I have just received the last volume of Christopher Alexander's book "The Nature of Order". This came from California. I'll be getting back to the book later, but for the moment look at this:
March 07, 2005 16:57 South San Francisco, CA - USA Shipment picked up
March 07, 2005 17:59 South San Francisco, CA - USA Departing origin
March 08, 2005 03:24 Cincinnati, OH - USA Transferred through Cincinnati, OH - USA
March 08, 2005 07:00 Cincinnati, OH - USA Departed from DHL facility in Cincinnati, OH - USA
March 08, 2005 09:30 Cincinnati, OH - USA Transferred through Cincinnati, OH - USA
March 09, 2005 01:53 East Midlands - UK Processed for clearance at East Midlands – UK
March 09, 2005 03:14 East Midlands - UK Clearance processing complete at East Midlands - UK
March 09, 2005 04:10 East Midlands - UK Clearance processing complete at East Midlands - UK
March 09, 2005 04:28 East Midlands - UK Clearance processing complete at East Midlands - UK
March 09, 2005 04:28 East Midlands - UK Departed from DHL facility in East Midlands - UK
March 09, 2005 07:13 Swindon - UK Arrived at DHL facility
March 09, 2005 08:41 Swindon - UK With delivery courier
March 09, 2005 10:33 Swindon - UK Shipment delivered
Access to this sort of information by customers is just one way in which the web is irrevocably changing the nature of business relationships.
I'm sure there will be political and social impacts too. This sort of system is not just for the heavyweights like DHL. If I send out a package via DHL I can piggyback on it to give my customers information on the progress of the order. I'm sure somebody (not me) could write an application to lift the information out of the DHL pages and integrate it with information of my own, transforming the way I present myself to customers. (I'm not in the market - just using myself as the example).
