This article is primarily about Thomson prior to its 2008 merger with Reuters Group. For the current company, see Thomson Reuters. For other companies called Thomson, see Thomson (disambiguation).

Thomson Corporation headquarters

The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. Thomson was active in financial services, healthcare sectors, law, science & technology research, and tax & accounting sectors. The company operated through five segments (2007 onwards): Thomson Financial, Thomson Healthcare, Thomson Legal, Thomson Scientific, and Thomson Tax & Accounting.

Until 2007, Thomson was also a major worldwide provider of higher education textbooks, academic information solutions and reference materials. On October 26, 2006, Thomson announced the proposed sale of its Thomson Learning assets. In May 2007, Thomson Learning was acquired by Apax Partners and subsequently renamed Cengage Learning in July. The Thomson Learning brand was used through the end of August, 2007.^[2]

Subsequently, on October 15, 2007, Educational Testing Service (ETS) finalized acquisition of Thomson's Prometric. Thomson sold its global network of testing centers in 135 countries, for a reported $435 million. Prometric now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of ETS.^[3]

On May 15, 2007, The Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, a deal valued at $17.2 billion. On 17 April 2008 the new company was created under the name of Thomson Reuters. The new CEO of Thomson Reuters is Tom Glocer, the former head of Reuters, while the chairman is David Thomson, formerly of the Thomson Corporation.

Although it was officially a Canadian company and remained Canadian owned, Thomson was run from its operational headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, in the United States.

History[link]

Since its founding by Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet, Thomson's history has developed alongside the media age. By the end of the 1950s, Thomson had grown from a single Canadian newspaper, The Timmins Daily Press, into a global media concern. It held several prominent newspapers in the United Kingdom, including The Sunday Times and The Scotsman, and it owned Scottish Television.

In the 1960s, Thomson's publishing realm expanded further to include Thomson Publication (UK), a consumer magazine and book publishing house, and The Times. In 1965, Thomson Newspapers, Ltd. was formed as a publicly traded company in Canada. Roy Thomson's prolific endeavors in publishing had earned him a hereditary title, Lord Thomson of Fleet. Yet, Thomson's interests moved beyond publishing with the creation of Thomson Travel and acquisition of Britannia Airways in 1965 and 1971, and a foray into a consortium exploring the North Sea for oil and gas. Thomson used its oil profits to buy small newspapers in the United States, starting with the acquisition of Brush-Moore Newspapers in 1967 for $72 million, at the time the largest sale of newspapers.^[4]

By the end of the 1970s, Thomson Newspapers' circulation in the United States had surpassed the 1 million mark. The merger of Thomson Newspapers and the International Thomson Organization in 1989 created The Thomson Corporation.

Over the years, the company has withdrawn from its holdings in the oil and gas business, the travel industry and department stores.^[5]

When Kenneth Thomson took over from his father Roy in 1976, the company was worth about $500 million. At Kenneth's death in June 2006, the company was valued at about $29.3 billion.^[5]

Transition to business information[link]

In 1978, the acquisition of Wadsworth Publishing provided Thomson with its first entry into specialized information, college textbooks, and professional books.^[5] (In 2007, Thomson Learning, including the Wadsworth imprint, was sold and renamed as Cengage Learning.)^[6]

Starting in the mid-1990s, Thomson invested further in specialized information services (but this time providing them in digital format) and began selling off its newspapers. That was about the time Richard J. Harrington, an accountant, became chief executive officer of the company. One of the first moves came when Thomson spent $3.4 billion to acquire the West Publishing Company, a legal information provider in Eagan, MN.^[5]

In recent years, Thomson provided much of the specialized information content the world's financial, legal, research and medical organizations rely on every day to make business-critical decisions and drive innovation. While it remained a publishing company, early and aggressive investment in electronic delivery had become a key company goal.^[5]

"Except for its educational division, which still publishes a substantial number of conventional textbooks, Thomson had the good fortune to move into these businesses as customers were demanding electronic delivery of their information," according to a July 3, 2006 article in The New York Times. "In some markets, Thomson was able to move past other players who were more cautious about digital conversion."^[5]

Brands[link]

Some of Thomson's brands are better known than the company name itself. Its brands include Westlaw, FindLaw, BarBri, Physician's Desk Reference, RIA, Tax and Accounting (tax and accounting software and services for Accountants) Creatives Solutions, Quickfinder, DISEASEDEX, DrugREAX, Medstat, Thomson First Call, Checkpoint, EndNote, Derwent World Patent Index, SAEGIS, Micropatent, Aureka, Faxpat, OptiPat, Just Files, Corporate Intelligence, InfoTrac, Delphion, Arco Test Prep, Peterson's Directories, TradeWeb, Web of Science and the Arden Shakespeare. Thomson formerly owned Jane's Information Group. These information sources are produced by the many companies of Thomson, including West Publishing, Thomson Financial, ISI, Thomson Gale, Dialog Corporation, Brookers, Carswell, CCBN, Course Technology, Gardiner-Caldwell, IHI, Lawbook Co, Wadsworth, Thomson CompuMark, and Sweet & Maxwell.

