"A guide to personal productivity" that uses Backpack to stay organized

Russell Quinn's "A guide to personal productivity" details how he uses Backpack to stay organized.

Backpack - This is the cornerstone of everything. A super simple, web-based organisation tool that is so flexible it can accommodate almost any work flow you can think of. Although it has recently grown into a group-based, ‘intranet’ system, it still scales-down to support the lone user.

My tasks are essentially organised into a series of to-do lists that are in turn grouped into a number of pages. My page setup looks like this:

• 0. Dropbox - This is my task inbox. Anything that I have on my mind initially ends up in here, whether it’s a quick admin chore, an idea for a new project, or a life goal - the dropbox gets everything out of my head and stored safely into my system. Backpack even supports emailing text and files directly into this page. It also contains my today/urgent list (more on that later).
• 1. Tasks - General to-dos and things that have a definite goal are grouped together here: ‘buy X a birthday present’, ‘pay electricity bill’ and ‘pump up bicycle tyres’ are all examples of short, succinct tasks. Within this page I have five lists titled General, People, Administration, Finances and Technology, which is what I can categorise most of my tasks into. I often make location-based task lists too. These are groups of tasks that I need to do the next time I’m at at a certain place, like the post office or train station.
• 2. Projects - As I’ve already mentioned, all of my company/team-related projects are in another system entirely. This page is for my solo, non-client projects. The definition of a project, as opposed to a task, is something that has a long term, abstract goal with an ongoing series of tasks to reach it. Examples of projects are Writing, Creative, Learning German and Chess Club. Each project has its own list on the page and always contains the next atomic tasks I need to complete in order to move that project forward.
• 3. Waiting For - A record of everything that I’m waiting for other people to complete. This page is grouped up into Orders (goods that I’ve purchased online and am waiting to arrive in the mail), Administration (usually questions about some legal or taxation issue) and Financial (people who owe me money :)
• 4. To Buy - A simple list of things that I need to buy, grouped by the general locations where I can get them from.
• 5. Someday - This is the daydreaming list. ‘Write a film’, ‘fly to the stars’ and ’save the whale’ are all things I (maybe) want to do at some point in my life, but there’s no way of breaking them down into concrete, atomic tasks at the moment, so they end up here where they’re safe and organised.
• @PAGES - I have a lot of information pages where I just group together thoughts and supporting documents about things I’m working on. I prefix all of these with @’s.
• §PAGES - Finally, I lied slightly about this being a totally personal system. My girlfriend Lucy and I share some pages and these are prefixed with §’s. The examples above are to store films we’d both like to see and who last did the grocery shopping.

The final type of task is the recurring task. These are the things that come around on a regular basis, like visiting the dentist, paying taxes or watering the plants. Backpack supports these too with its ‘reminders’ feature. Simply add the task to receive an email (and optionally an SMS) at the defined interval. Reminders are also great for single items that have a specific deadline - this really helps to keep tasks out of your calendar.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Large company uses Basecamp to "feel" like a small company

Furqan Nazeeri writes that Basecamp has "crossed the chasm" from startups to large companies:

I'm a huge fan of Basecamp. For the few people who haven't heard of Basecamp, it's a team collaboration and project management tool. Adoption amongst startups is high, but it has crossed the chasm and large companies are now adopting it with gusto. I was in a meeting a couple weeks ago with some senior guys from a large (read billion dollar) offshoring/BPO company where they were pitching me for some business. They spent 10 minutes of an hour-long meeting raving about Basecamp and how it made them "feel" like a small company. They knew their competition for the deal was a group of smaller companies and part of their argument as to "why them" was Basecamp! You know you have a killer product when people start ascribing emotions to it.

Do you work at a large company that uses Basecamp or another 37signals product? Let us know.

A Campfire to Jabber interface

Attention developers: There's a newly released Campfire to Jabber interface. This is a simple script that will forward messages from a Campfire room to a Jabber account, and vice versa. (Jabber is an open instant messaging technology that anyone can use.) It uses Tinder, the unofficial Campfire API, and xmpp4r-simple, a Jabber client library. You can run it on your own server or local machine.

