My colleague Steve Rubel participated in a teleconference for PR professionals hosted by the Public Relations Society of America. During the session, the moderator, Peter Himler, asked him what three essential sites or tools that professionals should be using as they go out and navigate this crazy new media landscape.

Steve says that his reaction at first was to go to the usual answer - an RSS reader, etc. But then he thought about it. Of course there are a bunch of core technologies that any businessperson can pick up, install or sign up for that will certainly make mastering this whole Web 2.0 thing a lot easier. However, all too often we overlook the soft tools that make up our character.

Steve ended up telling his audience that the most important tool you can have today in business is insatiable curiosity. The minute you lose it, he says, you're dead.

Steve reads constantly about business, leadership, marketing, and technology.  Even though he was a PR professional by trade, curiosity is what led him in 2003 to start dabbling with RSS readers and blogging software. It's what drives him today to play with all of the latest social networks, rich Internet applications, and IPTV systems.  It’s what makes him one of the best known bloggers in the communications industry, possibly even on the Internet, and allows him to continuously stay ahead of the curve so that every day, he brings new and valuable information to readers, clients, and colleagues like me.

No matter what career you’re in, curiosity, or a hunger to learn, will serve you well.  Business changes so quickly now that it’s not enough just to keep up with all of the developments.  You have to know enough to anticipate trends before they happen, and be willing to consider how today’s piece of news or invention will affect tomorrow’s world.  Thanks, Steve, for pointing out that there isn’t a magic formula to your type of success, and that people can achieve great things if they just take the time to look around.