Special thanks to Kathryn Magura for her story on Student Affairs Women Talk Tech

Women in Technology Spotlight: Amy Jorgensen

by Kathryn Magura

One of the things we like to do on the blog is highlight some of the amazing women who work in the field. As women who work with technology in student affairs, we want to take time to acknowledge some of our colleagues and celebrate their achievements. Hopefully, this will help encourage other women to follow in our footsteps some day.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Amy Jorgensen. Amy is the Marketing Coordinator for the University of Florida office of Housing & Residence Education, and has a true gift for personal branding and social media. This past fall, Amy was awarded the “Best of” program at the annual ACUHO-I Business Operations Conference in Orlando, Florida for her program: “Rock Out Your Page – Make the Most of Your Facebook Presence”. Amy got her degree at the University of Florida in Business Marketing, and is currently working on a masters degree in International Business. After graduating, Amy had a brief stint working for Mickey Mouse, but Amy decided to return to her passion of working in marketing for higher education with a focus on housing.

During our conversation, Amy offered the following advice regarding technology:

“Be open and willing to learn – as you would be with other things in life. Technology can be intimidating, so you need to put yourself out there. I haven’t taken any classes on using technology or MS programs or social media; I taught myself. When all else fails, use the power of Google. Heck, I taught myself how to use Photshop and HTML via Google!“

As we talked, I could hear Amy’s passion and enthusiasm for working with technology and social media. I asked her if she had any female role models, and she said the following:

“Teri Bump is incredibly motivating, and has an amazing way of leveraging technology to enhance her personal network. Ann Marie Klotz and Stacy Oliver are social media rockstars who have connected our professional community on a higher level due to technology. Liz Gross is amazing too – she has a tremendous way of staying professional and keeping content relevant and new. Liz also has a great way of demonstrating her personality and connecting to others. All these women have been tremendously supportive of other women who want to get connected via social media, and they all epitomize showing an authentic integrity in their personal brand.”

Amy also notes that her supervisor, TJ Logan, was instrumental in encouraging her to even join Twitter. “I saw TJ making all these connections to amazing professionals, and thought it would be a great way to build my network.”

During our conversation, I was reminded that Amy and I would never have met if it weren’t for social media, and our shared interest in utilizing technology to serve and interact with students. We certainly never would have spent a day at EPCOT while attending the ACUHO-I Business Operations Conference together this last fall!

So who do you see as a female leader in technology within student affairs?

Original Article: http://sawomentalktech.com/blog/2012/01/27/women-in-technology-spotlight-amy-jorgensen/