...not as easy to keep them around as you might think. The trouble with having a lot of talent are the egos that can be attached to that particular set of people. So once they climb on board The Goog the assimilation process may not take hold with everyone. As a result, they often look for greener pastures elsewhere while giving Google top spot on their resume. It cant hurt, right?

TechCrunch tells the story today of another C level exit this time on the European front

European Directories has announced a big win this morning with the appointment of Ben Legg as Chief Operating Officer.

Legg joins the Dutch/British company from Google, one of its main competitors, where the man served as COO Europe since January this year and as Director of Operations in the two years before that.

Now, since I was born and raised in the States I honestly had no idea who European Directories was so this seemed like a bit of a shock. That was until I learned more about the size of the company and its impact.

European Directories says it currently provides more than 700,000 SME customers with a range of solutions to their local advertising needs. In total, the company now employs 4,700 staff.

Not too shabby for sure. Read on though and you see that he apparently likes a challenge because the company sounds like the European equivalent of the myriad Yellow Page offerings we are abandoning here in the states like rats on a sinking ship.

He will also head unnamed group-wide initiatives that will be launched to transform the traditionally print-based directory business to a multi-media lead generation venture.

We all know how well that is going here in the US (check out RH Donnelly and their performance as of late). If this type of company has waited this long to turn the corner into a multi media venture then there appears to be some folks asleep at the wheel.

Admittedly though the European market is very different from the US and the direct comparison between these two may not be fair but the underlying reasons for converting to a multi media approach are probably pretty close to the same: go multi media or shrivel up and fade away into irrelevance.

So while we talk about talent leaving Google the one thing we dont see is Google suffering too much (in the short term at least) as a result of the revolving door they have working with some top talent. Maybe The Goog is just so strong that as it floats through the Internet space and it drops a few PhDs and MBAs here and there it doesnt feel it.

Anyway, at least you folks in Europe can look forward to your online space being cluttered with more lead gen efforts. Sweet!

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