Gary Hamel's Idea Hatchery Ah, you gotta love journalists and their flair for trying to make old hat seem new. This time, it's BusinessWeek and well known author and consultant Gary Hamel, who has decided to start a "Management Innovation Lab" at the London Business School where he resides part time. Sounds cool doesn't it? Unfortunately the "lab" is a thinly masked way for Gary to get some publicity for his latest consulting offering - a two day workshop which essentially is there to get business leaders from Ground Zero, to the first steps towards creating a cohesive innovation strategy for that firm (Essentially the "Framing" stage of the Innovation Pipeline).

Not that I blame him for trying to make "a buck" as they say here in the US. In fact, he does actually make an interesting distinction for what he calls "A hierarchy of innovation":

'Economic progress is driven by three forms of innovation: institutional innovation, which includes the legal and institutional framework for business; technological innovation, which creates the possibility of new products, services, and production methods; and management innovation, which changes the way organizations are structured and administered. Management innovation has produced the most profound shifts [in business productivity].'

The article's not worth reading - but I'll be keenly watching to see if he writes more on the innovation hierarchy in the future.