completely different. Companies sell evolutions instead of revolutions, promising a product that can make your life easier without making you learn a new language.

The proliferation of hyper-personal technology—social networks that house thousands of family photos; handheld devices that keep all of a person’s most valuable secrets—has also changed the relationship users have with the machines that surround them. The furious rebellion of a Facebook user whose homepage just got rearranged is a far cry from the professional frustration that a photographer might feel when her favorite photo-editing software loses a powerful feature. It’s a much more personal hurt.