Gary Hamel’s keynote speech at the FORTUNE Innovation Forum last week continues to draw mad props from participants of the event. In one noteworthy posting (“The Upside and the Downside of Innovation”), Yvonne DiVita of the Lipsticking blog has pulled together a number of observations and commentary about Gary Hamel’s views on management innovation.

Yvonne explores the link between management and innovation, explains why innovators must be “nimble” and “romantics,” analyzes the Hierarchy of Needs within organizations, and riffs on Gary’s comments about building a vibrant, resilient organization: “So, how do you build and manage a vibrant, resilient organization? By teaching the employees to be activists: find out what causes they support. Utilize the ever-present chance of surprise! Learn from positive deviants. Be experimental.”

Look for more postings from Yvonne on innovation in December - every Wednesday, she will be sharing her thoughts on innovation and providing some additional commentary about some of the more interesting speakers and workshop leaders at the FORTUNE Innovation Forum.

MarketWatch has named Robert Iger of Disney as the CEO of the Year for 2006, thanks in part to his commitment to innovation within the entertainment industry:

“With a blend of bold strokes and olive branches, in contrast to his predecessor’s iron boot, Robert Iger has re-imagineered the Walt Disney Co.’s culture and reanimated its stock. Disney’s $7 billion buyout of Pixar was just one of many moves in the past year that won plaudits for Iger. The company, formerly bogged down by board and shareholder discord, has emerged as an example of good corporate governance.”

According to MarketWatch, the willingness to do the $7 billion Pixar deal was especially noteworthy and forward-looking:

“It may seem like an obvious, logical move now, but even those who work for Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger initially thought buying Pixar Animation Studios was a big gamble. When Iger pulled the trigger earlier this year on the $7.4 billion transaction, many in the entertainment industry questioned the wisdom of shelling out that much money for a company that puts out a single product once a year. Sure, Pixar had been wildly successful, scoring more than $3.6 billion in worldwide receipts, but it faces rising competition from other Hollywood studios.

Yet the move accomplished several tasks for Iger and Disney. It mended fences with Pixar chief Steve Jobs, who had grown weary of the mercurial Michael Eisner, Iger’s predecessor. It also put in Disney’s camp the animation specialist that had trumped its once-dominant position in the market. And it represented a symbolic but critical return to Disney’s roots, seeming to quickly heal the deep divisions that ailed the entertainment giant.”

[image: Disney CEO Robert Iger]

Without a doubt, magic is cool these days. In just the past six months, we’ve been treated to Hollywood films like The Illusionist, The Prestige and Woody Allen’s Scoop, all of them with magic as a central part of the plot line. (The films also feature big-name actors and actresses like Scarlett Johansson, Edward Norton, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Paul Giamatti.)

With that in mind, perhaps, the New York Times has called Andy Cohen’s new book Follow the Other Hand - which combines a behind-the-scenes look at the world of magic along with insights about innovation and business strategy - a potential bestselling business book for 2007. The Business Innovation Insider reviewed the book back in September, intrigued by the premise that corporations can become more innovative by learning to think like magicians. Paul S. Brown of the New York Times agrees, suggesting that the book will teach you how to “create ideas out of nothing, solve impossible problems, and make it all seem effortless.”