David Meerman Scott - Early Life

Early Life

Scott graduated from Kenyon College in 1983 with a BA in economics. After early jobs as a clerk on several Wall Street bond trading desks, he worked in the online news and information business from 1985 to 2002. He held executive positions in an electronic information division of Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world’s largest newspaper companies from 1989 to 1995. He was based in Tokyo from 1987 to 1993 and in Hong Kong from 1993 to 1995. While in Tokyo he had a sideline as a male model and actor, culminating in a performance in NHK Hall as an extra in the 1988 Teatro alla Scala touring production of Puccini’s Turandot directed by Franco Zeffirelli with James Levine conducting. Ironically his Caucasian looks got him the part playing the role as an Asian. Scott explains, 'The assistant director told me "This is La Scala! We do everything as Puccini had intended! We must employ hundreds of gaijin extras and make them up to look Asian. We cannot use real Asians!"'

He moved to the Boston area in 1995 and joined Desktop Data, which became NewsEdge Corporation. In his most recent corporate position he was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge until the business was sold to Thomson Corporation in 2002.

He says "I didn’t plan on becoming a marketing strategist... I came upon it accidentally..." At NewsEdge he and his team found that do-it-yourself programs based on creating useful content and publishing it on-line at virtually no cost consistently generated more interest from qualified buyers than expensive profession public relations programs. Scott's belief that this idea was not only valuable but also innovative was confirmed when The Thomson Corporation terminated his employment after acquiring NewsEdge. "My ideas were a little too radical for my new bosses. So I started my own business..." he says.

Since 2001, he has used Meerman, his middle name, to distinguish himself from other notable people called David Scott such as the David Scott who walked on the moon as the commander of Apollo 15 (and whom he has met).