We invite colleagues, competitors, clients and other skilled people from (or relevant for) the industry, for a coffee. Todays guest is Nina Rieke, Strategic Planner at Doubleshift in Hamburg, Germany. Nina works intensively with New Media and brands operating in social media environments, has a bachelor’s degree in Social and Business Communications from the Berlin University of Art, experience from Trendbüro, Lintas, Jung von Matt, Springer & Jacoby and LUCY Planning, is since 2004, lecturer at the Miami Ad School, training as systemic business coach AND member of the managing board of APG. She enjoys her free time with her family, travelling, modern literature and cooking.

What inspires you?

The world and people around me. As a planner I see myself also a cultural researcher – and try to observe closely what happens around me. I love to walk the streets and observe people – favourably in cities I do not live in. One great hub of inspiration for me is Berlin – anything that is about to happen culturally will be on first in this buzzing city that is a melting pot for people from very different backgrounds and heritages. I am working in a set up where I interact with changing teams from diverse disciplines, companies and agencies. In this I value most the cross-disciplinary and cross–cultural collaboration. I find it tremendously inspiring to co-operate with different people – which is sometimes a true challenge but always a great way to keep an open mind.

How do you keep exploring and learning?

Through my internal motivation as well as external forces. Being a very curious person makes it easy for me to keep exploring. Trying to make sure that I do not take things for granted and set in stone. Questioning ways of doing stuff and being open to the new – new tools, new technologies or a new way to look at things. But sometimes it is just about catching up on what is necessary to learn – as I just took a keynote seminar – as more people work with it around me I just needed to investigate it to also be able to use it. I try to always form an option about things by diving in and trying it myself – this is especially true with digital media, for example with blogging or Twitter. Only by testing it you get a feel for stuff and what the benefits could be. I see the world as a constantly evolving place – almost nothing today has been like this 20 years ago – and it will keep on changing – so I will always be learning and exploring to understand and be part of it. No wonder a quote by Darwin is one of my favourites: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

When where you amazed last?

I am often amazed by small things that are not connected to my work but that are giving me a new perspective, teach me something about the world or are just a way to see the beauty of the world. The three things that I remember from this summer:

By my 4-year old son and how he sees, explores and explains the world – he comes up with constant observations about things. It amazes me almost every day – how for example we talked about punks that he had seen in the street and why they are begging for money. So cool to question things that you take for granted and don’t even recognize anymore.

Sybille Bergemann exhibition at C/O gallery Berlin – a photographer from eastern Germany and co-founder of photo agency „Ostkreuz“. She had a very special way to come up with soft and emotional images and has shaped fashion photography and female images in a very individual way. An interview with her revealed much about how she looks at photography – very moving and great to see, hear and feel. It amazed and touched me thoroughly and also assured me that women have a very different use of technology – e.g. when it comes to learning how to work with and use cameras.

Reading “Makers” by Cory Doctorow – he has the ability to describe the future in an amazing way – not futuristic sci-fi like, but with a spin that makes it feel like a possible reality scenario within the next 10 years. Spooky but amazing all the same how the future could be with horrible and beautiful things alike and a lot of this already here.

What is your favourite resource library?

Anything I need for my job I can mostly find online – or order with Amazon. I love my Twitter-stream as a window for spontaneous resources that interesting people like to share as well as the RSS feed from a lot of great planning blogs. Apart from that I love real book stores that have cool concepts – there are at least two in my hometown of Hamburg where I like to browse the alleys and talk to the sales staff about their favourite reads, they have found a way to position themselves aside from „regular“ stores by offering more interesting context around their books – aside from coffee they put book reviews next to the shelves, share their own favourites on separate tables, sort books differently aside alphabetically ….always inspiring and great fun to investigate.

What’s the biggest challenge the digital communications industry is facing right now, and do this lead you to some predictions?

The biggest challenge is to see digital not as a medium but an infrastructure that more and more people will have at hand and that will surround us anywhere in the future. For people in general there is little fascination in the technology itself – but it is all in the things you can do with it and for people. The challenge will be to keep in mind what people do culturally – tapping into that, coming up with stuff that inspires, helps, informs, entertains people in a relevant way. From my personal view there should not be such thing as the „digital communications industry“ but only communication – no matter which medium or channel we work with.