The year 2008 would have been called extraordinary if all that happened was that Bear Stearns went bankrupt. As it turned out the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns was just an appetizer and we had a whole slew of institutions get into phenomenal trouble.

Just look at what all transpired. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac went bankrupt. Lehman Brothers followed suit. There was almost a trillion dollars of bailout. The big three automakers joined the long list of companies that asked for government help. Just like SARs, the financial crisis spread from the U.S. to Europe to emerging markets of India and China.

Despite all these setbacks, I feel very optimistic about our ability to rebound and get on the path of economic progress. Humans are remarkably resilient. I am also encouraged by the number of articles that highlight the importance of innovation even during these difficult economic times.

CEOs must urgently recalibrate their strategy calculus around two priorities. First, they must take a zero-based approach to their current operations and see how to dramatically re-engineer their costs. One area of particular importance is raw material costs. In times of deflation, corporations will do well to renegotiate supplier contracts since commodity prices have tumbled. Second, they must evaluate all their growth and innovation projects, perhaps prune the innovation pipeline and protect high priority high payoff growth ideas.

The best time to invest in innovation is during a downturn. When the global economy is in recession, assets and talent are cheap to acquire and build.

Innovation is more, not less, important in 2009. I will post a series of articles on how to make innovation happen. These will be columns that I and Chris Trimble (my co-author in Ten Rules For Strategic Innovators) wrote for FastCompany.com ideas that are ever green.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on those ideas as well as share with us your experiences in implementing innovation.