Collecting Business Requirements

A common mistake of consulting companies is to insist the corporation they are working for deliver business requirements in specific formats. This makes the corporation they are working for do a lot of work. Because collecting and reforming information is difficult it is likely that the corporation will cut out requirements that are key to understanding their true needs.

It is the business analyst's job to determine what facts and questions should be asked to arrive on an agreed project plan, statement of work, or other agreement documents.

In truth getting all the business process and planning files in any format is the true way to be of service when gathering business requirements for any project, especially larger ones, or as a precursor to complete front and backend makeovers.

So here's the Business Analyst’s pledge –
If a company wishes to communicate their requirements in Latin poetry using Laurel leaves on Liberia, or burped up and tap danced in Berber;

If they chose instead to use sign language in Swahili or communicate via syncopated smoke signals in Sioux;

If a company's requirements are laser etched on Einstein's black box, written in the photovoltaic solar panels on Al Gore's roof or bloviated on FOX's news ticker;

If a corporation chooses to communicate via Morse code on a submarine in the Antarctic or spell them out in runes using fireworks over a Chinese work house;

Whatever business requirement, whether in pidgin or cuneiform, the business analyst will be johnny on the spot to collect it… no matter the format.
Basic advice about collecting business requirements:

o Tone. Use company name instead of third person (not "we", "they", "you", "them" )
o Format. footer, document properties, title block
o Bullets: use them
o Outline: use it
o Organization: clean up and gather like thoughts together, remove excessive technical details from business docs

Here's some heavy design advice from our fave Web Design Coder SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Rapper Chubbs:



Art is Immortal!

Lyrics:

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can't find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can't index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that's an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide an explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don't duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it's time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it's aligned
please don't use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won't validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don't use italics, use emphasis
don't use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that's old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that's the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I'm telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it's built right you'll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you'll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

Advice on How to Use Art.Com to Sell Your Art on the Internet

Art.com is in the process of changing how you register to become a publisher artist on their site with a new contract agreement - see:
http://www.artistrising.com/

It is free to sign up and put your art out there, but you have to provide either your Social Security Number or a Corp id (such as your federal business tax license, or in Europe the VAT - Value Added Tax) so you can get paid.

The good news is they are improving how much money you can earn from their site through sales. Now your percentage includes any framing which customers choose of your work as well. So you get a percentage of the sale of the print and a percentage of the frame sale too.

To actually get started what you need are high quality images, either photos or scans of your work. The specifics are on their site.

Be careful to select all the options for sales, in the past Art.com allowed you to just offer works for sale in one size when you could make it available in all sizes. There is no reason not to publish your work in all sizes unless the image is not high enough in quality. They review for both content and quality.

I recommend you only purchase a paid account when you see if it pays for itself to start with, or if you already have sales, and want to add your large portfolio to the Web.

One thing that bugs me a little is the exclusivity clause that Art.com requires. In other words if you are doing business with other companies to produce your posters, and THEY approach Art.com for sales and marketing, then there is no "exclusivity" clause. Otherwise you have to promise that they are your sales and marketing on the Web.

Also I recommend researching the hierarchical structure of WHERE you place your art images in their classification (controlled vocabulary /ontology) - make sure that you really think it fits the category or will lead to SALES even if it is miscatagorized. It's part of the process of posting your work on their site, to categorize your own work. A practical example of this is the breadcrumbs you see in Art.com:
home > collections > art on the verge > abstract

To get your work to appear in Google's Image Search or Microsoft's Live Search results - Query from time to time on the open Web in Google's IMAGE SEARCH, or Live Search for your art images by their TITLE, and then check to see if Google/Live Search etc has crawled them. The images should appear under the Image Search after a few days! Why? Because they are Google, that's why!

What does this mean to you? This means that you need to create titles which speak to the work, but are also likely strongly identifiable queries, so for example "The Couple" is ok, but "Two Lovers at the Paradise Waterfall" is better, because it can return in more queries and also is more specific.

Categorizing your art in their schemas under "Aliens" is probably not going to be helpful - except if there is something fantastic or alien about it - because alien stuff sells. But, for example, if the work has a strongly Hispanic flavor, categorize the image as Spanish, Mexican, or Latin culture is help build the image in a one-to-many relationship for the image databases, which will help people locate and purchase your work.

You can also sell original art on Art.com but as my experience shows, it may be easier to sell your work on eBay.com

Another place to consider selling your work is in Second Life. As I understand there are 180 art galleries out there and people are doing some amazingly successful works. (Reference: Doug McDavid's Doug Mandelbrot in SecondLife, as of Feb. 2007)

If you wish you can also create work for sale which only exists as a digital file and only becomes a physical representation of it when it is sold as a copy. Lots of software lets you create original work, even Photoshop works to do that.

Let me know if this helped or you need more. There are other sites which sell works on the Web in addition to Art.com, including those for commercial art.

If you do publish in other locations online that are not paid, such as Flickr to help drive sales. The digital world exists to be linked.

So for a test, I recommend you order one of your own prints from Art.com for a friend or love in your life so you can see the quality. Art.com's printed editions, I have to say, are very very good. I was extremely impressed with their quality. If you are impressed, as I was, tell people. It is a great, inexpensive way to bring your art into people's lives.

Since so few of my prints sell what people don't know is that they are actually getting a very limited print which will become more obvious in the future.

Best of luck in marketing and selling your artwork over the Web!