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    I have an academic background with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Washington in Seattle. Apart from publications in peer-reviewed journals I have also worked in China for universities...

    China ManufacturingDocumentaryEditingEducational ConsultingIllustration

About

I've been a university professor, writer, academic editor, and translator from Spanish to English (I'm fluent in Spanish).

I was born in the US Canal Zone; my father Stephen was in the US Foreign Service. I was raised in Europe, North Africa, and DC.I have a PhD from UW in Seattle, a BA from UM in Ann Arbor, and I graduated from St. Stephen's High School in Rome. I went into international education, teaching in Haiti, Mexico, Japan, S. Korea, and China.

Sample: Fast-Moving Consumer Goods
When the term “fast-moving consumer goods” appeared for the very first time (that I could find), it was in the classified ads of The New York Times on Sunday, November 27, 1949. The job posting was for a manager who was expected to be responsible for moving goods, and this Madison Avenue company wanted a person who could do just that, move goods, but for goods that were already fast moving.

Even though term “fast-moving consumer goods” appears to have debuted in the United States, the American hemisphere now tends to use the term “consumer packaged goods” (CPGs), which is perhaps inaccurate because it implies that consumers are the ones packaging the goods when they’re not. This unfortunate term, “consumer packaged goods,” also emphasizes that the product is just sitting there inside the package, waiting to be used, and thus the CPG model is a static one. In contrast, “fast-moving consumer goods” implies that the consumption cycle is underway in all its glory, and thus the FMCG model is dynamic, even spirited. Fittingly, the FMCG research field is most active in India, where a panoply of gods and goddesses push the world this way and that.

The exact moment cannot be pinpointed but, sometime in the mid-1950s, American industry – which by now was using much more plastic, Styrofoam, and aerosol technology to pressurize everything from cheese to furniture polish – reached a critical mass, a magical tipping point, and it unleashed a kaleidoscopic swirl of breakfast cereal, toothpaste, cigarettes, fruit juice, shampoo, soft drinks, deodorant, chewing gum, potato chips, and dish detergent...

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Negotiable.

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