All In

This morning I picked up my mail (snail that is) in my post box which now by law has to be 5m outside of my front door - a pain in the morning, when you are used to get it indoor. In the mail I found the latest up-dated edition of The Yellow pages - the well known printed format. Year after year I get a new and updated version.

When I first looked at it I had this feeling of seeing an old friend. But then it got me thinking - this is a complete waste of paper and money. I haven't used it for many years and I never will again. It's almost as if The Yellow pages are ignoring the Google-reality that I'm living in. But then again they are not, because they have their own specialized search engine www.degulesider.dk known by most Danes. Then back to the question, why are they sending this stuff. Ohh of course my Mom and a lot of older people like to receive it because they are not on-line or they just like the "old friend". But still that doesn't explain why they send it to me. The reason is money, they can charge a higher price - directly or indirectly for the adverts based on their distribution numbers. Almost fraud I would say, even though they claim efficiency on their site. No matter what I can not be part of that equation, because I don't look at it. I'm just annoyed!

My point is not the frustration this can cause. The Yellow pages know that their printed version will die - of course they can do their math, but I believe it used to be a major cash-cow and they don't dare kill it. Although they can paint a picture of a digital future and they have a solution at hand for this (including apps, and more than 20 mill searches) they keep annoying me and even cheat the advertisers.

It's a question of facing reality and go All In. And with the experience I just had with The Yellow pages I feel they don't go All In. It's hard when they basically need to let go of something that used to work for you.

This is also the case for my company transforming from a traditional Ad Agency to an agile problem solver and change agent in a digital world. Especially when the clients are not completely there yet and the business is still based on an old value definition (we charge mainly by the hour). It's really hard not to look back at what used to be your business and compare it with a future that is still unclear and unpredictable

I constantly try to remind myself to go All In and maybe the experience I just had with The Yellow pages helps me go further. And while I'm at it, I will contact them and tell them not to send it again and save some forrest.