Matt Krug from hibu and I are attending the Washington State Recycling Association (WSRA) conference in Stevenson, WA to promote the industry and highlight the environmental and sustainability initiatives of LSA members. We’ve had the opportunity to speak in front of hundreds of city and county waste management staff about our self regulatory efforts involving the opt-out site as well as meet individually with them at our booth. We’ve also developed some personal relationships and contacts with staff at cities across the state. These relationships should be valuable contacts for us in making sure our message gets heard and in keeping regulatory pressure off of the industry.
Here is Matt giving a quick pitch about the yellow page industry’s opt-out program to a large audience at the conference.
In March, I had the privilege of presenting during a webinar titled “Recycling Niche Materials,” hosted by Keep America Beautiful (KAB). I presented alongside representatives from the plastic film recycling industry, Steel Recycling Institute and International Sleep Products Association. This was a great opportunity to show KAB’s audience the tremendous strides our industry has made in sustainability and consumer choice. Here is a video showing LSA’s portions of the webinar:
The Association and member publishers continue our conference collaborative project to ensure cities and counties know of our industry’s sustainability efforts and public policy positions. We started in Saratoga Springs, NY on Sunday for the two-day annual meeting of the New York State Conference of Mayors & Municipal Officials and will also have meetings in Albany, NY. Attending are Sarah Wilson (DexMedia), Matt Krug (Yellowbook), Gene Wilk (LSA) and myself.
Since the exhibit hall opened on Sunday afternoon and our booth was located in the reception room, we’ve been fortunate to have many great one-on-one conversations with elected officials from cities throughout the state.
We’ve been describing how print, Internet and mobile app directories are the critical link between local businesses and local customers, and we’ve been explaining how our consumer choice program is worth promoting among their constituents.
All of us are looking forward to today’s full day of participating in the NYCOM conference and having the opportunity to meet more of New York State’s local elected officials.
From L to R: Wesley Young (LSA), Sarah Wilson (DexMedia), Gene Wilk (LSA) & Matt Krug (Yellowbook)
Today’s highlight was the delegates lunch. Speakers included Sen. John McCain, Secretary Tom Vilsack of the Dept. of Agriculture, Hon. J.C. Watts from Oklahoma, and Vice President Joe Biden.
A good sign of my progress here is my ability to find someone I know, whether it be while waiting in line for 45 minutes to get through security detail, or when looking for a seat amongst the 2000+ attendees. I sat with Aldermen from Evanston, Illinois and council members from San Leandro, California.
I’ve also been very impressed with the “pedigree” of some of the local officials. David Lee of Medina, WA is finishing up his Masters in Urban Planning at Harvard (he commutes cross-country weekly), and Leland Cheung of Cambridge, MA has an undergraduate degree from Stanford and an MBA from MIT. Maybe if I spend enough time with them some of it will rub off on me.
Ultimately, this has been a very productive trip and I was happy to represent LSA and our members while building goodwill amongst city leaders.
I sat with council members and city managers from South Carolina, Georgia, California, and Washington to listen to today’s breakfast speaker, Rev. Al Sharpton. Whatever your political views, there’s no denying that he is a dynamic speaker. He shared this one story about how a celebrity asked him to preside over their funeral to which Sharpton replied, “Well, you better give me something to work with!” His talk was about the importance of living a meaningful life and I couldn’t help but feel inspired.
I continued to attend sessions and receptions throughout the day where I had the opportunity to meet local leaders from all over the country especially Texas, California, and Washington. I ended the day by going to dinner with two local leaders from Washington State: Mayor Conrad Lee from Bellevue and councilman David Lee from Medina. I’ve really enjoyed spending time with some really impressive leaders and sincere people.
I also got to hear from General Martin Dempsey who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of only a handful of military leaders who has served in every rank of the military. He talked about the one thing that soldiers must have in order to operate effectively; trust. Similarly, my time here at the conference is all about building trust with local leaders and I look forward to continuing these relationships after I leave DC.
