Web consulting firm Viget Labs recently opened a new location and realized it would be a challenge to maintain constant communication between staff at its two offices (one's in D.C., the other Durham, NC). Their initial solution was to use an internal IRC server but they soon realized Campfire is a better solution for keeping communication flowing.
We were skeptical at first, but after a month of constant use Campfire has proven to be a better tool than we initially anticipated:
- Communication has improved – Instead of just the core development team, we now have everyone involved in discussions throughout the day. Project Managers can alert us of new issues that crop up in production (that we don’t see in our exception notifications) and Developers can get clarification on a proposed feature.
- Cool bots – When they’re not hanging out in the VL “Bot Tub,” our Capistrano and Subversion bots send messages to the team whenever a deployment or commit happens.
- Context included – When people sign in, they can see what has been happening throughout the morning. This means that a Project Manager can see what features have been implemented and are ready for review on our autobuild site.
I’m increasingly optimistic about our ability to maintain our “offline” culture in this on-line meeting space. We always strive to keep a good sense of humor even in stressful situations and Campfire has allowed us to maintain the same levity in our daily communication. Sure, sometimes we have to force some conversations back on track, but we’re able to have fun and get work done at the same time.
We asked Viget's Patrick Reagan for more info. He offered up this exchange from one of their transcripts that shows a quick bugfix and deploy cycle using their Capistrano and Subversion bots:
He also sent links to the custom gems they use to send messages to Campfire:
svn_campfire_notifier
vl_capistrano
Thanks Patrick!
Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.
