Synthesis Post

When I look back at my twenty blog posts, I am nothing short of pleased with my findings. I started off not knowing where my business blog would go and I ended up with a narrow focus: supply chain management. As a senior in high school I knew that supply chain was what I wanted to do, but I never knew how to answer people when they asked me what it is. Now, I have a great answer and even some possible places that I would love to work. I know how important it is to be honest, efficient, organized, trustworthy, involved, etc. in the supply chain field. These workers are very important to the way a company is run, how smoothly the transfer of products from one place to another goes, and how the relationships between a company and their supply chain carriers is built. Without a strong relationship between company and carrier, the company may switch from carrier to carrier and the supply chain companies lose business. Because the workers are responsible for these functions, the traits that I mentioned above are expected.

Blogging each week has helped me in so many ways. Not only have I become a more fluid writer, but I have learned more information that I had thought possible in such a short time. The prompted posts helped me to think beyond Google's answers for "What is supply chain management?". They also forced me to step outside of my comfort zone and do a hands-on task, interview a professional in my field, and use documents such as scholarly articles and trade journals. This gives me a little bit of insight into how I will have to step outside of my comfort zone as a professional; I will have to take initiative and pick up the phone to call a client, I will be very involved in the hands-on activities happening on a day-to-day basis around me, and finally, I will have to do research that might take me beyond Google. Beyond reading sources other than Google, I have learned to find the significance... I have learned to find out why I should care and how to take that information and tie it to other pieces of research.
My ways of reading online and text sources have been revised, as well as the way I write. When writing blog posts these past 10 weeks, I have had to ask myself, "Why does the reader care?".  If I can't convince the reader to care then I have not done my job. In the business world, I will need to create emails and reports that are convincing and purposeful. This project has taken my idea of rambling on with facts and numbers and changed it into purposeful research that I can share with all of you.

At the beginning, I came up with ten questions that were my focus for my first week of posts. After blogging and researching for 9 weeks after that, those focus questions started to fade out of my mind... Or did they? When I went back and looked at my blog posts last week I was surprised that without knowing it, many of my answers to my original ten questions had been expanded and explained more thoroughly in the weeks that followed. This made me happy and made me feel like I had done this entire project correctly.

Now, back to the beginning. At the start of this project, it was fairly easy to come up with free posts because I could find articles to further explain supply chain management and its role in a company, but towards the end, it was a struggle to find topics for a post. For these posts I had to take what I had learned from this project, to step outside of my comfort zone, and turn to sources like text and videos to come up with topics. Believe it or not, these posts turned out to be more interesting and purposeful than just basic posts about what my field was. My struggles actually helped me in the end; I benefited from pushing myself to explore other sources that are out there.

I think I did really well with answering the questions in the prompted posts and with providing information that someone interested in supply chain management would find useful. I actually loved the prompted posts because, like I said earlier, I was forced to push myself and find out information in a way that is not as common as using Google. Citing my research and providing links has also made my blog better. I did a good job making sure that it is easy to find where my info is from, and after looking at peers' blogs without citation, it really does make a post look less credible. By doing these things well, I think my blog thoroughly touches on everything it is intended to do; It is interesting, convincing, accurate, and full of useful information and purpose.

The questions that I still have in my field are plentiful, but I am confident that I will be able to answer these questions for myself when I am actually at work in a working environment. Some of these questions are as follows:

1. How stressful is it? (OR, more specifically, how stressful will I find it?)
2. Can I afford to take days off? (Not only in a money-sense, but in a work load sense)
3. Will I, Jessica Filbin, enjoy this profession?
4. Will I, Jessica Filbin, like going to work everyday?

Sure, I could look up versions of these questions and find statistics about how many people like it and how many people are stressed out about it, but that will not help me, Jessica Filbin, to learn the answers for myself. I am looking forward to an internship (hopefully junior year) to become more knowledgable in this field. I am confident that I can go into that internship with a basic understanding of SCM and its purposes and ethics. I love how much this blog has helped me to expand my knowledge, expand my thinking, improve as a writer, improve as a reader, and improve my means of research. I hope it has done the same for you!

Free Post #10

The Supply Chain field has a few different branches. Some are more hands-on, some involve problem solving and some involve organization. An article that I found describes what a supply chain analyst does, and it was very interesting to me. Basically, the analyst helps to make the supply chain efficient. It is not "hands-on" as they do not physically move things from one place to another, but it is so important that these people are very involved in the process. Ensuring that companies receive timely and efficient orders is one of the most important tasks of these analysts.

However, one does not learn how to do this without making mistakes and messing a few things up. In order to learn how to perform efficiently these workers MUST get involved, must be hands-on, and must be willing to make mistakes and learn from them. There is no class that can prepare these workers and no amount of practice will truly prepare them for a real day on the job. They have to get involved to learn just like I do. I need to put myself out there and be willing to take risks and do hands-on work in the supply chain field. It might not prepare me 100%, but it will help to give me a little bit of insight into the world of supply chain. 

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-a-supply-chain-analyst-do.htm

Works Cited

Jeffress, D., and Jenn Walker. "What Does a Supply Chain Analyst Do?" WiseGeek. Conjecture, 27               Oct. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

Prompted Post #10

Good morning! Today I found a brochure that tells a little bit about Oracle Supply Chain Management as a whole. This brochure is tailored for one individual company but it does a great job of telling the audience what SCM is all about.

