This is not just another transformation story. Thomas (formerly Thomas Publishing) has made a radical leap from directory publisher to becoming a "data platform company that runs like a software business focused on user experience."

As I was watching the coming attractions a couple weeks ago in a local, independently owned movie theater, the owner popped in the back after The Post and shouted out if people wanted him to get that film. A resounding "Yes!" went up. Next came Phantom Thread. "Daniel Day Lewis, what do you think?" he blared. A less forceful but still clear "yes" sounded out.

I learned Sunday that asking your audience what they want to see or read did not start in 2015. An excellent new documentary, Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, shows a clip where famed TV host Ed Sullivan asks his audience—on the air—to write in if they want him to book "that great Swedish star" as a guest.

One particular takeaway of a BIMS session on retention given by Liz Slovenkay, membership director for insideARM—a publisher in the debt collection field—had me nodding in firm agreement. Slovenkay found that a member in their Compliance Professionals Forum hadn't been placed in a peer group for six months, obviously hurting renewal chances.