Matsu’s World: The One Less Traveled

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this post about the new telephone books arriving — with Yellow Pages — and referenced some statistics I read when surfing an article on MSN about the same topic. I had no idea I would be visited by the editor of the Yellow Pages industry website, YP Talk — his name is Ken Clark.

I don’t know if my quotes of the MSN article bothered him or it was the number of people all over the world cutting back on their use of the phone book (including Yellow Pages), but he definitely seemed upset when he left me a comment here. Then, on his website he wrote:

“Bloggers continue to tell everyone that will listen to them that THEY NEVER USE A PRINT YELLOW PAGES, and are astonished that any Cretan would ever need one.”

I get the impression that Mr. Clark doesn’t like bloggers who share their opinions or observations. That’s too bad. It’s unlikely that they will stop sharing their thoughts any time soon. I would think that fighting the bloggers would be a losing battle. But, that’s just this bloggers opinion, which isn’t worth too much.

So, back to the title of this post… just a few minutes ago Jay Leno made a funny joke on the Tonight Show (NBC). He was making fun of the Yellow Pages and said, “Yellow Pages is for the three people who don’t have the Internet.” Then, he went on to say, “And, who doesn’t like picking the phonebooks up from the driveway after a week of rain?” Apparently, it’s not just my opinion that phonebooks are used less and often abandoned at the front door.

My guess is most of those phonebooks are not picked up because they are not needed nor wanted in some homes. Eventually, they are moved from the driveway to the trash can, never entering the house. Again, that’s just my guess. Of course, I’ve done that myself and just this week I watched my neighbor do that. I took the photo in this post before they threw away the phone book. It had been sitting there for more than a week.

It seems things are pretty bleak in the phone book advertising industry. Mr. Clark also wrote…

“Guess that Armageddon has finally arrived in the Yellow Pages Industry. Time to fold the tent and move on to a new industry, new jobs, a new life. Be honest, many of you believe that don’t you? If so, you best stop right here, go find a job in another industry because we really don’t need you here.“

My guess is that people who sell advertising for Yellow Pages are seeing declines in the effectiveness of advertising in phone books and agree with Mr. Clark so they are quickly running to another industry where they might be able to make more money. It would seem that the only people making money are the printing companies that get paid for all of those phonebooks that are never read and sometimes are thrown away before they enter the house.

Mr. Clark, don’t take yourself too seriously. My previous post was meant to be amusing. And, I took the facts from a reputable source (well, mostly reputable), so I’m not sure why you have a problem with me… take this up with MSN if you disagree with their findings.

Yes, the city where I live still publishes and distributes free phone books to every household. My phonebook is actually two phonebooks. A regular size (8.5 inches by 11 inches) and smaller (half-sized) phone book. The larger one includes almost 500 white pages and over 900 yellow pages. That’s a lot of pages. And, if they wanted to save cost or natural resources by using the reduced book size, then they should not have included the full-sized phonebook with the smaller one. I’m not sure what they are thinking.

According to this MSN article, in America more than 650 million phone books were published last year (the U.S. population is only 300 million people) creating up to 1 million tons of waste. I don’t even want to think about how many of them are never used, ever. Most people under 40 never use a phone book. What do they use to look up a phone number? The Internet, of course! But that’s the point of that article.

Since phone books are costly to produce and are paid for by advertising the readership will determine how much longer they will be around. If it is not worth advertising in phone books, then the ad revenue will dry up and eventually the publishers of phone books will cut back the production and distribution.

So, what are young people using phone books for these days? Simple, phone books have become props for YouTube videos. Here are two such videos…

This first YouTube video is a type of European Mythbusters episode testing the myth that two phone books that have the pages shuffled together like a deck of cards can’t be pulled apart.

This second YouTube video demonstrates how to tear a phone book in half with just your bare hands. Yes, it can be done!

So, that is what phone books are used for by young people.

You may want to hang onto your old phone books because they may be worth something as an antique or museum piece. This website is dedicated to old phone books. If you don’t want your phone book or no longer need that old one from five years ago maybe you can send it to them instead of a landfill.

