Creator of Dilbert and Serial Entrepreneur
Scott Adams is best known as the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, the immensely popular comic creation launched in 1989. The strip is enjoyed daily by 150 million people in 1,900 newspapers, in 56 countries.
Publications
Adams has a unique track record of creating success in a variety of diverse businesses. The Dilbert comic strip was Adams’ first attempt at a comic strip. No other contemporary cartoonist has achieved as much popularity, or had as much impact on the consciousness of readers. Adams’ first attempt at writing a book, The Dilbert Principle, became a number one New York Times best seller and one of the top selling business books of all time. Over 10 million Dilbert books have been sold, including four business titles and twelve comic reprint collections. The Dilbert Zone web site, managed by United Media, was the first syndicated comic strip site on the web, and one of the first web sites to turn a profit. Adams’ vision of an advertiser-supported daily comic on the web became a model for other cartoonists who followed. His latest is I’m No Scientist, But I Think Feng Shui Is Part of the Answer: A Dilbert Book.
Licensed Products
Adams was co-executive producer of the Dilbert animated television show on the UPN network, a solid hit that ran for two years. Working with United Media, Adams has guided the design of hundreds of licensed Dilbert products, from coffee mugs to dolls to computer games. Dilbert is one of the biggest character licensing phenomena of recent times.
Restauranteur
Adams and a business partner opened a successful restaurant, Stacey’s Cafe, in 1998. It has become one of the most popular eateries in the Pleasanton, California area. Adams’ newest business venture, Scott Adams Foods, promises to be the biggest success yet. It all started with Adams’ search for tasty, high-nutrition food that fit the demands of his own 12 hour work days. When it became clear that no such food existed, Adams teamed up with food industry veteran Jack Parker to create a solution. The result is the DILBERITO?, a delicious, hand-held, microwaveable food with 100% Daily Value for 23 essential vitamins and minerals. Adams and Parker plan to redefine what people expect from food, raising the bar for the rest of the food industry, and contributing to the health of the world. They plan to make money, too.
Education
Graduating from Hartwick College in 1979 with a B.A. in economics, Adams worked for more than eight years at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. Going to school at night, Adams finished the M.B.A. program at the University of California, Berkeley and joined Pacific Bell in 1986, where he worked more than eight years until leaving to work on Dilbert full time.
Career
Starting with his teen years, Adams’ jobs have included cow herder, sap gatherer, gardener, snow shoveler, dish washer, bus boy, hotel desk clerk, security guard, bank teller, computer programmer, budget manager, financial analyst, loan officer, product manager, project manager, lab technical support, cartoonist, author, public speaker, restauranteur and now CEO of Scott Adams Foods.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you’ve ever met or anyone you’ve even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world’s most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years? In this talk, Adams shares the strategy he has used since he was a teen to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket. He pulls back the covers on his own unusual life and shares how he turned one failure after another into something good and lasting. His keynote offers a lot of laughs alongside unique and helpful ideas for your path to personal victory. As Adams says, "This is a story of one person’s unlikely success within the context of scores of embarrassing failures. Was my eventual success primarily a result of talent, luck, hard work, or an accidental just-right balance of each? All I know for sure is that I pursued a conscious strategy of managing my opportunities in a way that would make it easier for luck to find me"
Dilbert: Comedy, Cubicles and Corporate Life
With the scathing humor for which he’s best known, Scott Adams takes audiences along on his long, strange journey from cubicle dweller to creator of Dilbert, the character with which hundreds of thousands of desk jockeys everywhere have groaningly identified. Adams jokes about the cartoons that didn't make it past the editors (rated PG) and his secret formula for humor. Adams imparts to audiences the skills, patience, and fortitude that he drew upon to transform his own life, and tells how he became his own boss in the process. He also identifies how audiences can utilize their own hidden and unrecognized creative talents at any stage in life. Well-versed in the business issues of the day, he also takes questions from the audience.
All Scott Adams Books
I’m No Scientist, But I Think Feng Shui Is Part of the Answer: A Dilbert Book
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How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
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Random Acts of Management
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Another Day in Cubicle Paradise
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Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
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