Profile
I am British, and originally from a village near Leicester. I have degrees from both University of Sheffield, School of East Asian Studies and University of Stirling, Institute for Retail Studies (IRS), and I have also attended Nanzan University in Nagoya and Waseda University, Graduate School of Commercein Tokyo. From 1991 to 2005 I worked at UMDS in Kobe. During this time I also spent a year in California as a visiting professor at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, three months at University of Edinburgh, School of Management and then I was employed for a year at ESADE School of Business in Barcelona. I speak English and Japanese with reasonable fluency and teach and work in both languages. I have published four books, two in English, Japan – A modern Retail Superpower (2005) and Japanese Retailing (1994), and two in Japanese だれも教えなかった論文・レポートの書き方 and ウェブクエスト. I have taught a range of courses in Japan, all in Japanese. These include Consumer behaviour, Marketing, International marketing, Retail marketing, Internet Marketing and Japanese business and culture. I have also taught Business Communications for many years. I regularly speak on subjects such as Developments and trends in Japanese retailing, Japanese consumers and consumer culture, Market entry strategy for Japan, and Japanese retail case studies.
Things I like
- Food: Lettuce, tomatoes, good bread, curry
- Drinks: Tea (especially Tetleys and PG Tips)
- Freetime: Movies, novels, computer games, shopping, British Sitcoms, boardgames
- Countries: Singapore, UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA
- Sports I (used to) play: Rugby, Basketball
- Sports I watch: Football, cricket
- Teams I follow: Tottenham Hotspur
- Movies I recommend: Name of the Rose, Kingdom of Heaven, Rabbit Proof Fence
- Sitcoms I recommend: Vicar of Dibley, Thin Blue Line, Red Dwarf, Doc Martin
- Authors I recommend: George R. R. Martin, Louis De Bernieres, Terry Pratchett, Henry Porter, Ken Follett, Michael Critchen, John Le Carre, William Gibson, Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Richard Morgan, Ian McEwan
- Computer games I play: Football Manager/Championship Manager series, World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Diablo II, Heroes of Might and Magic, Civilization III & IV, Hearts of Iron
- Computers: Macintosh (the ‘Real’ computer)
- Useful websites: Del.icio.us, Google: Search, Docs, Mail, Calendar, Reader, Blogger, Groups, Flickr, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Archive.org
- Video Blogs I watch: Newsnight, Ten O’Clock News, ABC World News, commandn, Rocketboom, Planet TV, Diggnation, Ask a Ninja, BBC Question Time, Storyfix
- Places I’ve been: 43places.com
- Things I don’t do: Drink, Smoke, Eat very much meat, Not try to stop life to revolving around work
- Things I think students should know about: Blogging, Video blogging, RSS & newsfeeds, Web 2.0