We invite colleagues, competitors, clients and other skilled people from (or relevant for) the industry, for a coffee. Todays guest is Anders Gottlieb-Nygaard. Anders is the founder of Pocket&Comms – a communication/adverting agency with simple beliefs and grand ambitions. He believes in creative problem solving and making interesting things happen on client’s turf. He loves to collaborate with dedicated people and thinks wanky agency rhetoric sucks.

What inspires you?

I find people who can do more than one thing well highly inspiring. Our industry tends to breed talents in silos and then put them in one area to develop. I love when brainy people break that pattern and produce wide-ranging bits of magic.

In my mind, the guys from Tomato or/and Hi-Res! are spot on. – Dedicated, hard working, interested and genuinely nice people.

How do you keep exploring and learning?

We learn from the people we collaborate with, the day-to-day running of the business and the mistakes we make.

Since we’re a small and agency, we have the opportunity to bring in a wide range of skill-sets to the task at hand. In 2011 we used more than 50(!) different people to help us finish the projects. Different brains, more input.

And, we always try to benchmark and evaluate our campaigns pre and post. We learn from our mistakes. I believe it’s bad for business to sell the same errors twice.

When were you amazed last?

Music: Femminielli 

Art: Cy Twombly

Web: Check my StumbleUpon-links.

What is your favourite resource library?

I always tend to read a lot of varied stuff – and I’ve been collecting thought-provoking magazines, article cut-outs, photos, designs, viewpoints etc. for years. Now, this has become a little library of ‘stuff’ in our office. It works as a good resource in conjunction with the mandatory pages we read relevant to the brief.

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

Agencies are looking for ways to make money in digital – and as a result they keep recommending the same executions over and over. Microsites with content (ie. films), apps for smartphones or Facebook – or primetime TVCs encouraging people to go online.

I think there are too many ‘social media experts’ in our industry, not doing much more than blowing hot air out their overpaid asses; whilst showing some cool Keynote slides with large typefaces.I believe no one really ‘gets’ digital or is able to fully utilise its enormous potential, and I find this very intriguing. The best is yet to come, and I’ll love to have my stab at the ‘dark’.

My prediction: The death of Apps and the (re)birth of mobile Internet. HTML5 drives down the cost of cross platform development and takes mobile to the next level. As a result the consumer experience will be simplified and less fragmented; and we don’t have to go via AppStore to prolong the brand experience.