Cameron Conaway

About Cameron Conaway

My mission is to build feedback literacy for all.Harvard Business Review called me a \"workplace feedback expert.\" I came to that work through a nonlinear path — as a former professional mixed martial artist (2-1 record), a Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Fellow who reported on the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, a poet praised by NPR and The Washington Post, and a marketing leader in Silicon Valley, most recently with Cisco.Across all of those experiences, feedback was what allowed me to improve my craft. It was what allowed everybody around me to get better as well. But beyond performance, I\'ve seen how feedback — done well — changes the way people relate to each other. I\'ve come to see feedback as the secret to improving in everything.But my 15-year corporate career also revealed that most people struggle with what I define as the five components of feedback literacy — seeking it, receiving it, processing it, using it, and giving it. That gap limits both individual growth and organizational innovation.Today, I\'m a management professor at the Penn State Smeal College of Business, where I teach undergraduate and MBA courses on ethical leadership and social responsibility. Previously, at the University of San Francisco, I built the management department\'s first MBA-level course on Strategic Talent Management. My writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Business Publishing Education, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.I help people around the world build feedback literacy through my research, my teaching, and free resources like my feedback guide: cameronconaway.com/feedbackContact: CameronConaway.com

Experience

1. Adjunct Professor Writing Educator Author Executive Editor

   University of San Francisco

   Aug 2007 — Present

   Adjunct professor teaching Digital Marketing in the MA Professional Communications program and Talent Management in the MBA program at the University of San FranciscoPreviously taught: Digital Storytelling at the University of San Francisco; Business Communications and Creative Writing (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction) at Penn State University; Shakespeare and English Composition at Ottawa University. Other courses taught elsewhere: Writing in the Humanities; History of the English Language; Introduction to English Literature; Introduction to Environmental Literature; The Process of Writing; Crafting the Essay.Writing Educator: held Writer-in-Residence positions at the University of Arizona, Penn State University, the Wellcome Trust; taught Introduction to Creative Writing to students in high schools and juvenile detention centers throughout Arizona and Pennsylvania; nominated for Outstanding Instructor of the Year at Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth; created Introduction to Making Poems at Skillshare students): wrote six books, including Malaria, Poems (https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2014/#/book/malaria-poems), an NPR Best Book of 2014, and spoke about these works at various universities.Editor: served as Executive Editor at The Good Men Project, on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Modern Slavery: A Multidisciplinary Exploration of Human Trafficking Solutions, and as an editorial consultant with other organizations. Certified editor through The Poynter Institute for Media Studies and ACES: The Society for Editing.

Education

• Penn State University

  Bachelor of Arts - BA, English Literature

  2003 — 2007

• University of Arizona

  Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing

  2007 — 2009

• University of San Francisco School of Management

  Executive MBA

  2018 — 2020

• Penn State University

  Bachelor of Arts - BA, Criminal Justice

  2003 — 2007

Skills

• Creative Writing
• Books
• Public Speaking
• Social Media
• Storytelling
• Editing
• Blogging
• Publications
• Writing
• Social Networking
• Poetry
• Teaching
• Journalism
• Content Strategy
• Copy Editing
• Research
• Literature
• Publishing
• Proofreading
• Mma
• Personal Training
• Interviews
• Web Content
• Newsletters
• Fitness Training
• Facebook
• Nutrition
• Press Releases
• Operant Conditioning
• Copywriting
• Fitness
• Creative Non-Fiction
• Published Author
• Freelance Writing
• Editorial
• Content Development
• Functional Training
• Human Rights
• Publicity
• Content Management