You Need a Manifesto: How to Craft Your Convictions and Put Them to Work is a beautifully designed (almost over-designed — but is a thing of great beauty, and feels so nice to hold) booklet full of wisdom about self-determination, actualization, and growth. And, once your vision (manifesto) is set, the author provides counsel regarding how to activate, communicate, and amplify it through collaboration with other like-minded thinkers.

The process is divided into five alliteratively-named steps:

1. Commence
2. Consider
3. Collect
4. Curate
5. Cultivate

Each step is broken into sections with descriptions and examples. For example, the step I am currently work on, “Cultivate,” includes Go Open Source, Synthesize Your Learning, Be Authentic With Others, Experiment With Yourself, and Collaborate with Trust.

Your own personal manifesto is a groundbreaking and essential guide, but when you open up to making a manifesto with a group or share it with others, it can reach a whole new level of impact and meaning.

I wholeheartedly recommend this primer for anyone working to define their “why,” as introduced in my post Values, Vision & Mission or otherwise wanting to articulate their personal purpose, or reason-to-be.

Stanford d.school

As interesting as the book itself is its publisher, d.school — a place for explorers and experimenters at Stanford University. According to the book back flap, d.school was founded in 2005, and “each year, nearly a thousand students from all disciplines attend classes, workshops and programs to learn how the thinking behind design can enrich their own work and unlock their creative potential.”

And there is a set of companion volumes, with “each book designed to help you adapt to change, see things in new ways, work well with others, and peer into our collective future.” See the d.school Book Club.