37signals Product Blog

Marketing agency lists tools to keep you organized

Marketing agency True Hero asks, "As business grows, client lists expand, taxes are due, and calendars filled up, how do you keep organized?" The answer is a list of tools to keep track of people, places, and things — and Highrise, Basecamp, and Backpack make the cut.

1. Highrise is Customer Management, Assistant, White-Board, Email, To Do all in one. TrueHero recommends Highrise to all our clients. It’s a one stop place for answers when responding to sales managers, accounts and reps. Each user can see who talked to the client last, when and what was discussed. Schedule a meeting, Task or Follow-up by Company, Brand or Client. You don’t have to bother Bob on his vacation for Client X’s info – it is right there in Highrise. Easy, efficient, and effective. Love this tool and it’s inexpensive...

3. Backpack is part of 37signals like Highrise. If you have the $99 package, Highrise, Backpack, and Basecamp is included. No need for Google Calendars – Backpack has a group calendar. A great alternative to mass emails, notifications and group organization. The 37signals tools work well together – one place, one app, easy.

The rest of the list includes tools like MailChimp, Mint.com, and Quickbooks. Check it out.

Why iPhone app developer tap tap tap thinks Backpack is "invaluable"

tap tap tap's John Casasanta creates iPhone apps and recently published a list of tools that help the members of his “virtual” office collaborate in an effective way. He writes, "Out of all the apps and services I use throughout the day, I find myself spending most of my time in Backpack."

37signals’ Backpack has become an invaluable tool for our company. For each of our projects, we have one or more Backpack pages associated with it where we keep various lists and notes for the project. I say “project” versus “app” because we have several things in the works that affect more than one app (like social sharing, for instance).

The kinds of information that we store in Backpack are pretty varied. Here are some examples of what we keep in ours:

• to-do lists of features for our upcoming app versions
• bug lists
• brainstormings
• lists of design sessions for each app
• product definitions, specifications, and notes
• app mockups and new feature mockups

...

One of the things I like most about Backpack is its freeform nature and that you can easily adapt it to whichever way works best for you. There are many similar services that try to put too many constraints and restrictions on how you structure your information but with Backpack you have a lot of freedom in this regard. A Backpack page for one of our apps is very unlikely to look like one for another one of our apps and that’s a good thing… the teams are free to organize the information for each project in ways that best suit them and Backpack goes a long way in helping us do that.

Learn more about how tap tap tap uses Backpack and other tools.

WSJ: Backpack helps small businesses, agencies and entrepreneurs

The Wall Street Journal offers a look at sites that offer free software tools for managing a business and gives a shoutout to Backpack.

Backpack helps small businesses, agencies and entrepreneurs keep and track to-do lists, notes and other documents, discussions and schedules all in one spot.

Interview with project manager who uses Backpack as part of his "Getting Things Done" system

Design Feaster recently posted an interview with Steve Dale, a project manager, who uses Backpack as part of his practice of David Allen's method "Getting Things Done."

I keep a notebook with me at all times and use a paid 37Signals’ Backpack subscription to manage my personal GTD system (above image). I’ve investigated other apps, but find a combination of pen, paper and Backpack works for me. I occasionally use Satchel, an iPhone app for Backpack, but pen and paper are usually quicker for capturing things when I’m not at a computer.

Read the full interview.

Writeboard and Backpack "make group projects both fun and productive"

"Writeboard: Class projects reinvented" describes how the author used Writeboard and Backpack for a team project at Florida Tech.

Writeboard does support simple text formatting, e.g. asterisk around a word make it bold (*example*). I actually discovered the formatting by accident, because it is just natural to give emphasis to text like that. It also saves every version of our file, so we could easily see what we’d done before or what someone else changed. We all signed in with a simple password; no new accounts for every student to setup. Everyone in my class found it equally easy to use, and we had a vibrant community helping each other with class notes and the group project. Altogether we had over 4,000 words in one Writeboard; not necessarily recommended, but it shows the power of Writeboard! The tech is so easy to use, everyone enjoyed it. And the important thing is that it actually helped us achieve our goals in ways no other tool had ever done. Even though we techies love new features and tools, the truth is that when something needs to be done, just getting it done is sometimes better!

