Land of the lost, an industry

by Jenna November 2nd, 2011

Formerly a good developer, now a project manager. I have beed in the biz for 7 years and I run a small dev shop out of N.Y. city.

November 02, 2011 / 0 Comments

It’s funny with all this technology today in how involved I am with it I often forget that there are still dinosaurs roaming the earth. I deal with people that know within 10 min. of the new idea or new design work some new business model. I see business models that make absolutely no sense it offered no real value to you do end up making good money. So this modern evolution in business is happening a great day it changes new things and I’ve learned to absorb this information at an incredibly fast pace and adapt overnight as many of us have. So you can see why I was completely and totally blown away by an industry that is still completely in the dark ages not only in terms of technology but in design.

I’m talking about financial services. As a general rule these folks have websites that look like they were designed in 1975 before the Internet was even invented. I don’t know how they do it it’s like a skill. They offer services and they don’t put their pricing on the website. Or they put there pricing on the website but they do it in a way that no other company does it so you can’t make any sort of obvious comparison right away.

And if you have some sort of new business model, forget it! Expect to be treated like a criminal. This is considered to be an extremely high-risk transaction and they will not want anything to do with you.

That’s not to say that there are not some organizations that are beginning to understand and are attempting to address this issue. Some financial services sites are pretty good but very very few. To me navigating a website in this industry is a wild ride on the back of a dinosaur.

Are you stuck in this rut? Is you industry behind the times? I just don’t get it. Why not make a killer website and make you business stand out! It is still about competition right?