If you haven't heard by now you soon will. This year is the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's Miracle Year. In 1905 Albert, then a 26 year patent clerk and PhD student, published four research papers that reshaped modern science. In one paper, through the measurement of Brownian motion of in a glass of water, he proved the existance of atoms. In a second paper he deduced the size of molecules. In a third paper he presented the idea that light is made up of particles (photons) not waves as previously thought. That change in thinking about light has lead to quantum theory which scientists are still trying to understand. In the fourth paper he presented "a modification of the theory of space and time". That paper gave brith to his theory of special relativity which overthrough Newton's laws of motion which were long held to be the ultimate description of our universe...
Each of these papers presented new-to-the-world ideas which forever changed their respective fields of science. When you consider that they were all conceptualized and presented by one person with a 12 month period it is truely amazing. After this burst of productivity it took Albert 10 years before his next big breakthrough. In 1915 he published his General Theory of Relativity which describe the forces of gravity as a warping space-time, a concept that is still hard to explain.
So, clearly these ideas are innovative but what can we learn from them? Well I would suggest that this shows that you never know where the next great idea can come from. In 1901 Albert was an unemployed college graduate. Four years later he shows the world of science that in four significant areas of understanding of our world they are dead wrong. Now I do not suggest that there is another Albert Einstein hidding in any of our organizations. But in 1904 the Swiss patent office did not expect that there was one in their office. So if we are looking for innovative new ideas we need to be open to all sources. So that we can recognize our Albert's when they come forward with their new to the world ideas.