The possibility that President Obama, an admitted BlackBerry addict, might appoint a cabinet-level chief technology officer has created a lot of excitement in the world of technology. Such an appointment would finally be an acknowledgement of the importance of technology in the day-to-day lives of Americans.

The Chief Technology Officer of the United States would presumably be responsible for coordinating the use of technology throughout the government – something which has long been wanting – but also in promoting its application to the lives of Americans.

Americans clearly see a policy role for the White House CTO. A site called www.ObamaCTO.org asked readers to identify the top priorities for the job. Voters listed as number one network neutrality, guaranteeing equal access to the Internet to companies and individuals. Some companies have suggested they would like to charge higher fees for access to heavy bandwidth users such as video sites.

The no. 2 issue in the poll was privacy, including repeal of the Patriot Act, which allows the federal government broad rights to conduct surveillance without direct supervision by the courts. Third was repeal of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the controversial law which attempted to set rules for copying, fair use and payment to artists.

But the job is not likely to appeal to a visionary like an Eric Schmidt of Google, No.1 in Red Herring’s poll of candidates for the job, or Bill Joy, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, if it is focused just on revising legislation. (See: http://redherring.com/blogs/)

The Secretary of Technology should be providing a vision for our technology future. What are the technologies that will dominate 5, 10, 20 years down the road. How will a switch to “cloud computing” affect our current digital infrastructure?  How do we turn around a dramatic decline in Americans willing to study science and technology to assure we have the personnel we need. How can the government nurture innovation, as the legendary DARPA once did, without getting in the way of the free market’s decision process?

There is plenty of fundamental work to do. The U.S. was ranked 15th among industrial nations in broadband penetration, with a mere 57 percent of Americans having access to broadband service at home, according to a 2008 Scarborough report, compared to 80 percent or higher in some European countries and Korea. President-elect Obama has indicated that he sees the potential for job creation and innovation by expanding broadband’s reach.

The tech czar’s role would not be limited to information technology issues. He or she would probably oversee the federally-backed $50 billion venture capital fund that Mr. Obama has proposed to nurture more green technology. The CTO could end up as a sort of neutral arbiter on disputes over the best technologies and the best organic products to convert to fuel.

It is likely that the Obama Administration will pass some form of universal health care in the next four years. A key element of that initiative requires digitizing medical records for all Americans and providing the right access to doctors and insurance companies while protecting the privacy of the individual. The CTO would probably play a key role in assuring that technologies chosen are compatible and that protections are in place to control access to medical records.

Finally, the CTO would have to coordinate with the chairman of the FCC, which has traditionally made decisions affecting technology use in communications. There has been a sense in recent years that the FCC was trailing tech advances and not really equipped to deal with issues like social networks, peer-to-peer networks and cloud computing. Whoever lands the job of national CTO will have a very full agenda.