Theme: Shortening the Supply Chain

Lynda Weinman, Preparing Web Graphics (New Riders Publishing, May 1997) is a less technical (and less expensive) version of Designing Web Graphics for Web designers who aren't graphic artists.

On Disintermediation

"Companies will eliminate layers of intermediaries. The first Industrial Revolution created mass production and new layers of distribution and communication intermediaries. The second created white collar workers and hierarchical layers of management. Both resulted in the institutional loss of information, service, relevance and dialogue. As a result, we are beginning to see the beginning of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called the 'creative destruction' of many of these redundant and expensive go-betweens left over from earlier times.

"Disintermediation is already happening and it is increasing profit margins, reducing prices and providing consumers with more information and service. The virtual factory, warehouse, or store, can be global, open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even where local laws forbid it. Converting homes to workplaces and shopping centers are surely ideas whose time has come, even if the technology is still a work in progress."

The Promise of the Virtual Store

"The virtual store is on its way. Such stores will pay little rent and have fewer employees and no inventory. They will basically be information-processing centers. The virtual retailer, freed of the costs of physical inventory, high rent and the danger of over-stocking too many of the wrong things, can concentrate on the business of providing service."