I left New Jersey on an early Sunday morning flight to attend the Southeast Recycling Conference (SERC) & Trade Show that started later that afternoon in Destin, Florida. Joining me again is the successful crew from the Keep America Beautiful conference that was held in January: Yellowbook’s Matt Krug and YP’s Felicia Smith, flying from Iowa and Georgia respectively.
I’m losing an hour from Daylight Savings Time but I’m gaining an hour for crossing into the Central Time Zone. I’m calling it an even trade!
Hundreds of attendees from the recycling industry in twelve southeastern states are converging on the Gulf Coast in the Florida Panhandle from March 10-13. The agenda is packed full with fantastic speakers and we’re happy to be talking with attendees about our industry’s great strides in sustainability and consumer choice.
(L-R) LSA’s Gene Wilk, Ray Laughter (Environmental Services Manager of DeSoto County, Mississippi), Matt Krug (Yellowbook) and Felicia Smith (YP).
LSA’s Gene Wilk (center) with Alice Smith (left) and Lisa Ruffe (right) who came to SERC from Brevard County, Florida. Alice is the Recycling & Sustainable Acquisition Program Manager for NASA at its John F. Kennedy Space Center.
I’m pleased to share that we recently reached an agreement with the City of Seattle to end litigation resulting from its discriminatory phone book ordinance. As we shared last October, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave a unanimous ruling in favor of free speech that protects all media, including Yellow Pages, from restrictions that hurt local businesses and consumers and cost taxpayer dollars. Now Yellow Pages companies can continue to offer their services without the challenges put in place by the City’s ordinance.
As an industry, we know it doesn’t make sense to deliver a directory to someone who doesn’t want one. But we believe our industry’s consumer choice program, rather than local government-led initiatives, is the best approach to ensure consumers control the delivery of Yellow Pages directories to their homes and businesses. Consumers in Seattle and nationwide can visit www.YellowPagesOptOut.com to limit or stop delivery of directories. The straightforward, easy-to-use website is free, funded by Yellow Pages publishers rather than taxpayer dollars.
We look forward to working with the City of Seattle to increase visibility of www.YellowPagesOptOut.com among its residents and will honor opt-out requests previously submitted to the City’s former opt-out website.
We will also continue to help Seattle’s local businesses navigate the increasingly complex local media marketplace to give them their best possible return on investment and to provide residents with the ability to find those businesses wherever they search.
We had a great day spreading the word on our industry’s efforts in consumer choice and sustainability at the 60th annual Keep America Beautiful conference in D.C. Here are some photos of just a few of the folks we spoke with yesterday!
(L-R) YP’s Felicia Smith, Dan Powell, Planner with Greenville County, South Carolina and Yellobook’s Matt Krug
Marcia Lintz (left) of Keep Moline (Illinois) Beautiful with Matt Krug of Yellowbook
Edie Younge (left) of Keep Forest Park (Georgia) Beautiful with YP’s Felicia Smith
LSA’s Gene Wilk (left) with Phil Homerski of Keep Hamilton Ontario Beautiful
Felicia Smith of YP (right) & Gene Wilk of LSA (center) met exhibit hall neighbor, Michael Mackesy (left) from Mackesy Plastics Corporation in Mission Viejo, California. Mackesy said that one of the first things he did when opening his business was get a Yellow Pages ad.
(L-R) Allison Teeters of Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Felicia Smith of YP and Charlene DeSha of Keep Blount Beautiful
Christi Cakiroglu of Keep Truckee Meadows (Reno, Nevada) Beautiful with YP’s Felicia Smith
YP’s Felicia Smith with Brenda Dent-Russell of Keep Birmingham Beautiful Commission
I’m traveling from New Jersey by train today to attend the 60th annual Keep America Beautiful conference in Washington, DC. Joining me are Yellowbook’s Matt Krug and YP’s Felicia Smith, flying from Iowa and Georgia respectively.
