What is the Fire hoses?

The 10 winners of the traditional Chicago Innovation Awards this year were similarly unfazed by the Fire hoses they pushed forward with their creations. As in the competition's previous seven years, 2009 honorees include a healthy crop of new Web ventures: EveryBlock, Groupon, and Visible Vote.

But the winners stretch from a maker of backyard products, Suncast, whose self-winding hose reel is sold in such retail chains as Sears (SHLD) and Target (TGT), to the Art Institute of Chicago, which reinvented itself with its Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing.

In addition, Abbott Laboratories (ABT), which won in 2008 for its Xience coronary stent, claimed the first-ever People's Choice Award, racking up 1,655 votes in online balloting for a "mom-friendly" redesign of its Similac infant-formula packaging. The Chicago Innovation Awards were organized by Kuczmarski & Associates, a Chicago innovation consultancy.