Last Saturday I went to Whole Foods in the afternoon, planning to make Kale soup. They were sold out. My initial reaction was to sigh in frustration until I realized I was a bigger diva than Paris Hilton.

When I was growing up, all stores closed each Saturday at 1pm and didn’t open until Monday at 9am.

The only way to get any food over the weekend was to go to a gas station. Let me know if you ever saw a gas station carrying Kale.

We’re spoiled divas.

We are so used to instant gratification that we don’t even think about the impact it has on other people and businesses.

Nobody wants to wait.

Everybody wants first-class service for coach-class prices.

Nobody wants to compromise.

Nobody wants to admit how fortunate we are.

So, next time you complain about the plane delay, bitch about customer service, write this simmering Tweet about a brand, stop for a second and aks yourself: Are you a bigger diva than Paris Hilton?

Most job descriptions talk in their requirements and qualifications about experience, skills and expertise. And in interviews candidates get asked about their experience, skills and expertise.

Sure, there are some professions where nothing else is required: Surgeons, chef or airline pilot. While their daily tasks and techniques might change incrementally, they need to really focus 99% of the time on their experience, skills and expertise.

In the ever-changing media world, there’s one quality that’s more important than any experience, skills or expertise:

Curiosity

I haven’t met one brilliant media professional who is not a curious person. Curiosity is so important because:

Your mind becomes active instead of passive

Curious people always ask questions and search for answers in their minds. Their minds are always active. Since the mind is like a muscle which becomes stronger through constant exercise, the mental exercise caused by curiosity makes your mind stronger and stronger.

Would you rather hire a passive or active thinker? Would you want somebody on your team that reacts to challenges or somebody who anticipates them?

It makes your mind expect new ideas

When you are curious about something, your mind expects and anticipates new ideas related to it. When the ideas come they will soon be recognized. Without curiosity, the ideas may pass right in front of you and yet you miss them because your mind is not prepared to recognize them. Just think, how many great ideas your team may have lost due to lack of curiosity?

It opens up new worlds and opportunities

By being curious, you will be able to see new worlds and possibilities  which are normally not visible. They are hidden behind the surface of normal life, and it takes a curious mind to look beneath the surface and discover these new worlds and possibilities. They can’t be found in marketing blogs, conferences or weekly status reports. They are out there in books, museums, the little store on the street, the conversation with daily people.

It brings excitement to work, life and your team

Curious people are seldom bored. There’s always something new to discover, new to explore, new adventures to experience.

So, next time you interview a candidate spend a bit less time on exploring the details of their career and find out more what goes in their head and imagination: What book did they read last? What movie made them think and change their opinion? What music connects with them? The last trip to the museum? If they would write a book, what would it be about?

We all start out curious. Often, this curiosity is being killed by the home, the school or the challenges of daily life. When you meet somebody who still has that childlike curiosity, who battled through all the curiosity killers and still made it: Hire them. You’ll never regret it.

All I Own – Swedish photographer Sannah Kvist’s portraits of European hipsters with all of their possessions is a fascinating project revolving around our consumption behavior. She asked friends and acquaintances to place all their belongings in the corner of a room. Her goal was to create a portrait of the Swedish generation, born and raised in the 80’s.

It’s remarkable how much of our consumption is determined by our environment and the media we are engaging with. The current deleveraging period we’re experiencing reminded us that possessions shouldn’t own us, and that the majority of the things we own should serve multiple purposes, is high-quality and as sustainable as possible.

Mark writes about this video he posted on Vimeo:

“On an unseasonably warm November night in Manhattan on our way to get ice cream, we stumbled upon what appeared to be a vintage shop, brightly lit display window and all. As we began to walk in, a man sitting out front warned us that we were welcome to explore, but nothing inside was for sale. Our interests piqued, we began to browse through the collections the man out front had built throughout his life. This is a story of a man and his home.”

An apartment as a social object. He created an environment that connects him with the world because people want to talk with him about it. As I wrote in my blog post ‘Social Objects are the future of participatory media’:

What are social objects?

Social objects are the reason why people socialize. We’re social animals but we need to find a common ground to communicate with each other. That common ground is the social objects.

Let’s say you’re at a party, you are shy and feel completely lost. You are not going to approach a stranger with “I really love Wilco’s new album and I’m reading Jonathan Franzen’s latest book. So fascinating.” The other person will call 911 and hope you’ll end up in a mental institution. In the good old smoking days, your first conversation revolved around the brand of cigarettes both of you are smoking. (Remember the days when you sat in a smoky bar, your social object “cigarette box with logo” right in front of you communicating to the world some part of your personality?) Now, we are focusing on phones, apps, drinks or tattoos. Some social object that connects me with you.

Come to find out that social objects are not only the future of advertising. They are also the future of human connection and interaction.