The last few days have been chocked full of user experience design reflections. Had lunch with Bob Baxley author of _Making the Web Work_ yesterday. It was great to be able to hash out some ideas of what "Design" really is and the value of that word in the context of building digital environments. I really enjoyed the conversations and will definitely do a book review shortly.

On related topic about "Design," I came across Peterme's recent posting about organizations, business decisions, and user experience design. It was kind of frustrating to see such a "duh" observation that I felt compelled to write a comment. I haven't been active in the community, but something like this was just such a rehash of a fundamental business observation, that I couldn't let it go.

Mark Hurst responded to me directly to point out an article he just wrote on a similar note. While I agree with him on some level, I still think from the business perspective, bottom-up type activities without direct involvement(and I don't mean micro-manage) from the top-down is a big symptom that something is already wrong with upper management.

The key is that managers need to be communicating with each other and with their direct reports. If they aren't, then it's reflected by the disjuncted activities of their direct reports who feel it's up to them to fix what's wrong with upper management...well that kind of strategy isn't going to work as well. A solution (mind you this isn't "the" solution) is early engagement and touching base frequently among managers with their direct reports on particular projects.