Use Soocial to sync Highrise contacts with other devices and applications

Want to sync your Highrise contacts with your phone or Gmail or some other address book/device? Tony Mars of Mindovo tips us to Soocial.com, which aims to link disconnected address books to each other. A change in one place result in a change in all your connected devices. Tony uses it as a way to sync his Highrise contacts to his iPhone and says, "They're still in beta but we are one of their testers and so far it works like a charm."

Highrise customer video: Workforce Language Services

The new Highrise marketing site features some new customer videos we filmed recently, including this one from Workforce Language Services.

Workforce Language Services helps improve corporate communication in the workplace through onsite language training, translation and interpretation services. Highrise helps them keep track of over 13,000 contacts.

"Getting Real reminds small businesses why they shouldn't try to overcomplicate things"

Tobias Christensen wrote to us, "I read your book Getting Real, and found it brilliant!...The nice thing is that now we're able to express more clearly exactly why we are reluctant to include new features, hire more people, answer emails within the hour, etc."

We asked Tobias to tell us more and here's what he wrote:

Getting Real is all about being lean and agile, and keeping things simple, and it's written using this exact philosophy, which works out really well. Getting Real is filled with interesting comments and insights from a large number of businesses, as well as references to the development of 37Signals' own product line.

From my own experience I know it's really easy to overcomplicate things, as your company grows you start adding various control mechanisms, and before you know it your implementing controls mechanisms to control your control mechanisms. Getting Real reminds small businesses why they should stay lean and agile, and why they shouldn't try to overcomplicate things.

Getting Real also gave us some new ideas on the design and development, e.g. the concept of thinking of your application as a person, always asking yourself, 'would this person say or do this?' or the concept of asking users which functions they would like to remove from your application, instead of always asking the exact opposite question.

So to sum things up: Thanks to 37Signals for a great book, and to all others: 'read it!'

Thanks Tobias! Read Getting Real.

New in Backpack: Read-only sharing, updated "All Pages" design, and more

Today we announce a new way to share pages in Backpack. Now when you share a page you can decide which people may edit the page and which people may only view the page. This allows certain people to be responsible for editing pages while others have access to read the pages but cannot make changes. It's a very useful feature, especially for larger teams.

Here's how read-only pages work. When you click "Make a new page" you'll see a link below the people checkboxes that says "Specify who can make changes to this page."

The checkboxes are replaced by a table when you click the "Specify..." link. The people on your account appear on the left-hand column with the familiar checkboxes to give them access to the page. Then to the right of each person you can set whether they can "change the page" or "only view the page." Two links above those right-hand columns allow you to apply the same setting to all people at once. By default everyone can change the page.

In this example we want to allow David, Jason and Sarah to change the page. Everyone else will have read-only access. The settings look like this:

When David, Jason or Sarah open the page they will see the usual editing options. They can add information to the page, edit what's there, and move things around like any other page. Here's how the page looks to people who are allowed to make changes:

Everyone else on the account will see the read-only version of this page. There are no links on the top of the page to add content. Instead the header says "You can view this page but you cannot make changes." There are no links to add content, no edit links, no delete links, and no drag handles to re-order page elements. Check boxes cannot be checked or unchecked. This is what people see when they are only allowed to view the page:

Read-only pages are a very useful addition to Backpack. We hope they inspire your team with new ways to share Backpack Pages.

"All Pages" is updated with page icons

In addition to read-only Pages, today's update includes a refreshed design for the "All Pages" screen. The old design was a plain list of links and often half of the screen was empty space:

The new design uses two columns to better fill the page. New icons give the screen more style and interest:

Collapse and expand completed list items

We've also answered a frequent request regarding completed list items. People were frustrated by the way their lists got longer and longer as they completed more items. Eventually the page got too long, and the only option was to delete the completed items. This is a problem because many people prefer to keep their completed items for future reference or for reasons of accountability. Here's an example of a long list of completed items:

We've solved this problem by collapsing all but the last three completed items:

Click the link at the bottom of the list to reveal all the completed items:

You might also notice we added dates to the beginning of each checked item. Those dates are very useful when your team collaborates on a list and you wish to keep track of when the different tasks were completed.

We hope you like the updates

We're really happy with these updates to Backpack and we hope you find them useful. Thanks for your continued support!

