Jack Ridnour Cole (February 12, 1920, in

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

– July 29, 2007, in

Spearfish Canyon Spearfish Canyon is a deep but narrow gorge carved by Spearfish Creek located in Lawrence County, South Dakota, U.S., just south of Spearfish. The canyon is located within the Black Hills, located on the northern edge of the Black Hills Natio ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

) was an American entrepreneur and businessman who used early computer technology to create "crisscross directories", which are used to sort millions of people by street address. The "Blue Book" is the original criss cross reference directory. These directories "quickly became a staple of public library reference shelves" as well as of valuable use to both business and government, including detectives, direct marketers, police stations, reporters, insurance agents, and small business owners. Jack Cole earned an undergraduate degree in business from the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

and went to work for IBM as a sales representative in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. In 1947 Cole began publishing the ''Cole Directory'', a set of reverse guides to various United States cities which listed a city's residents by address and by telephone number by using IBM's punchcards. He hired typists to keyboard the entire Dallas telephone book onto punch cards. Directories for other cities soon followed, with Cole drawing on census records, tax rolls and other data to supplement the information in the phone book. ''Cole Directories'', which now cover about 200 cities, are published in print and digital forms by the MetroGroup Corporation of

. MetroGroup Corporation now owns the fruit of Cole's work, in the form of Cole Information, an information company headquartered in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. The company has adapted to the emerging technologies by advancing from print directories to also specialize in providing marketing programs including

internet marketing The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

services, web-based lead and list generation as well as online directories. A widower, Jack Cole died of cancer, aged 87; he was survived by three children, eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and a sister.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Jack (businessman) 1920 births 2007 deaths American computer businesspeople People from Lincoln, Nebraska People from Lawrence County, South Dakota University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni Deaths from cancer in South Dakota IBM employees