Since individuals in a social system do not adopt changes at the same time or at the same rate, moving new ideas from the site where the initial changes were made to the target population is not always a simple process. In his book, Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers places adopters into categories classified from "innovators" to "laggards" based on their willingness to adopt changes over time and notes that the category may vary based on the change being adopted.

The initial spread strategy relies on broad-based communication about the improvements to identify those individuals who are most interested in learning about and implementing them. Knowing where these "early adopters" are located within the target population can inform and shape the initial spread strategy by identifying where to begin the spread effort.