New Highrise marketing site launches

Check out the new Highrise marketing site, launched earlier this week:

Includes a new “Fresh News & Buzz” strip in the sidebar. Here's how we pull that off.

Highrise one of "Top 10 most useful webapps of 2008"

Evan Bartlett is a member of the business development team at Angelsoft. Lifeinlists is his digital sandbox and he recently published his Top 10 most useful webapps of 2008 there. On the list: Highrise.

Highrise
Highrise became a big-small contender in the CRM space this year by adding Deal tracking and full data export. Not to mention, no CRM comes close to making it this easy to keep track of your contacts in detail. After falling off the wagon with Salesforce (multiple times), SugarCRM, and PipelineDeals, Highrise is the only one that became critical to my day-to-day activites at work.

Thanks for the mention Evan.

Newsberry, a service to send and track email newsletters, integrates with Highrise

Want to send out an email newsletter to your contacts in Highrise? Check out Newsberry, a service to send and track email newsletters that syncs with Highrise. "Highrise integration" [Newsberry Help section] offers more details.

With Highrise Sync enabled, Newsberry will automatically sync contacts in Highrise to subscribers in your list. All changes in your Highrise account will be visible in your Newsberry contacts list in which you enabled Highrise Sync...

If you check "Enable Highrise syncing" checkbox and click the "Sync accounts" button, your contacts list will be synchronized with Highrise. If any information is updated within your Highrise account (contacts added, updated or deleted) the updates would be visible in your Newsberry list (in approximately 3 hours). After syncing, you will be redirected to a page where you can manage subscribers and you will see the Highrise contacts and regular contacts.

Highrise contacts are marked with the Highrise icon and cannot be edited. You will see a note that Highrise syncing is enabled next to the green icon.

Learn more about how Newsberry integrates with Highrise at the Newsberry help section or read the Newsberry blog post announcing the integration.

Design studio owner inspired by Getting Real

Max Guedy writes in to tell us how Getting Real has helped him create a new app:

My name's Max, I run a small design studio in Cape-Town, South-Africa. I purchased the ebook Getting Real a couple of hours ago and read it in one go, it was really inspiring and spoke mountains to me.

I've been planning a new app since august and got into many traps you mention... i have 3 partners ( a lawyer, a developer and a branding consultant ) and making decisions about small things is often what chews up our time and we are not even close to launching... at this stage, we have :

- a catchy name myows.com and myows.net
- an almost-finished logo
- the home page is 90 % complete, but we're struggling about the sign-up form.
- the copy is 60 % complere
- the wire-frame for the content pages.

Its very interesting that we naturally came up with a lot of features you recommend, a forum, a blog, video-tour, free testing phase ( we also want featured users )... but reading your book has just given me the extra-Oumpf i needed and valuable tips about the launching phase, i hope to measure up to your success one day !

Thank you for this great read, probably the best thing i've done on a Friday night since i found out my girlfriend was pregnant...

Keep up the great work !

Max

Thanks for sharing Max!

How Ice-Qube Preparedness System founder relies on Basecamp

The Ice-Qube Preparedness System is a collection of everything you need in case of emergency, disaster, or accident. The product line was developed by Leslie Fastenberg, a suburban 'hockey mom' from Old Westbury, NY who, while researching emergency preparedness products for her own family was inspired to develop a more comprehensive, practical and efficient kit than what was available on the market.

Leslie is a big Basecamp fan and emailed us saying, "Basecamp has enabled me to function like a big company, makes the most efficient use of my time, gives me the most information I could want to supervise and access my teams participation, serves as the ultimate back up and makes sense of my wild mind and ultimately grow my business."

We asked her to tell us more:

I am a small business owner who works with many independent contractors who are connected through me. I initially came to Basecamp when we began constructing our new website. This new site launch coincided with a great deal of new product development. since my products includes lots of other products. keeping track of the lists and keeping everyone current, could have been a job in and of itself. Basecamp made that problem, no problem!

In time, I came to give myself over to the Basecamp style of working and found that their system for messages, to do's and milestone's worked perfectly - they improved my process. For a small business owner like me, basecamp is like having a solid assistant who is compulsive - and the price is right.

One final thought, now I use Basecamp to analyze performance. In addition to the fact that I can see how often my people are signing into their accounts and working on my projects, I have found that the people who are most productive are drawn to Basecamp, those who resist slow the rest of us down. Basecamp has become my Rorschach!

