If the changes thrust upon us by the coronavirus did anything, they affirmed how much we value human connection in our daily lives. David Meerman Scott, who helps companies and organizations define strategies to grow business, has been researching this idea of human connection for some time. He spotted the online content revolution in its infancy and wrote five books about it including The New Rules of Marketing & PR, the definitive book on the topic, translated into 29 languages. Now, David's identified a seismic shift underway. Overwhelmed by nonstop superficial online communication, people are hungry for true human connection. Smart companies and organizations are winning by applying the elements of fandom – it's not just for celebrities anymore…it's rocket fuel to grow business.

David's eleventh and latest book, Fanocracy, written with his millennial daughter Reiko, reveals the science behind fandom – the power of making business personal. He establishes how and why people become passionate about the things they love and how any company can create a fanocracy to harness the most energetic customer force in the world: die-hard fans. Companies and organizations of all sorts are doing it, including those from the most unlikely industries. David's high-energy presentations highlight strategies and success stories of business fandom using bold images and video to energize and inspire audiences.

David's ideas have captured the attention of respected firms and organizations all over the world – having spoken in over 40 countries and on all seven continents. His groundbreaking strategies don't just slap new tools onto dusty old strategies – they reinvent the way to engage the marketplace.

The top-selling book by David is The New Rules of Marketing & PR, a Wall Street Journal bestseller in its 6th edition with over 400,000 copies sold. It is available in 29 languages and used as a text in hundreds of universities and business schools worldwide. Real-Time Marketing & PR and The New Rules of Sales and Service have each broken new ground with fresh ideas. David is co-author of Marketing the Moon (and contributing producer of the 2019 PBS documentary it inspired, Chasing the Moon) and Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead. David's next book is co-authored with his daughter, Reiko, and reveals how the power of fandom – long understood in the celebrity world – can be harnessed by business.

David is the pioneer of Newsjacking, a business growth strategy so successful that it is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary: "In the space of a few short years, newsjacking has gone from an experimental technique to a staple in every social media-savvy marketing department's arsenal. Its contemporary iteration, however, dates from the early twenty-first century, as first popularized by marketing and sales strategist David Meerman Scott."

David is a globalist with real-world experience building businesses and a sharp eye for the bigger marketplace. He moved to Tokyo at age 26 to establish the Japan office of a Wall Street Real-Time economic advisory firm. He worked for global Real-Time media companies in Tokyo for seven years and Hong Kong for two. David was Asia marketing director for Knight-Ridder in the mid-1990s before moving to the Boston area where he was marketing VP for two publicly-traded U.S. companies. Losing his job following the sale of NewsEdge to Thomson Reuters delivered David the gift of reinvention as a strategist advising organizations on the new realities of agile, Real-Time business.

David is a co-founder and partner in Signature Tones, a sonic branding studio. Signature Tones works with clients to create sonic logos and original music for use perfectly in tune with their brand. Sonic branding includes original music that is used in videos, podcasts, products and services, as walk on music for speaking engagements, in TV and radio commercials.

David is an advisor to emerging companies who are working to transform their industries by delivering disruptive products and services. Besides delivering success as a member of the board of directors of NewsWatch KK (successfully sold to Yahoo Japan) and Kadient (successfully merged with Sant), and on the board of advisors of Eloqua (successful IPO in mid-2012 and sale to Oracle in early 2013) and GrabCAD (successfully sold to Stratasys in mid-2014), his current portfolio of advisory clients includes HubSpot, where he has served since 2007, (successful IPO in 2014), digital selling firm Vengreso, Mynd, Harmony, YayPay, SlapFive, ExpertFile, and InstaViser as well as non-profits including the Grateful Dead Archive at University of California/Santa Cruz and HeadCount. He is also a strategic limited partner and advisor to Stage 2 Capital, a go-to-market venture capital fund investing in and advising companies scale sustainable revenue and healthy growth.