Obama Needs a Secretary of Innovation reads the title of a post by Thomas D. Kuczmarski in Businessweek.

In the words of Thomas, Obama include a new position in his Cabinet designed to sharpen the focus on changes needed to stabilize and revive the nation's economy.

There is a lot of action based only on guesswork, not on a careful exploration of what really is needed. In the midst of recession, companies need to innovate more than ever. Yet too many are choosing instead to hunker down, postpone investments in R&D, and avoid risk-taking until the market has stabilized. The companies that continue to build an innovation culture and make modest investments to keep the innovation pipeline full will be the ones that enjoy a big competitive advantage a few years from now.

Defining the process of innovation Thomson says, It can have just as much to do with rebuilding a devastated economy as it does with rebuilding a product line. It needs someone responsible for leveraging the talents, skills, technologies, and capabilities that we have as a country.

So what does an Innovation officer do?

It is imperative that establishing the Secretary of Innovation not signal the start of a new bureaucracy. The model would be similar to the corporate CIO: the person responsible for assembling cross-functional teams in the search for breakthrough ideas so that innovation is seen as an organization wide effort, not the product of yet another silo.

The Secretary of Innovation would help ensure that the full power of the innovation process will be used in the vital work of stabilizing the economy and for advancing innovation in the private sector.

Sounds easy!