Adopt and adapt mean different things. Everett Rogers popularized the notion ot the technology adoption lifecycle in his book, Diffusion of Innovations (1995). He was building on studies of the patterns by which farmers adopted hybrid seed corn at Iowa State College. Geoff Moore drew a line (the “chasm”) between the early adopters and the early majority and wrote five or six books out of it, not to mention scoring hefty consulting fees from Cisco. The Iowa studies, Rogers, and Moore all write about early adopters.
adopt
1 : to take by choice into a relationship; especially : to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) as one’s own child
2 : to take up and practice or use
3 : to accept formally and put into effect < adopt a constitutional amendment
4 : to choose (a textbook) for required study in a course
adapt
to make fit (as for a specific or new use or situation) often by modification
Google has three times as many entires for early+adopters as for early+adapters.
If you bring a third-world child into your home very soon after marrying, you are an early adopter. If you dye your two-year old’s hair bright orange, you are an early adapter.
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