For these next three days, the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC’s Woodley Park neighborhood will be home to hundreds of local leaders from throughout the United States and Canada. These community advocates work hard all year long to promote recycling, sustainability and anti-littering. I’m sure they’re going to be pleased to learn more about our industry’s good efforts with consumer choice and sustainability.
Keep America Beautiful has been an important partner to the Local Search Association, most notably, having its logo featured in the lower-right corner of YellowPagesOptOut.com. This past November, KAB featured an LSA “toolkit” for America Recycles Day that helped event organizers show people how they can select the directories they want delivered by using YellowPagesOptOut.com.
This conference is the first of many stops on LSA’s 2013 conference collaborative where we’ll be reaching out to state and local leaders.
Keep checking the blog because I’ll be updating it with more news direct from the conference.
I attended a number of presentations yesterday at the National League of Cities’ Congress of Cities and Exposition here in Boston, including one on 2012 city fiscal conditions. The overall outlook was bleak as cities are still suffering from lower revenue and depletion of reserves which are resulting in a continued need to lower costs. Many cities are suspending infrastructure investment, laying off workers and cutting services in order to make ends meet.
As I learned during the discussion, sometimes all these efforts are not enough. The NLC cited cities that were on the brink of bankruptcy, cities in more than $100 million in debt, and cities laying off hundreds of staff including police and firefighters. One example shared was one town in New Jersey that was forced to lay off most of its police force despite serious crime in its neighborhoods.
In times like these, cities need all the external support they can get to address issues in their communities. I know that when it comes to our industry, we are making efforts to do our part. Our national consumer choice website at www.YellowPagesOptOut.com provides cities with a free solution to address unwanted phone directories by residents. Our industry – rather than governments and taxpayers – picks up the tab for this offering, because it’s the right thing to do. We also partner with local officials to get the word out to their constituents about this resource.
I was also interested to learn that the NLC recently took over the Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI). This program will become the main platform for NLC to support sustainability efforts of its member cities. It is an online platform to assist cities with identifying, planning for and implementing sustainability initiatives. I plan to explore how our industry might work with the SCI to incorporate our consumer choice website into its toolbox of solutions for cities.
Neg Norton and I continued to make many contacts with local officials from Georgia, Idaho, Missouri and Arizona through various events at the conference. In particular, I continued to have a good time getting to know Asian American city officials such as San Jose, California councilmember Kansen Chu. We bantered with other local officials from California, testing one another’s proficiency in Cantonese (my home dialect) and Mandarin. I was also approached by Mayor Conrad Lee of Bellevue, Washington, who asked that we reconnect after the conference.
Yellowbook’s Matt Krug, YP’s Jim Troup and Dex One’s Tim Foster said a significant number of local officials stopped by our industry’s exhibition booth. The consensus among many of the leaders they spoke with was that print directories were by and large not viewed as a significant issue in their communities. In fact, some city officials who stopped by were small business owners who either advertised in the Yellow Pages or who understood the value of the phone directories in driving new business.
Stay tuned for more updates from the NLC conference!
Many of the officials represent city and towns in California and Washington, where there has been a high interest in regulating distribution of print directories. I was glad to be able to address the group briefly to introduce the Local Search Association and overview our industry’s voluntary sustainability and consumer choice efforts, including the national availability of www.YellowPagesOptOut.com.
The group was intimate enough for me to also engage in one-on-one discussions with many of the officials to get to know them on a personal level as well as receive some tips on what they felt would be effective outreach efforts by our industry.
Evan Low, vice mayor of Campbell, California and president of the Asian Pacific American Municipal Officers, suggested that our industry take a proactive approach to our messaging so that city officials learn about our voluntary solutions before they proposed ordinances regarding directories. He also acknowledged that neighboring cities frequently borrow ordinance language from one another, so setting good precedent is always important. Gilbert Wong, a city councilmember in Cupertino, California, said that while many city officials are supportive of local business, they also have constituents who have significant interest in environmental protections. That said, he acknowledged that he appreciates businesses that have active sustainability initiatives.