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

[Case Study] The Vianova Group President on "the 'less is more' streamlined eloquence that is Basecamp"

Frank Scarpaci, President of The Vianova Group (which offers corporate social responsibility consulting services), went from a Basecamp skeptic to an evangelist. He tells us why:

How do you use Basecamp and why do you like it?
We use Basecamp for all of our client projects.  Basecamp is highly effective, to the point that our clients frequently thank us enough for using it! Basecamp makes potentially onerous projects simple and pleasant.   It is extremely easy to learn and helps me deliver a wonderful mix of efficiency, transparency, stakeholder devotion and positive outcomes. In short, it makes my clients quite happy which make me very happy!

Why were you a Basecamp skeptic at first?
For a time, I was enticed by what appeared to be “extra” bells and whistles that some other web-based project management programs might offer. I wondered if perhaps Basecamp was “too simple”. As a seasoned project manager who had absolutely done their homework in reviewing project management software, I initially thought Basecamp was only good for really small and simple projects.  Most of my projects are not small and not simple.  Many times they involve large diverse teams.  After testing many web-based programs I gave up in frustration.  They were too complicated and my concern was I would have to spend way too much time training my clients on how to use it!  

So, I figured I would give Basecamp a try.  Reluctantly I set up my first project which was a large-scale fundraising event involving a large and diverse committee of staff and volunteers.  Much to my surprise the entire group began using Basecamp immediately. More importantly, there are significant intangible team benefits to the “less is more” streamlined eloquence that is Basecamp.  My clients frequently tell me how much they appreciate us giving them a highly effective tool that is so easy to use.

You said your team gave it rave reviews. What did they like?
Clients adore the tool for making their lives easier, creating a positive team dynamic and helping creative ideas bubble to the surface. When clients use the words “genius” and “blessing” in describing your project management software, it’s a sure thing you’ll keep on using it! Here are just a few quotes from my happy clients:

“The best part about Basecamp was that I had one-button access to everything and everyone that I needed to do my job well. It’s simplicity is its genius.”

“But the thing I liked best about it was that it was a great place to keep track of all meeting happenings and the task list (assigning feature) was a great tool to help keep people on task. I like that it allowed us to record documents and limit the amount of printing and reprinting of documents. It served the purpose well and allowed us to limit the amount of face to face meetings required... It was a blessing!”

“I loved the ability to upload and share files and notify key people without having to send out a ton of e-mails. It was a great way to keep tabs on what everyone else was doing and make sure we were all reaching our milestones. Knowing that everyone else was watching, too, it motivated me to go in and check off my “to do” tasks ahead of schedule.”

"New Journal of Physics" article mentions Basecamp

Scientist Darran Edmundson, of EDM Studio, Inc., wrote an article for "New Journal of Physics" that includes a couple of mentions of Basecamp. He writes in to tell us about it:

We've just had a journal article (Visualizing a silicon quantum computer) published in the relatively prestigious New Journal of Physics. This is a special issue on visualization, and our article is specifically targeted at scientists looking to successfully lead production (i.e., project manage) an animation. If you search the text, there are a couple of shameless Basecamp plugs ;-)

A couple of quotes from the article that mention Basecamp:

At EDM's behest, the popular web-based project management tool Basecamp was used for discussion threads, to-do lists, project milestones and file exchange."

And...

It is important to appreciate the cultural differences between the science and animation communities. Ongoing communication is important. Given that the team was scattered across two continents, appropriate project and task management software was essential for success, and Basecamp served the purpose for us.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Backpack and Highrise at Wall Street Journal site

Tips for 'Getting Things Done' (Video) is a video at The Wall Street Journal that includes a discussion of Backpack (and screenshots of Highrise) as tools that help you be more productive.

There's also a related article.

New in Backpack: Page notifications and up-front sharing settings

We have released two updates to Backpack to help your team share and collaborate on pages.

Set sharing options up-front

Before this update, every page you created was shared with everyone in your account by default (unless you were the only person on your account). This meant that if you wanted to share with only certain people, or if you wanted to make a private page, you couldn't do it without first saving a page shared with everybody and then changing the sharing settings after the fact. The result was that your private page title could be exposed to people in your account in that brief period between when the page was first created and when you clicked to change the sharing settings.

