Arguing for a need for automotive innovation, Flat-Worlder Thomas Friedman suggests in the New York Times that “somebody ought to call Steve Jobs…and ask him if he’d like to do a national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the GM iCar.”

Friedman is right to evoke Jobs. Apple (AAPL) succeeded because it appealed to the tastes of the “next” generation. Think about it: How many kids owned iPods before their parents? How many kids used e-mail first? I got my first text message from my Dad about a month ago. He asked, “How are you?” And I knew life would never be quite the same again.

Companies look to kids not just because they’re the next wave of consumers, but because they establish what’s hot today. As those tastes change, big companies will need to be nimbler, smarter - more like tech start-ups, if they want to remain viable.

After all, tech businesses never enjoyed the luxury of laziness. The moment your new toy feels stale, you’re out. Remember CompuServe? Or Wang computer? Or XyWrite?

Dead. Dead. Dead.

Nevertheless, Friedman himself may have missed his own point. American car manufacturers need to start thinking like the next Steve Jobs. They need to find the next design, the next way to fuel-efficiency, the next way to excite. We can only hope that there, standing in the shadows of General Motors, looms the next great innovator.

So I challenge car companies to think big. Why stop at hybrid cars? Make ones that float. Make a Mustang that literally transforms into a real mustang, so when traffic gets bad, you can hit a button and gallop softly away into the sunset. Let’s all agree that 2010 is the year when all cars, regardless of size, shape or color, can finally move sideways.

A hundred years from now, who knows the possibilities!

But here’s my prediction: Cars will be built in Detroit.