The blinding flash of the obvious

Sometimes innovation is just looking at what everyone else sees in just a slightly different way. Witness the Carbon E7, the world's first purpose-built law enforcement vehicle.

As the story goes, Dallas police officer Stacy Dean Stephens kept notes about everything that was wrong with his Crown Victoria Police cruiser. To everyone else, it was the cop car. But to him it was just a passenger car with accessories bolted onto it, so it was rife with compromise.

It soon became clear to him that the only way to really satisfy the needs of officers in the field was to design a car from the ground up. So he found a partner and by 2012 will start selling a cruiser that's designed to do exactly what officers need, more easily, more quickly and more efficiently. You can get a detailed look at the features and functions here.

So what does opportunity look like? If this example is any indication, there's a pretty good chance you're looking at it right now.