We've fixed that situation with a new "Make a new page" form. Now you can set the page title and sharing options together in the same step, before the page is ever created.

Page notifications

Another new feature allows you to notify people in your account that you created or updated a page. Now when you create a new page, you'll see a yellow button at the bottom that says "Tell the others I created this page."

You can click the button to reveal a notification form. Check the people you want to notify and type an optional personal message and then Backpack will send those people an email with a link to your new page.

That last checkbox is for administrators only. Admins can check "Add this page to each person's sidebar" and the page will automatically be added to each person's list of links in their sidebar. Now when you want people to check up on an important page you can be sure they have easy access to it whenever they log in to Backpack.

Page creators aren't the only ones who can send notifications. Anybody who is sharing a page inside a Backpack account will see a button to "Tell the others I've updated this page" at the bottom of the page. Clicking that button displays the same form as the one above.

We hope these new features make it easier for you to share Backpack pages with your team!

[Case study] How record producer Bill Moriarty uses Highrise to keep track of album projects

Record Producer Bill Moriarty and his manager Chris Radwanski use Highrise to keep track of all of Bill's album projects. Bill tells us all about it below.

Why do you need Highrise?
I'm in the studio most of the time so my phone's off, the internet's off... I'm making sure the tape machine's running right and the band's playing their best.

My manager, Chris, deals with all the communications, logistics and a lot of planning on every album I make. With Highrise I can login and see all the progress that's been made toward getting a band in the studio and then follow up with the artist about the music we're going to make.

Despite living in the same city we rarely see each other in person, we barely have meetings, we don't have conference calls, we don't do IM… Highrise is where everything goes. It's how Chris & I stay in sync with what was said, what was promised, potential projects, and where I'm currently in an album's progress. If we worked only in email all these vital communications would just be lost in the email noise. Using Highrise makes us focus just on what's important to making records and running our company.

Which features do you use most?
We actually use Cases the most. Since it's just two of us we don't need the full project management of Basecamp. Besides individual contacts we make a "Company" for each band and a "Case" for each album. Everything important that gets said about an album goes into the album's "case."

On average, Chris is working with 15 potential records at a time. He titles it, oh, for example, "lead:Drink Up Buttercup's new album" and uploads demos for me to listen to, notes about how the band wants to make their album, possible recording dates, where in the world this may be recorded, and assigns me todo's for when & how to get back to the artist about their project. Once that lead becomes a definite project we just delete "lead:" from the Case's title.

We have contacts and companies for the artists, labels, and musicians we speak with regularly. On DHH's blog advice we don't put everyone in Highrise; just the people that matter to running our business. Again, it's about focusing on what's important: doing one thing at a time and doing it well.

Using Highrise export as an offline backup

We were recently talking to a customer who occasionally needs to access information in Highrise while he's offline. His solution: He exports all his data from Highrise every few weeks so he's got an offline backup on his hard drive.

Then he can access that information at any time, even if he's without net access. It's a handy tip for anyone who's found themselves offline and wanting to get info on a Highrise contact, note, etc.

Related Highrise FAQs:
Can I export notes, tasks, or cases from Highrise?
How do I export my contacts from Highrise?

[Case study] BootStudio uses 37signals tools to build websites for large organizations in Central America

Jorge Arango of BootStudio writes in about his team's use of 37signals products:

About our company

BootStudio creates and manages engaging websites for large organizations in Central America (and beyond). We have a passion for simple, eloquent, standards-based interfaces that get the job done with a minimal amount of fuss. We've been around since 1995, when Internet access was starting to become commercially available in this region, so ours was one of the first web design firms in this part of the world.

The 37signals products we use, and why we like them

Ours is an (almost) entirely web-based business. We manage our day-to-day work on the 37signals suite (along with Google Apps and a few other web-based apps):

• Basecamp is our main project management space; it's where we share files, project notes, deadlines, pending tasks, checklists, etc. We love that all members of each project team—including clients—can have access to the latest information at any time, from anywhere.

• Highrise is where we manage everything "meta" about the company: contract negotiation, business development, human resources issues, etc. Most of these threads are centered on people, so Highrise makes an excellent control center and filing cabinet for these activities.