The first thing that caught my eye with this brochure was the colors: red, black, and white. It is attention-grabbbing and simple, yet packing with information. I believe that the intended audience is anyone looking to find out information regarding the company or just supply chain in general. It does use a few terms that the ordinary teenager might not know, such as "volatile markets or "robust capabilities", so it might be intended for an older, working audience. 

The purpose of this is to tell about the the company and its job in the business world. Oracle has a specific function to reduce risks, properly manage shipments, etc. The brochure does a good job of letting the reader know how the company operates and what it is doing. It gives insight into the job of its employees and into its purpose as a company. 

This brochure revises our thoughts of what a supply chain program does. It makes us think about these companies' impact on today's economy and it reiterates the fact that organization is key to success. 

This brochure is arranged into small paragraphs that focus on different topics. However, each paragraph  builds upon the last in telling what the company does, how they do it, and what the effects of doing such things are. 

The invention is similar to the revision, in that it involves the practices and values of the company. It makes me think about how important their job is and how it effects the economy. I believe that the employees are skilled and dedicated to their practice as supply chain professionals. 

The delivery of this is effective because it is fairly short and easy to read. It's presented in a pamphlet form but it also resembles an internet website. I did like the information that this brochure provided, but if I were handed this packet at freshman orientation, there is no way I would read past the first page. It is simply too complex and detailed to hold the attention of most readers.

The language of this, as I mentioned earlier, seems a bit more scholarly than your ordinary brochure. I think that this may be because the older, working adult is reading this type of thing, or a business major who understands some of the terminology. It also provides some definitions and even some fun facts in the columns! 

 I will work to make my remix project a bit more entertaining :) But, I did learn a lot from this brochure.

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/oracle-supply-chain-brochure-065282.pdf

Works Cited

"Information Connects: Oracle Supply Chain Management." Oracle.com/us. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov.              2013.

Week 9 Prompted Post

Hi all!

This news article that I found is about a college in Canada that is bringing back its supply chain program. Yes, this is from Ontario, but yes, it does tell about the importance of SC as a field. It is very important to this particular to school to teach this because the school knows that the field is growing and is extremely essential to Canada's economy. This college works hard to prepare their students for the hands-on world of SCM. They work to develop a work alliance that is strong and ready to be put to work.

The program stresses the importance of working in real-world situations, like those of a supply chain professional. Without SCM workers to manage the large companies' shipments, the companies would be nothing. The article says that about 767,000 workers are involved in the supply chain sector of the Canadian economy (Peters).  The supply chain workers make a huge difference in the production and smoothness of some of the largest distribution centers: Walmart, Target, Cornwall Warehousing, etc.

It is so important to have these professionals prepared and ready to go to work in order to ensure a functioning distribution process. SCM is growing, important, and necessary for success for the economy.

http://www.choosecornwall.ca/eng/news/729/57/College-to-Offer-Supply-Chain-and-Logistics-Program-Again/

Works Cited:

Peters, Bob. "College to Offer Supply Chain and Logistics Program Again." Choose Cornwall.                  N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Free Post Week 9

Supply Chain Management is extremely important and growing in importance in today's businesses. This news article that I found, Proper Supply Chain Management Can Minimize Risk, tells a little bit about why it is so important to have a smooth supply chain process.

http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/10/10/proper-supply-chain-management-can-minimize-risk

The article explains that risk management and reputation protection are key elements of the supply chain process. If the best laws are not implemented regarding proper SC processes, then laws may be broken which leads to trouble for the company's reputation and the company as a whole. Supply Chains need to be aware of what is happening and without a smoothly running process, the company sets itself up for failure. Human trafficking laws and labor laws are set up to prevent sketchy supply chain work and no company wants to work with another company with a bad reputation. Supply Chain is extremely important to both the health of a company and to the company itself.

I liked the information that this article provided, but I think it could have elaborated on details a little bit more. It did its job, in that it told me more about the importance of a smoothly functioning Supply Chain, but it didn't tell me much about specific examples. I learned that supply chain is involved with more than just getting materials from point A to point B and that it can actually affect the company in many more ways than one.

Works Cited

Steeves, Rich. "Proper Supply Chain Management Can Minimize Risk." Proper Supply Chain            Management Can Minimize Risk. N.p., 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

Week 8 Free post

Hi there! For this post,  I decided to turn to Youtube for some ideas regarding a topic. I found an informative video about business blogs and starting them! Not everyone is going to find this as interesting as I do, considering I am writing one! But, for those of us that do, this video gives a few tips to begin a business blog.

http://www.youtube.com/v/c1d5U6xUJVI?autohide=1&version=3&feature=share&autohide=1&attribution_tag=_nmH1viHBzVh9WdBmZ8PaQ&showinfo=1&autoplay=1

Shawn (the speaker in the video) gives 5 tips and short explanations regarding them. I feel like he is very knowledgable and he seems to have experience in this area.

1. Setting Goals (Why are you writing this?)
2. Unique Content (Keep readers compelled)
3. Building Traffic (Write about something that people want to read about.)
4. Monetize your blog (Do something different than what you offer on your website)
5. Leave your readers wanting more (Same as any writing!)

I learned a few things from this video and I wish that I had read it prior to starting this blog up! I do take many of these tips into consideration when I am writing, with the exception of #4, but had I seen something like this earlier, I would have changed up a few posts to make them more interesting and compelling to a wider audience. I also didn't start with any goals other than to teach myself more about the field of business, so I may have written down a few more goals prior to this project.

Until next time!

Works Cited:

NewMovementMedia. "Business Blogs - Five Tips on Starting a Business Blog." YouTube.                         YouTube, 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.