Today I was catching up on some reading and came across this post by Robert Scoble. He said:

Several people have told me about an off line version of Gmail, coming soon. Other people say that Google, or a company working with Google, is going to come out with a new server that will let corporations replace their Exchange servers with ones made by Google.

Now, wouldn’t it be interesting if Google did in fact come out with an e-mail client to rival Microsoft’s Outlook or Outlook Express? And, to take that one step further, what would happen if Google did release a server that could replace Exchange servers allowing all existing Outlook and Entourage users to just continue using the same client software with the new server without ever knowing the difference? Obviously, that’s not something Microsoft wants to see, but it may  be coming.

The world of technology is always interesting and ever changing.

I recently took my teen aged son to a baseball practice at an indoor arena. At the same location and time there was a soccer game taking place. As I watched the soccer game I was reminded of many of the characteristics of a good team, both in athletics and in business.

The soccer players each had specific roles or positions they played. While they had clearly defined roles, they also worked fluidly and occassionally helped each other out and covered other player’s positions when needed. At one point the goalie moved way out of the goal and another player automatically move in front of the goal. THAT’S the way a department should work! I didn’t hear anyone say, “that’s not my job” or “who do you think you are doing my job” and they all worked together to accomplish a common purpose.

They also talked all of the time. They were constantly calling out to teammates and communicating either warnings (or opposing team members’ presence) or opportunities to pass or score. They anticipated things and then talked to their teammates to make sure everyone knew the situation and had a heads up on what could happen. It was easy to apply that kind of communication to a healthy work environment.

There was an expectation that each person would pull their weight and perform their very best. And, when the ball was passed from person to person there was a trust between players. Skills were needed at both the individual level and they had to rely on each other and work together to score.

We’ve all heard that a well run organization takes teamwork, but watching a skilled and high performing soccer team really drove home to me the importance of each person doing their part and understanding their role but being flexible enough to fluidly help out in other roles as needed and then go back to their primary role when they were done. To do that there must be a high level of trust and respect between team members.

The final thing I noticed, which is very true of a workplace team, is that players were changed out from time to time. Right now, I’ve got two team members that I need to hire and so it’s important that I find the people with the right skills and ability to be a true team player in order to have a well run department.

A friend of mine recently asked for my help in figuring out how to remove the drawers from a Steelcase filing cabinet. They needed to move it and because of its weight, they had to remove the drawers.

The first thing I thought to recommend was to try the “rocker” approach to file cabinet drawer removal. You know the drill… pull the drawer all the way out then pull up on the front so the wheels come out of the rails then pull it out more so the back wheels of the drawer can come out the same way. Only, it turned out the model of Steelcase filing cabinet my friend had didn’t have wheels. Instead, it had ball barrings.

Next, I suggested looking for a rocker lever on the bottom or back of the drawer. In a previous job we purchased all new furniture for a 60,000 square foot building and it was all made by Steelcase. So, I thought that it might be constructed in a similar way as that furniture. It turned out that upon very close inspection there was no lever or button or rocker arm or latch at the back, bottom, or side of the drawer or rails.

Finally, I suggested looking on the inside of the drawer, not knowing where else one could look for a release latch to allow the drawer to slide free of the rails. While I was saying that my friend proclaimed that they may have found the secret. It turned out they discovered a latch on side panels of each drawer near the front of the file cabinet drawer and releasing it allowed the drawer to be removed. Very clever, Steelcase!

With that bit of office furniture mystery solved and the first drawer removed a second problem arose. How do you get the second and subsequent drawers out if the filing cabinet has the safety feature that only one drawer can be open at a time. Well, my friend figured out that piece of the puzzle as well. They found a round white plastic wheel with spokes that when turned it released the locking mechanism allowing the remaining drawers to open so that they could also be removed. Very, very clever.

If you want a puzzle to solve, forget buying a Rubik’s cube, buy a Steelcase filing cabinet instead! It takes a very clever person to solve it.