• Backpack is our intranet. It's where we update each other on our availability ("working remotely this afternoon"), document processes, and interesting news and developments about our industry.

• We also use Campfire as a replacement for IM, although much of our use of this app been overtaken by Backpack's Journal feature.

Last but certainly not least,

• Getting Real has been influential in the way we think about our work. Central America is a "developing market": a euphemism that means that expectations are high, and budgets low. We've had to learn to be nimble and efficient, and the Getting Real ethos has inspired and influenced us.

We like that the 37signals applications have consistent, elegant interfaces; it's been very easy for us to get new team members up-to-speed. The apps also have a well-considered feature set that strikes a smart balance between power with usability. For example, while Backpack isn't as flexible as Google Sites (which we evaluated, given we'd paid for it as part of Google Apps), the former provides the features we need without the complexity that comes with the richer feature set of the latter. We've found that with a bit of ingenuity we can do pretty much anything with these tools. (The one thing we haven't been able to work around is that the app UIs are presented exclusively in English. While this hasn't been too much of a problem for our clients, we can see it becoming more of an issue as we start doing more business with folks in other Spanish-speaking regions.)

Periscope Gadget: "Basecamp control on iGoogle & in GMail too"

Periscope Gadget gives you control over multiple Basecamp accounts on your iGoogle homepage, directly in GMail, on your Windows Desktop with Google Gadgets and even on your iPhone.

I really needed (and wanted) a simple way to punch-in to a project I was busy on; work; then punch-out and write a quick description of what I did. It’s really important to me to charge my clients by the minute: who wants to be charged 1hr of my time for a small copy change that really only took me 4 minutes to do? Enter Periscope.

Learn more about Periscope.

Announcing 37signals' new book deal

We're writing a new book that follows up on Getting Real and we're pleased to announce that we just signed a deal with Crown Publishing! Read all about it over at Signal vs. Noise.

Author uses Highrise to manage contacts (and integrates it with HelpSpot too)

Author Stephane Grenier loves Highrise and writes in to tell us why:

Thank you very much Highrise for making such an amazing product. I'm using it with my assistants to manage the contacts for the marketing of my new best selling book Blog Blazers. Not only does it allow us to manage who's who, we also use it to manage who's been sent books to review, who to follow-up with, and when to follow-up with them. Basically it's a great tool to keep track of our marketing efforts for the book. I can't imagine being without it!

What's also very exciting for us is that we use HelpSpot to manage internal emails, and they've created an integration plugin for Highrise right into their products. So as we email people, we can do what's called a "Live Lookup" right into the software and get the benefits of Highrise with our email client.

So not only are we able to leverage the power of Highrise to manage our contacts, we're also able to leverage the power of their web services!

Thank you to the fine folks at Highrise, I can't imagine launching my book with any other tool!!

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Backpack: Some things you may not have known

We recently conducted a survey of our Backpack customers. We got some great feedback — including that 97% of our customers would recommend Backpack to a colleague, friend, or family member. Thank you! 

While reviewing, we noticed some suggestions about things that Backpack already offers. In "Backpack: Some things you may not have known," we pull out some of the more common suggestions and show you where you can find these features in Backpack. We hope you find these tips helpful!

How INTO uses Basecamp as a content management system and wireframing tool

INTO is a web/print startup specializing in "cutting edge work, quick turn-around times, and a high level of web expertise." Below, INTO founder Kirk Strobeck details the creative ways his team uses Basecamp, including as a content management system and wireframing tool!

How do you use our products and why do you like them?
We depend on Basecamp. It has become a cornerstone for our project management and client communication. As soon as we get wind of a project, we've got it set up in Basecamp; it is step 1. Out of that we grow our communication--instantly gaining credibility and dependability by messaging and stockpiling infos online. Of all the aspects of our business, it's one of the few that we don't have to worry about.

However, project management isn't its only purpose at INTO. Upon browsing 37Signals we saw three letters on the footer, "API," we did a quick search for a way to connect to the backdoor of our favorite web application. After seeing the available data and the need for a simple server-side CMS that worked like Basecamp, we figured why not just use Basecamp as a CMS. We're a transparent company, so if it works — use it. We did, and we're happy to say it works great.

