Do you have a unicorn in your midst?

Earlier today I finished up listening to yet another amazing podcast by the @geek_whisperers speaking on Unicorns.
http://geek-whisperers.com/2014/01/episode-33-unicorn-husbandry-or-employee-social-evangelists/

A unicorn is a unique creature one that may not be tamed.  In the tech world, this can be the saving grace for your company.  When it comes to a coworker, can one work with a team?  Unicorns are those that can think outside of the box, pulling from resources that others may not even consider.  I remember one particular incident we had at work when all of the teams were scrambling trying to decide what the problem was and where was it coming from.  Remember, "It's never the network." and "It can't be a server issue, they're all running fine".  So maybe it was the user?  So after the finger pointing stopped, we were all called into the big meeting room so we could hash this out.  We weren't leaving until we had something to bring to management, we simply needed a solution or at least a path.  Well it took our unicorn to start asking if anything had been patched.  While it certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibilities, patches had been deployed weeks prior.  Turns out that a patch from two or three cycles before had been applied but the server never rebooted.  This server was requested to be rebooted and that's when the trouble happened. On that day we were happy the unicorn was paying attention.

Now I know that this wasn't the primary focus of the podcast, but this is how I can absolutely relate to having one on our team.  So are unicorns born or built?  Some people love being the hero and saving the day.  The accompanying article relates "The right kind of employee evangelist is like a Unicorn: very hard to find. ". I think when it comes to tech, or a product, you need a champion within your organization. Someone who will rise to the occasion and take on those that try to stifle the progress of the project or new beginning. I'm still not sure if I can answer how unicorns come about.  But I think we can all be unicorns if the need arises.