"There is some place where your specialties can shine.  Somewhere that difference can be expressed.  Its up to you to find it, and you can." - David Viscott

I got asked the other day, "What kind of innovation person are you?"  Hmmm...interesting question.  I replied that I was an innovation management generalist, with a niche specialty in innovation process maturity.  You can almost envision eyes glazing over can't you?  But it really did get me thinking about the diversity of specialists, generalists and other "ists" in the innovation, new product development, marketing, design and other related spaces.

Here's a small list of innovation niche areas just off the top of my head...perhaps you can think of more:

• New Product Development
• Research and Development
• Prototyping
• Idea Generation
• Organizational Creativity
• Design
• Marketing/Advertising
• Open Innovation/Co-Creation
• Innovation Management & Leadership
• Innovation Processes
• Stage-Gate
• Innovation Tools (mind mapping, idea management software, etc.)
• Strategy & Planning
• Metrics, Measurement & Analysis
• Intellectual Property (Patents, Legal Protections)
• Culture, People, HR
• Customer/Consumer Research and Ethnography
• Trends, Future Farming and Horizon Studies
• Portfolio & Project Management
• Scientific/Engineering
• Collaboration
• Training & Skill Development

Wow!  No wonder people get confused!  The truth is...there's a lot involved when you are a part of bringing ideas to life and we all play our unique role.  Some of us play a more generalist role like helping organizations more effectively wrap their arms around the concepts of innovation or providing training to improve individual creativity.  On the flip side, some of us play a more specialist part like working on improving the maturity of innovation management processes (that's me!) or developing a new polymer that solves a design issue.

One of the cool things we, as "innovators," can do, and in fact SHOULD do, is gather at conferences, seminars, speeches, online forums and social networking groups and share our uniqueness.  We need to share what we know about our specialty areas, learn from what others have to share about their specialty areas and forcibly combine those points of knowledge to create new streams of thought. 

So here's a specific example...and I'll be honest...I don't focus much on open innovation.  Doesn't really hold a strong interest for me.  I appreciate, understand and support the concept...but its not my area of focus.  However, I know some people who do focus on it.  I've met them either personally or electronically via the gatherings I listed above.  And because of those relationships and opportunities to share and learn, if I had a client or prospect who had a need in that area, I would refer them to those in my network who have made that particular niche their specialty. 

Want some ideas on where to go to share your unique niche and learn from others?  These are just a few places to get started.  I'd suggest you Google or Bing for more!

Conferences:
PDMA Annual International Conference
Business Innovation Conference

Web Resources:
InnovationTools
IdeaConnection

Online Communities (search people & groups using innovation as a keyword):
LinkedIn
Twitter