My Facebook Business Profile

Hi again, I have been requested to create a Facebook page or profile to act as a 'business card' for my online e-portfolio (for more information on what can be done with an e-portfolio follow this link). I've chosen to create both, since they are useful for different reasons which I will outline as I go.

The first photos you will see are of my Facebook Page, this is like a cover letter. I have listed information about me and about what I would like to do in my professional life which will hopefully occur as a part of EPCOR's Human Resources Department. I am very excited to be doing my practicum with them and hope to stay on once I've completed my term in December 2012. 

 I've also created a Facebook Profile which has more personal information on it than the Page did. I've chosen to make this in addition to the Page since it is information like this that got me my current job. My employer was very interested in what activities I've participated in in my own life and where I have worked. The skills I have gained from paid and unpaid activities (school and work) have given me quite a bit of knowledge in various areas. You can see this by reading what my duties were at each individual work site.

You can check out my Facebook Profile and Page as well as my Flickr account by clicking on the  links. I hope that the information found on these pages will be useful to potential employers in my professional life. I'm very interested in seeing what this student's Facebook Page will look like, it seems like she has a lot of great experience!

The Present

I work for an independently owned clothing store called Hye Fashion in Edmonton. It caters specifically to the needs of tall women (5'10"+), but also keeps the vertically challenged in mind. All brands that are carried by this store can be found in regular sizes, we just happen to carry the tall ones. The slogan for the company is "Clothing for Tall Women, Accessories for All Women".  Carrying brands like Silver, Dish, Dex, Buffalo, Orb, Barefoot Tess, Matt & Nat and Big Buddha to name a few - the store has a lot of diversity!

A lot of communication occurs between store staff and among staff and customers. With this in mind, we maintain a professional discourse but also have fun with our customers. Giving great customer service and ensuring that customers leave satisfied (and with great treasures!) all occurs through the communication process. Whether we're writing down 'future shopping lists' for them of items they liked but could not immediately afford, or just talking to people about brand features, communication is everywhere. Also, posters featuring design information and ways to wear our products can be found throughout the store. Visual communication take the form of pictures and displays set to show customers how they can wear a specific item, or pair it with something they may already have in their wardrobe. Hye Fashion associates also are not afraid to tell you when a garment does not suit you. We do not want anyone to leave with something that they are unsure of, or that we know does not work for them. Hye Fashion also uses Facebook and Twitter to send out messages about new inventory, any promotions that may be occurring in store and any other information that is useful for customers to know about. There is a great balance between social media and face-to-face communication, which gives this business a great dynamic!

Where Does the Future Lead?

My practicum placement occurring fall semester 2012 will be with Epcor! This has been confirmed by my coordinator and I am very happy to learn this. I will be working in the Human Resources department so learning new ways to communicate with social media will be particularly useful.   Since social media is becoming more and more prevalent in today's work culture, I am very excited to be learning about how to use social media.  This will help me immensely as I will already be knowledgeable in using these interfaces if I need them in my practicum and later in my career.

I am now following them on Twitter and find that they use it quite frequently to update service users on service outages. They are very good at keeping customers up to date on what is happening. This is a great way to allow workers at Epcor to do the important things (maintaining/correcting services) rather than fielding calls from their customers looking for updates.  Although I will likely not be the one updating Twitter in this sense, I'm sure they use it for other purposes within the company to quickly send communications to all employees. I am very happy to be working with a company that is so attuned to popular communication channels such as Twitter.

Introduction to Me!

Hi! I'm currently in my last semester of my third year of a BSc in Human Ecology. I find it very interesting since there are so many different fields you can work in with this degree. We mainly use written communication to explore topics and share our research findings, although in some cases we will use power point. Most of our communication is broken down so that topics we are studying fit into our Human Ecological Perspective of living (http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=bronfenbrenner%27s+ecological+theory&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1279&bih=577&tbm=isch&tbnid=_44ojRDOHh3Y0M:&imgrefurl=http://www.dbhds.virginia.gov/OSAS-ATODTutorial.htm&docid=xhCd0K3CnVhqWM&w=500&h=503&ei=0iFyTuDWD-beiALO76GACQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=473&vpy=125&dur=2636&hovh=225&hovw=224&tx=128&ty=116&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=115&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0). Information is generally broken down to a simplistic form that can be understood by general society, which is good given it is this group we target to help overcome adversity they may face in their daily lives.