Empathy for Changemakers
Join us for this special edition of the Change Maker's book club where you get to contribute to a book in progress! Our guest author, Amy Wilson, practices participatory design and will bring this process into the book writing process. Amy will have finished a first draft manuscript of her book for her publisher, and will collect feedback on and workshop the structure and frameworks that she's bringing in her book to refine and create a stronger book for practitioners everywhere, creating a blueprint for empathetic change for a brighter future. Participants will be able to learn about the book writing process and Amy will also acknowledge you all in the book as contributors to the book!
Book Description:
Culture change happens because of a movement, not a mandate. And yet, when Amy Wilson built the language for and movement of 5,000 US public servants to create a modern government in the Trump Administration as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, she was met with resistance and destruction from the White House. A year later, Amy is re-emerging to tell the story of that battle and what's she's learned about the clash between old and new power dynamics and how empathy can be at the heart of change in the future. Amy looks at the trait of empathy through the lens of a practitioner--and looking at it with a keen eye on how we can actually make change happen in the 21st century. She'll also pull in wisdom from changemakers across the globe who are using empathy to make real, lasting systemic change in their communities and in the world.
The format:
- You will not read the book, but Amy will provide read ahead chapters or a presentation that you can use to get a sense of the topics discussed in the book.
- If you're enthusiastic about this concept, you can also get the chance to be beta readers of the book and give more specific feedback to Amy in her process.
Author Bio:
Amy Wilson took a sabbatical for a year in December 2018 after building cultures and movements of change for more than a decade to make sense of the current state of affairs and how change should happen in the 21st century. In her former role as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow she served as an entrepreneur-in-residence to tackle the nation's biggest challenges across two Administrations. She formed the language for 21st century delivery-driven government on Innovation.gov and founded the Better Government Movement–an inclusive space where public servants can grow their creative capacity and learn new tools to jumpstart innovation to solve problems and affect positive change. In 2016 she founded the first government-wide technology accelerator to make public servants better buyers of digital products and managed the 2,000-person White House Open Data Innovation Summit, a celebration of the open data and civic technology movement during the Obama Administration.
She specializes in building and sustaining cultures of innovation with a social good mission and embraces the art of storytelling. She has challenged the status quo at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. On the cusp of Booz Allen Hamilton’s 100th Anniversary, she pioneered the company’s Innovation Blueprint, Playbook and Ecosystem, which defined innovation in the context of consulting, made innovation accessible to all, and created virtual and in-person places to incubate ideas. After Hurricane Katrina she led a recovery project to build 50 homes in four months as a Team Leader in AmeriCorps*NCCC, partnering with entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations to solve the problem of landfill overflow and lack of housing opportunities. She’s also a Starting Bloc Social Entrepreneurship Fellow committed to creating an equitable, collaborative, thriving world.
Registration is $10 for ACMP DC Members and $15 for non-members.