We now use Basecamp in the following ways:

• As a project management tool
• As a content management system
• As a website wireframing tool

As a project management tool
When someone sings, it's an incredible instrument. Not only can you hear the tune, tempo, and vibe of a song, but you can clearly absorb what is being communicated. In the same way, Basecamp is an incredble tool. While you work your way through a project, there are not only deliverable results, but a detailed record of everything that has been done and is yet to be done. It formalizes our business practices without skipping a beat and becomes a solid escape from redundant explanations... "Check basecamp, it's all up there."

As a content management system
For some light-weight websites we do what we call a "Basecamp install." In these websites we have fixed navigation and semi-flexible content. While the API doesn't support graphic integration yet, it does lend itself to text changes. Here are a few examples.

saltStudio
We didn't want to do a large CMS install for this client, because practically it only needed recent news. We could apply manual updates for the other sections. We made a backend script that checks Basecamp, and sees what new news posts are available, then writes a new content file and refreshes it for the next visit. While it is a flash movie, we simply import the textfile and have a news section. We don't only pull the messages here, but also the employee information from the "People" tab mounts data to the site.

A script checks Basecamp, sees what new news posts are available, then writes a new content file and refreshes it for the next visit.

A "Virtual Office Kinda Life" with 37signals tools

The author of Setting Contexts has published a couple of posts about using 37signals products:

How Backpack is Saving My Sanity talks about using the entire suite of 37signals tools:

For the first time in a few months I feel like I’m more in control - not just organized, but working with my teams more efficiently. And my teams have been very supportive in trying these tools out and participating. While I don’t have the ability to block off time each day to get work done (too many meetings - grrr) without interruption, I can track what needs to be done and get things done before and after the “workday”.

Living a Virtual Office Kinda Life talks about the web-based tools the author uses at work to stay organized and keep in touch. Among the list:

Basecamp - we use it for project management and have just started to share with our clients. It took a full day to reorganize the existing account when I started - I also put together a couple of screencasts for our team to learn how to use it. I’m also planning to do a couple for our clients so that they feel comfortable using it.

Backpack - we use this as our own intranet. Anything internal (not project-based) goes here. This has been really successful in terms of adoption - everyone has been adding to pages as well as adding their own.

Highrise - we’re using this for our CRM solution and to track our new business process. As of right now, only the crayonistas involved with new business have access.

Read the rest of Living a Virtual Office Kinda Life to see the other tools listed (Twitter, iPhones, etc.).

[Case study] How a home design and plan provider uses Highrise

Design Connection's Jamison Kissh on how his company uses Highrise.

What does your company do?
Our company is a home design and plan provider based in Thomaston, Connecticut. We began by providing custom home design services to the local building industry in 1985. Since our inception over 20 years ago, we have grown into a nationally recognized plan service providing house plans and garage plans in a variety of styles and sizes. From the beginning, our mission was to provide unique, quality, economical home plans to consumers and builders. 

Why do you need Highrise?
I use Highrise to keep track of all sorts of people; those that advertise on our site and even people that call us and ask some questions. This way it allows me to keep all their information together since sometimes it may take days to gather answers to a caller’s questions.

How do you use Highrise and why do you like it?
I use Highrise to keep track of prospective customer’s emails to me as well as remind me to follow up with them if need be.

Which features do you use the most?
Well that would have to be the dropbox followed by a close second with notes.

What did you use before and why did you switch?
I tried a few programs as well as just a simple spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was a mess and nothing else offered anything nearly as useful as Highrise.

Get specific. Tell us a story about a project or situation where Highrise helped you out.
Highrise proves its self everyday when I receive an email or phone call with someone that I had been in correspondence with but had forgotten about. I quickly open Highrise and search their name in the nice fast search utility. This way it reminds me of their information and allows for a personalized phone call as well as eliminating the need of asking them to remind me who they are. Another way this helps me out is if my boss loses a phone message that I had provided him I still have a backup of the numbers, addresses, and any other information provided to me during the conversation.

Any tips or tricks for other customers?
Not really anything that’s not self explanatory. Other than use my favorite tool the dropbox often.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

[Case Study] Broadband Genie: "You name it, we manage it through Basecamp!"

