Do you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements “tossed over the wall” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal! Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software. This book will make you think deeply about not only what it means to deliver value but also the relationship of the IT organization to the rest of the enterprise. It will give you the language to discuss value with the business, methods to cut through bureaucracy, and strategies for incorporating Agile teams and culture into the enterprise. Most of all, this book will startle you into new ways of thinking about the cutting-edge of Agile practice and where it may lead.

More than two millennia ago the famous Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote the classic work on military strategy, The Art of War. Now, in a new edition of Sun Tzu and the Art of Business, Mark McNeilly shows how Sun Tzu's strategic principles can be applied to twenty-first century business. Here are two books in one: McNeilly's synthesis of Sun Tzu's ideas into six strategic principles for the business executive, plus the text of Samuel B. Griffith's popular translation of The Art of War. McNeilly explains how to gain market share without inciting competitive retaliation, how to attack competitors' weak points, and how to maximize market information for competitive advantage. He demonstrates the value of speed and preparation in throwing the competition off-balance, employing strategy to beat the competition, and the need for character in leaders. Lastly, McNeilly presents a practical method to put Sun Tzu's principles into practice. By using modern examples throughout the book from Google, Zappos, Amazon, Dyson, Aflac, Singapore Airlines, Best Buy, the NFL, Tata Motors, Starbucks, and many others, he illustrates how, by following the wisdom of history's most respected strategist, executives can avoid the pitfalls of management fads and achieve lasting competitive advantage.

This guide for aspiring and exhibiting photographers alike combines practice and concept to provide a roadmap to navigating, and succeeding in, the fine art photography marketplace locally, domestically, and internationally. Join former New York gallery owner, international curator, and fine art photographer Thomas Werner as he shares his experiences and insights from leading curators, gallerists, collectors, auctioneers, exhibiting photographic artists, and more. Learn how to identify realistic goals, maximize results, work with galleries and museums, write grants, develop strong nuanced imagery, and build a professional practice in a continually evolving field. Featuring dozens of photographs from international practitioners, and a robust set of resources, this book will ensure you have the tools to give you the opportunity for success in any marketplace. Whether you are a student, aspiring photographic or video artist, or a photographer changing careers, The Business of Fine Art Photography is your guide to starting and growing your own practice.

Drawing on the experience of Sotheby's Institute of Art, this text exposes the realities of the commercial trade in fine art, from its structure to legal issues and wider cultural policy, and including interviews with leading experts in the field.

Thoroughly updated and expanded, this classic handbook teaches emerging artists all the strategies they need to know for selling artwork on their own or through dealers. The book's new sections target today's vital issues: creating a web site; obtaining copyright/trademark protection on the Internet; coping with censorship of controversial art; and dealing with the new realities of funding sources. Additional chapters tell how to find galleries, arrange exhibitions, apply for grants, land survival jobs doing custom decorative art or teaching, and other relevant topics.

From the author of Ahead of the Curve, a revelatory look at successful selling and how it can impact everything we do The first book of its kind, The Art of the Sale is the result of a pilgrimage to learn the secrets of the world's foremost sales gurus. Bestselling author Philip Delves Broughton tracked down anyone who could help him understand what it took to achieve greatness in sales, from technology billionaires to the most successful saleswoman in Japan to a cannily observant rug merchant in Morocco. The wisdom and experience Broughton acquired, revealed in this outstanding book, demonstrates as never before the complex alchemy of effective selling and the power it has to overcome challenges we face every day.

Analyzing the relationship between the arts and business, this book offers an in-depth perspective on the increasingly common art-based strategies adopted by enterprises in various industries, with a focus on luxury sector. Pursuing an exhaustive, systematic, evidence-based and interdisciplinary approach, it explores the limits of potential strategic collaborations between the two fields. In addition, the book provides a structure for this field of inquiry, offering a solid basis for future research and highlighting the benefits of art-based strategies for executives. Each research strand explored in this book is supported by a representative case study.