In 2003, the Thomson Corporation bought the Chilton automotive assets.

In late 2004, the company sold its Thomson Media group to Investcorp. The B2B publishing group, which features such titles as American Banker, National Mortgage News and The Bond Buyer, is now known as SourceMedia.

In October 2006, the company confirmed it would sell the Thomson Learning market group in three parts. The first part, corporate education and training (NETg), has agreed to be sold to Skillsoft for $285 million. Apax announced its acquisition of Thomson's higher education business on May 11, 2007, for $7.5 billion in cash assets.

Thomson had divested many of its traditional media assets – or combined them with digital products – and had moved toward a larger reliance on information technology services and products.

Corporate governance[link]

Members of the last board of directors of Thomson were as follows: David K.R. Thomson (chairman of the board since 2002), W. Geoffrey Beattie, Richard Harrington, Ron Barbaro, Mary Cirillo, Robert Daleo, Steven Denning, Maureen Darkes, Roger Martin, Vance Opperman, John M. Thompson, Peter Thomson, Richard Thomson, and John A. Tory.

The Thomson family owned 70% of the company.^[5]

When Kenneth Thomson died in June 2006, control of the family fortune passed on to David K.R. Thomson under a plan put together decades earlier by company founder Roy Thomson.^[5]

"David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the Organisation and David's son, too," Roy wrote in his 1975 autobiography. "With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities."^[5]

The Thomson family controlled The Thomson Corporation through a family-owned entity, The Woodbridge Company, based in Toronto. (Along with 70% of Thomson Corporation, Woodbridge also owns a 40% stake in CTVglobemedia, which now owns The Globe and Mail daily newspaper in Toronto and CTV, Canada's largest commercial TV network.) David K.R. Thomson and his brother, Peter Thomson, became co-chairmen of Woodbridge after their father's death.^[5]

References[link]

1. ^ "Google Finance". http://finance.google.com/finance?q=TSE%3ATOC. Retrieved 2007-05-08. 
2. ^ "Thomson Learning Announces New Name - CENGAGE Learning" (Press release). PRNewswire. 2007-07-24. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-24-2007/0004631587&EDATE=. Retrieved 2007-07-29. 
3. ^ "ETS Acquires Prometric" (Press release). ETS. 2007-10-15. http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.c988ba0e5dd572bada20bc47c3921509/?vgnextoid=d99b6006f1845110VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=dd2d253b164f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD. Retrieved 2008-04-18. 
4. ^ Newspapers: Strength in the Afternoon, Time (magazine), September 8, 1967
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} [1]"In Canada, the Torch is Passed on a Quiet but Profitable Legacy," by Ian Austen, The New York Times (Business Day section) p. C1, July 3, 2006; accessed on July 3, 2006.
6. ^ Thomson Learning press release

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David Meerman Scott
David Meerman Scott photographed in Boston, MA by Bruce Rogovin on May 25, 2012
Born	(1961-03-25) March 25, 1961 (age 51)
Residence	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	Kenyon College
Occupation	Thought leader, strategist, speaker, author
Spouse	Yukari Watanabe Scott
Website
Web Ink Now blog Official website

David Meerman Scott (born March 25, 1961) is an American online marketing strategist,^[1] and author of several books on marketing, most notably The New Rules of Marketing and PR with over 250,000 copies in print in more than 25 languages.^[2]

The book was inspired by an accidental discovery (made when he was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge) that creating useful content oneself and publishing it on-line at virtually no cost was consistently more effective than expensive profession public relations programs. Subsequent books draw from his experience as a real-time bond trader,^[3] and his observations about innovative marketing by organizations as diverse as IBM^[4]:195 and the rock band The Grateful Dead.^[5] Based in Boston, he is also a speaker at conferences and corporate events and he runs seminars about marketing around the world.

