For more than a half-century, IBM’s design work has been driven by two guiding principles: Design Thinking and Agile. But when the company moved lab in lower Manhattan, it needed a way to communicate those principles to a new generation of designers.

And designers can be stubborn. They generally don’t like rules—unless they ‘ve made—and they definitely don’t like being lectured to. How could we reach them in a way that would make them feel included and respected?

We decided to write a book. Remember those? They could read it on their own time, or not at all. It had actual pages they could turn, full of iconic designs the company was known for. It invited them to be part of a rich history—to write their own chapter of it, maybe—rather than asking them to follow more rules.