Ciaron Dunne of Broadband Genie on Basecamp:

Broadband Genie, the broadband comparison website, has been going since 2003 and we're old-time Basecamp aficionados. Right from the start (just like at a lot of internet companies) the Broadband Genie team has been scattered far and wide across the UK because we needed people with the right skills more than people in the right places. Remote working and collaboration tools have therefore been unimaginably important to us; we just wouldn't exist without them.

Everything in one place
We fell for Basecamp after a brief and misguided flirtation with Microsoft Sharepoint and some experimentation with open-source solutions such as NetOffice. The biggest thing straight away was quite simply the ability to upload graphic designs, specifications and so on and have everybody comment on it in one place, then iterate and so on. Attempting this sort of thing with a large group via email is pretty much a non-starter and can end badly. What Basecamp gave us was a single place where everybody could see everything that was going on, and (just as importantly) a record of what had gone on previously.

Working at different times
Another benefit was that Basecamp facilitated people working at different times. We had programmers and designers who only came out when the sun went down, and it was beautiful to get up in the morning and see a whole load of progress without cluttering up my inbox.

The TO DO list
As Broadband Genie has evolved, I guess our use of Basecamp has changed. The TO DO list is the central project and task management tool for the whole country, and we seem to be able to use it for everyday thoughts and queries as well as for major projects. The ability the comment on TO DO items has really, really made this so much better. We barely use the message board functionality any more. We recently project managed a major web development for us - our mobile broadband comparison site - entirely through the TO DO list, co-ordinating a team of up to ten people.

"You name it, we manage it through Basecamp!"
It's also true that Basecamp has permeated other areas of the business. We also offer some internet marketing consultancy services, and so we just set up projects for our clients and give them access, while still being able to pull everything together into one uber TO DO list. Consultancy, accountancy (even my wedding) - you name it, we manage it through Basecamp!...

We've not seen anything on the market to touch it - so keep up the good work.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

New in Backpack: Email replies to Newsroom Messages

We introduced email-reply to messages and comments in Basecamp a few months ago. It's been a huge hit. Today we're excited to be able to print this new feature to Backpack.

You can now respond to any message posted in Backpack via email.

Just make sure your reply goes above the...

--- Reply ABOVE THIS LINE to post a comment to the message ---

...line and it will appear in the message thread.

This means you don't have to log in to respond to a message or comment someone else posted. This new email-reply feature makes Backpack an even more useful internal communications tool. We think you'll love it.

Thanks again for your continued support.

Timepost, project timer that integrates with Basecamp, now available for both Windows and Mac

Timepost is a project timer that automatically downloads projects and to-dos from Basecamp. Previously available only for Mac OS X, it is now available for Windows too.

"Using Timepost with Basecamp" offers more details:

Basecamp is one of the most popular project collaboration tools on the market, and makes a great companion for Timepost. You can collect timesheets from contractors anywhere in the world using Timepost, and analyze the report information from your Basecamp account.

[Case Study] devego: "Basecamp is the air we breathe everyday"

Carlos Bruscoli works at devego, a design/development company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He wrote in to tell us why his team loves Basecamp and Highrise.

Basically we make some websites and web apps for our costumers, and also we recently founded a startup, ( atommica ) in which we are cooking our own projects ( all of them mega-cool btw :)

The keypoint here, is that we have a partnership with another agency in London, which works exclusively with print design, and we are providing this guys with the web-interactive part. Imagine the timezone differences, the normal problems that rise in every work situation, and the need to quick-response or quick-action based on all of this projects, everyone with their own deadlines and milestones. This scenario is our "everyday".

The Rock-Age ( as we refer to the pre-basecamp era ) was really chaotic. Mails lost, unread stuff, mixed address, mixed calendars, tasklist in excel files... i mean literally.. chaos.

Now, back to our days, Basecamp is the air we breathe everyday, it gives us all the tools to actually ENJOY this work, while keeping it simple without a "mega-extra" organization or effort from any of the offices. We get all the projects organized by themselves, everyone knows what to do next with the tasklists and we actually dont need to design a really cool intranet for our clients sees some demos, and also the clients don't tamper our emails with their content documents, or the new pictures they need to post in their website.

Milestones at devego's Basecamp account.