Early life[link]

Scott plays a Chinese man in Teatro alla Scala's 1988 touring production of Turandot

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.^[6] 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!"'^[7]

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.^[6]

He says "I didn’t plan on becoming a marketing strategist... I came upon it accidentally..."^[6] 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.^[6]

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).^[8]

Career[link]

Thought[link]

Scott's ideology "the new rules of marketing & PR" is that marketing and public relations is vastly different on the Web than in mainstream media.^[9] He says that the "old rules" of mainstream media (which he asserts do not work on the Web) are about "controlling a message" and the only ways to get the message into the public domain using mainstream media is to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write about you. He says that the rules of marketing and PR on the Web are completely different.^[10][11] Instead of buying or begging your way in, Scott says anybody can earn attention by "publishing their way in" using the tools of social media such as, blogs, podcasts, online news releases, online video,^[12] viral marketing, and online media.^[13]

Speaking engagements[link]

Scott gives over fifty keynote speeches a year^[14] all over the world.

Books[link]

Scott is the author of several books including Newsjacking: How to inject your ideas into a breaking news story and generate tons of media coverage, (2011, eMobi,^[16] ePub^[17]), The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, 3ed (2011),^[18] Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect With Your Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now (2010),^[3] and Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History (2010).^[5]

Writing about Newsjacking, Nick Morgan of Forbes notes that Scott and his publisher, Wiley, "point the way forward" by publishing this book only in electronic formats.^[19] He summarizes the idea of newsjacking as the timely creation of material for "the second paragraph" of a news story for journalists to incorporate. The first paragraph is for the basic facts: who-what-why-where-when. The second paragraph is about the implications of the story. Unlike hijacking, newsjacking is not a pejorative term. Kristi Hedges, also writing for Forbes, observes that Scott 'answers [the question] "Should I be on Twitter?" once and for all', citing its instantanious nature and widespread use by journalists.^[20] Writing for Fast Company, Wendy Marx cautions those who might be tempted to take the idea too far, "Don't ... spam reporters ... That will only backfire".^[21]

In an interview on Marketing Update about The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Scott stated that besides the fast pace of change in marketing, another motivation for the new edition was that the book had been incorporated into the curriculum of many universities. As a result he plans to publish a new edition in August every other year.^[22][23]

Real-Time Marketing and PR draws on Scott's earlier career as an up-to-the-second Wall Street trader, this book highlights how the timely creation of heart felt content can be more important than long leadtime polished pieces. Examples include the Dave Carroll United Breaks Guitars phenomenon.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead was coauthored with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot. Scott Kirsner, reviewing the book in the Boston Globe,^[24] mentions that the authors say they were inspired in part by an article in the Atlantic by Joshua Green.^[25]

Other books include:

• The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 2ed (2010)^[4] won praise in The New York Times^[26] and Computerworld^[27] reviews.
• World Wide Rave (2009).^[28] To promote this book Scott created several videos including one evocative of the joyous Matt Harding Where is Matt? series^[29] and a series of three^[30][31][32] in the workplace mockumentary style of both Ricky Gervais's The Office and the Art of the Sale videos.^[33] Comedian Tim Washer plays in two of these series: as victim in the Art of the Sale, but switching roles to oppressor in Riding the Rave.
• Tuned In (2008)^[34]
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR (2008).^[35] The first edition of this book was featured in the BusinessWeek Best Seller List^[36] and is published in more than 20 languages.^[37] Related to the book, Scott developed a one-day seminar called New Rules of Marketing, which is taught to corporate groups around the world.
• Cashing In With Content (2005)^[38]
• Eyeball Wars: A Novel of Dot-com Intrigue (2001)^[39]

Scott also wrote the foreword sections in The New Rules of Social Media, a series of books that he edits for John Wiley & Sons.^[40][41] The first six books in the series are:

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah^[42]
2. Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield^[43]
3. Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment by Jim Sterne^[44]
4. Beyond Viral: How to Promote and Sustain Your Brand with Online Video by Kevin Nalty^[45]
5. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman^[46]
6. Go Mobile: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business by Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner^[47]

Online publications and social media[link]

Scott also generates content on-line:

• Several E-books^[48]
• A blog, Web Ink Now,^[49] which is ranked in AdAge Power 150 as one of the top marketing blogs^[50]
• Articles in Huffington Post^[51]
• Contributing editor at EContent Magazine^[52]

