Not necessarily.  If I'm not mistaken, payment processors like Bitpay convert to fiat instantly so that there's no exchange rate risk for the merchant to deal with.  But volatility certainly does prevent businesses from actually accepting bitcoin (as opposed to bitcoin that's converted to fiat by the payment processor).  It obviously wouldn't be good for any merchant if they got a payment in bitcoin and then the price crashed shortly thereafter. 

As far as what we can do to promote bitcoin as a currency, I'm not sure there is much the average person can do aside from lobbying businesses (especially the big ones like Amazon) to do so, and my guess is that a lot of them don't want to be associated with an anonymous currency that's frequently linked in the media to criminal operations like Silk Road and whatnot.

Also, there are a lot of us bitcoin enthusiasts who don't want to spend it on mundane items or services where fiat will do just fine.  Why run the risk of missing out on making a profit if bitcoin starts to take off just because you wanted to spend it on computer equipment at Newegg or something like that?  I've always seen bitcoin more as an investment that has properties of a currency, but I've never been a big fan of actually using it as money.  Thus I'm not concerned that most businesses don't accept bitcoin.  If it stays that way, I'd be totally fine with it.