As a young boy, David grew up in Guatemala, living with a tribe of Mayan Indians until the age of 18, after which he moved to the United States. He now lives in Nashville, TN with Julie (wife of 27 years). Their oldest son Jonathan (24) graduated from Emory University and works as a strategist for a brand consulting firm in Atlanta. Their youngest son Nathan (22) is a senior at Belmont University in Nashville where he majors in journalism.
His education, undergraduate and graduate, involved learning lots of languages (very few of them modern) and a fair amount of theology. So far it hasn't helped a whole bunch.
His entry into the field involved a typesetting job on a Varityper 4560, which led to a self-described meteoric rise to head of marketing at a publisher of academic journals and books (code for "nobody reads them").
Shortly thereafter, he started a marketing communications firm in northern Indiana which grew to a dozen team members over six years.
During those years, he was asked to speak to and write for peers. After resisting this at first, it quickly grew to the point where it made sense to switch to a management consulting career solely. He founded ReCourses in March, 1994.
Since then David has advised hundreds of independent firms and in-house departments in the fields of advertising, design, interactive, and public relations, typically working with 40 new firms every year.
He has been a frequent speaker at nearly every industry conference (HOW, AIGA, PRSA, Counselors Academy, MYOB, SEGD, BDA, PROMAX, TDCTJHTBIPC, Y, etc.) and a frequent contributor to nearly every industry publication (Critique, Communication Arts, HOW, Rough, Creative Business, PR Intelligence Report, Creative Planet, In-Review, Graphic Artists Guild, Agency Insider Report, Post Industry, Internet Professional Publishers Association, VFXPro, IC Planet, Web Techniques, etc.).
He edited Persuading for its entire tenure of five and one-half years, creating a new standard for business advice to the marketing industry via a reference journal with subscribers all over the planet.
David founded RockBench, an international, independent publisher of thought leadership content.
David and his work have been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, and BusinessWeek. He also contributed portions of Cameron Foote's The Business Side of Creativity, Robert Bly's Internet Direct Mail: The Complete Guide to Successful E-Mail Marketing Campaigns, and the new AIGA book on Professional Practices in Graphic Design.
He has contributed to a dozen other publications by leading authors, and a recent three-part booklet series was published by NewPage, entitled David C. Baker Speaks.
He is the author of the forthcoming RockBench book titled Managing (Right) for the First Time to appear early 2008.
David's hobbies include teaching advanced riding/racing motorcycles at the international Superbike school, flying helicopters and airplanes, photography, and racquetball.
Not much of this matters, frankly—it's just background. The advice should stand on its own, and it either makes sense or it doesn't.
Julie helps with long-range planning for ReCourses and the marketing that flows from it. She also manages a portion of the client fulfillment work that takes place behind the scenes, and is very involved in managing our seminars and roundtables. Thousands of firms have sent attendees to these, and the logistics are very involved, particular if the experience is to be seamless to the attendee. Julie also manages the infrastructure for some of the ongoing RFM research we are conducting on properly structuring roles at a creative service firm. She has worked with us since 1994.
