Yesterday, while attending a webinar, I heard something mentioned that struck a note with me. The speaker said that it is our job, as IT professionals, to support innovation. The statement of course makes sense and is inline with what I view our jobs to be, but hearing someone else say it made me ponder what exactly does it mean – to support innovation, in practical terms.

And while I can’t yet organize everything I thought of relating to this, what I did start to organize is the directions from which innovation can come. What I observed is that even if we do prepare for innovation, it is usually from only one or two of these directions, and ultimately end up blindsided.

So without any further ado, here is the list. Would love to know what my small band of forced followers think about it.

• IT department innovation – innovation within our own department, new way of looking or doing things, that are largely confined to just us, the IT department within the organization.
• IT industry innovation – innovation within our profession, although we haven’t seen true innovation in a long time.
• Business innovation – innovative ideas and concepts initiated by the organization we support.
• Industry innovation – innovation started by someone else within the same industry we’re in.
• Customer innovation – innovation on the part of the customers our organization serves.