I look forward to building stronger relationships with communities across the country and working together to address our shared interest in resolving questions and issues regarding directory delivery.
We continued our ongoing work telling the local search industry’s sustainability and consumer choice story as an exhibitor to about 300 local and area representatives at the GreenTown Highland Park conference last Friday in Highland Park, IL.
The event, which we attended at the invitation of Highland Park Councilmembers Paul Frank and David Naftzger, gave us the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a variety of local government officials and representatives of organizations who share our interest in building sustainable, prosperous communities. LSA and our members had previously worked with Councilmembers Frank and Naftzger in February to promote www.YellowPagesOptOut.com, the industry’s national opt-out website for phone book directories. We again met with Councilmember Naftzger at the event and he personally thanked us for our continued involvement.
This GreenTown event follows hibu & LSA’s similar participation at the Illinois Recycling Association conference in Rockford, IL back in June. Special thanks to hibu and Matt Krug for their participation again at the Greentown event.
LSA's Wesley Young and hibu's Matt Krug at GreenTown Highland Park
We had a great time meeting with city and county managers and other officials from across the country and around the world at the ICMA annual conference in Phoenix this week. Our booth here received a great deal of foot traffic and enabled us to reach a large number of officials in a short period of time.
In most cases, the officials who have stopped by our booth said they don’t believe that directory delivery is a problem in their communities. That said, when presented with information about our industry’s consumer choice initiative at www.YellowPagesOptOut.com, many officials expressed satisfaction that the site was easy for residents to use and cost no taxpayer dollars. Several attendees assured us that they plan to add a hyperlink to www.YellowPagesOptOut.com in the “helpful links” sections of their city and county websites.
I think I speak for fellow industry attendees Tim Foster (Dex One) and Matt Krug (hibu) in conveying the success of our time here and the importance of continuing to promote the ability of consumers to control their directory delivery preferences.
(L-R) Tim Foster of Dex One, Matt Krug of hibu and Gene Wilk of LSA
Jill Jordan, assistant city manager, Dallas, TX, with Gene Wilk, LSA
We’ve had a great day here at the ICMA annual conference in Phoenix. Here are photos of just a few of the numerous participants who have stopped by our booth over the past two days!
(L-R) Matt Krug of hibu, Gene Wilk of LSA and Tim Foster of Dex One
The Association's Gene Wilk with Gail Remy & J. Moe Davis of the National League of Cities
LSA's Gene Wilk with Kim Payne, city manager, Lynchburg, Virginia
The Association's Gene Wilk with Grant McRadu, City of West Vancouver, Canada
(L-R) Matt Krug of hibu; Rodrigo Silva, assistant county administrator, Maricopa County, Arizona; Tim Foster of Dex One
LSA's Gene Wilk with Ed Shulke of Jordan, Minnesota
LSA's Gene Wilk with Rose Fernandes, manager of business partnerships, Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators
Keep America Beautiful's Shannon O'Donnell (Manager, Litter Problems) and Stacey Rice (Associate, Development) with LSA's Gene Wilk
First, hibu and the Local Search Association will be exhibitors at the Southeast Recycling Development Council (SERDC) Recycling Summit 2012, taking place October 1-4 in Point Clear, Alabama. SERDC, which develops and promotes sustainable recycling programs in 11 Southeastern states, organizes the annual summit, which includes speakers and breakout sessions on all sorts of topics related the recycling. The event will give us the opportunity to share our industry’s sustainability approach with attendees.
Second, hibu, Dex One and the Local Search Association will be promoting our industry’s consumer choice initiative at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) conference, taking place October 7-9, 2012 in Phoenix. This conference will allow us to engage city and county managers from around the country. As we know, these managers play vital roles in local governments and serve as valuable partners in spreading the message about our industry’s sustainability programs and value to local communities.
We’re very much looking forward to both events! As always, we’ll be sharing our key takeaways from SERDC and ICMA right here on Local Search Insider.
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