Improving the Tire


On any given day, I filter through nearly 1000 RSS messages from some of my favorite blogs and Twitter feeds. Make Magazine is one of my favorites and they delivered a whopper again today. Check out these airless vehicle tires that are currently being developed for the U.S. military.

Tire technology continues to change on a number of fronts. For example, nearly all of my cycling friends have been convinced of the value of "going tubeless" for mountain biking. They use Stan's No Tubes and the results have been consistent...little punctures no longer derail an epic ride. The familiar pinch flats still happen occasionally, but the goathead punctures are nearly non-existent.

I applaud companies and inventors that look at the status quo and challenge it head on. Don't tires require air? No, I guess they don't.

I reckon that the tire innovations listed above started as solutions to a pain: flat tires in places that you don't want to get flat tires.

This week in my Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship course, the students are interviewing 10 family and friends with a simple question, "What pains you?" From this list, they'll be generating 3 new product and/or service ideas. The eventual plan is that these ideas would fuel new business. In case you didn't know, we're breeding entrepreneurship at Cal State University San Marcos.

If they contacted you, what would be one of your pains?

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