He is very active on selected social media sites: Facebook,^[53] Twitter,^[54] and Google Plus.^[55] For example, on July 6, 2011 Twitter hosted an online town hall at the White House^[56] where President Obama answered selected questions from members of Twitter. Scott's question^[57] was the second one of only twenty selected from over 119,000 tweets.^[58][59][60] Given the large number of social media sites and the investment of time to update each, he follows his own recommendation to focus on a few relevant sites, foregoing LinkedIn for some time in his case for example.^[61]

Corporate governance[link]

Scott is a guest of Karen Rubin and Mike Volpe on hubspot.tv February 13, 2009 Photo: Kyle James (CC-BY-SA)

Scott serves on the board of advisors of HubSpot,^[62] Eloqua,^[63] VisibleGains,^[64] Newstex,^[65] Converseon, Nashaquisset,^[66] the Massachusetts Air and Space Museum,^[67] and Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz. He was formerly on the board of directors of Kadient^[68] (now merged with Sant) and NewsWatch (acquired by Yahoo! Japan).

Personal life[link]

Scott is married to Yukari Watanabe Scott. They have one daughter.^[69][70] Scott's hobbies include collecting space artifacts,^[71] attending rock concerts,^[72] and surfing.^[73]

See also[link]

• Inbound marketing

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Blog
• Real-Time Marketing & PR on-demand webinar

This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Discussion about the problems with the sole source used may be found on the talk page. (April 2011)

Geoff Cook

Personal information
Full name	Geoffrey Cook
Born	(1951-10-09) 9 October 1951 (age 60) Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England
Height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Batting style	Right Handed
Bowling style	Slow Left Arm
Role	Batsman
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1971–1990	Northamptonshire
1978–1981	Eastern Province
1991–1995	Durham
Career statistics
Competition	Test	ODI	FC	OD
Matches	7	6	460	377
Runs scored	203	106	23277	8705
Batting average	15.61	17.66	31.97	26.78
100s/50s	-/2	-/-	37/112	4/53
Top score	66	32	203	130
Balls bowled	42	-	1238	12
Wickets	-	-	15	-
Bowling average	-	-	31.97	-
5 wickets in innings	-	-	-	-
10 wickets in match	-	-	-	-
Best bowling	-	-	3/47	-
Catches/stumpings	9/-	2/-	419/3	157/-
Source: Cricinfo, 11 July 2009

Geoff Cook (born Geoffrey Cook, 9 October 1951, Middlesbrough, Yorkshire)^[1] is a former English cricketer, who played in seven Tests and six ODIs from 1981 to 1983. Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, stated "A player held in great respect by his fellow professionals, Cook got his big chance when the first rebel tour went to South Africa in 1982, but he was unable to convert his consistent county form into Test success".^[1]

Life and career[link]

In county cricket he played for Northamptonshire where, along with Robin Boyd-Moss, he achieved a second wicket partnership of 344, which remains a Northamptonshire record. Cook played thirteen Test innings but only twice passed 50. He later moved to Durham, when they gained first-class status, becoming their first county captain. After running the county's youth Academy, he was appointed first team coach in March 2007, following Martyn Moxon's resignation. Under Cook's guidance, Durham won their first major title in the club's history at Lord's in 2007, and went on to win the County Championship for the first time in 2008, and again in 2009.

He has been both chairman and secretary of the Professional Cricketers' Association.^[1]

Cook has one daughter, Anna, and a son named Andrew.

References[link]

This biographical article of an English international cricketer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Mark Thomson (1739 - December 14, 1803) was a United States Representative from New Jersey. Born in Norriton Township (near Norristown, Pennsylvania), he engaged in milling, was justice of the peace of Sussex County, New Jersey in 1773, and was a member of the provincial convention in 1774 and of the Provincial Congress in 1775. He was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the First Regiment, Sussex County Militia on July 22, 1775 and was lieutenant colonel in Col. Charles Stewart's Battalion of Minutemen, February 15, 1776; colonel of the First Regiment, Sussex County Militia, July 10, 1776; and colonel of the Battalion of Detached New Jersey Militia, July 18, 1776.

Thomson was a member of the New Jersey General Assembly in 1779 and served in the New Jersey Legislative Council (now the New Jersey Senate) from 1786 to 1788. He was appointed lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp on the staff of Gov. Richard Howell on June 10, 1793 and was elected as a Federalist to the Fourth and Fifth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1795 to March 3, 1799. He died in Marksboro; interment was in the Hughesville Cemetery, Warren County, New Jersey.

References[link]

• Mark Thomson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress