USC Annenberg clinical professor Susan Resnick West and director of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Services Cindy Martinez will be presenting at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management for the second year in a row.
The meeting, which will be held at the beginning of August in Philadelphia, is expected to draw more than 10,000 students, academics and professionals, and will offer professional development workshops, all focused around a particular theme. The theme for this year’s presentations is “The Power of Words.”
“Words allow people to convey and interpret meaning, hence potentially to influence perceptions, emotions, attitudes, decisions, and associated behaviors,” reads the announcement of this year’s meeting theme.
Resnick West and Martinez will be participating in a session called, “'That Was Great!' More High Impact Exercises for Teaching or Consulting on Organizational Change.” They will demonstrate and explain how to facilitate three short story telling exercises, which will involve using metaphors, creating six-word memoirs, and manipulating visual word clouds. All three activities “center on the power of words to understand how we create meaning during times of change” and have been used in Resnick West’s USC Annenberg course CMGT 508: Communicating Strategy and Change.
Though Resnick West is the primary instructor for the course, offered online and in the classroom, Martinez has also served as an instructor for the course. Additionally, the pair works closely on the course and other pertinent research.
“I enjoy her insight and creativity and we have a great deal of fun both with the class and the workshop,” Resnick West said of working with Martinez.