One other tool that helped our team out was my Backpack account. This great tool, which I hope to write about more in the near future, lets you store lists, notes, links (including Writeboards), and more on easy-to-edit pages. For our class, I made a public page where I put a link to our team’s Writeboard, notes with important deadlines and information about the project, and lists of assignments and participants. It just tied everything in the class together easily and quickly. No starting a new website, designing HTML/CSS, or anything, just getting the job done.

I can’t wait to try this out in my next class group project again. If technology can make group projects both fun and productive, that’s really something! So next time you’re in a group project, give Writeboard and Backpack a try; your team might get more done (and a better grade) too!

Read full piece.

37signals tools top the list at "100 Apps for Tech–Savvy Teachers"

Rasmussen College published an article called 100 Apps for Tech–Savvy Teachers. 37signals tools are #1 on the list.

Teachers have one of the most difficult jobs out there. As an educator, you have to manage a classroom of boisterous students, organize heaps of data, stay up–to–date with current events and plan lessons day in and day out. In today’s technologically linked world, the ability to use web applications is at your advantage as an educator, and we are here to tell you the best tools to use. Here is a collection of 100 web and iPhone applications that make the grade for tech–savvy teachers:

1) 37signals: More than three million people use this application for a reason — it’s extremely effective for businesses and educators. 37 Signals makes it easier to collaborate, share, discuss and get work done through its programs — Basecamp (a project management system), Highrise (where you can track your contact with parents and students), Backpack (where you can organize your life) and Campfire (an instant messaging system).

Read the full list.

Frugal IT: Backpack filled with "real-life usefulness and smooth interfacing"

"10 Applications that can help you with Personal Information Management" [Frugal IT] investigates various Personal Information Management (PIM) solutions. Backpack is first up:

Backpack is a SaaS intranet for you or your business. You can store, share, discuss, and archive everything that’s essential for you or your team. “It adapts to how you see it fitting into your life, and it can bend and reshape itself to fit the application you use it for. Multiple pages with multiple levels of functionality within each page equate to an application with customization beyond that of all others. Think of it as a wiki, but overflowing with real-life usefulness and smooth interfacing.” – Mike Rundle

Try Backpack.

Get your wedding party involved with Backpack

In HOW TO: Plan a DIY Wedding Using Social Media, a Mashable editor open sources his wedding planning work-flow and shares the tricks he's learned so far. One of his recommended tools: Backpack.

It should be clear by now: planning a wedding is a mammoth undertaking (and ours is relatively small at just over 100 guests). Keeping track of all the details can be difficult, but two tools are potentially invaluable for staying organized as the list of items you need to keep straight for the wedding grows larger. One of those resources is Backpack. Though initially designed for business use, Backpack is a single-page, wiki-style organizer that can be amazingly useful for keeping track of who is doing what, what is left to do, and what has already been accomplished. Because Backpack pages can be shared, you can also use the app to get your wedding party involved — dole out tasks to bridesmaids, groomsmen, and relatives and keep track of everyone’s progress.

Read the full piece for more recommended tools.

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

Why the Backpack Journal is "killer"

In this blog post, Sam Harrelson talks about why the Backpack Journal is "killer":

I'm going back to Backpack for workflow management. The web interface is fantastic (and familiar), I can easily email in material, create seperate pages, feel secure, integrate easily with GMail, Google Calendar and be completely web-based. 

However, the killer app Backpack has going for it is the Journal feature:

I'm using it for product management, status updates to myself and as a "private twitter" etc. It's like the anti-social bookmarketing site Pinboard for micro-messaging.

The article also raves about Satchel, which brings Backpack to your iPhone.

Yes, [Satchel] costs $10, but it's well worth the price. Satchel is speedy, works "offline" (whatever that means anymore), and intuitive. I can also easily update my Journal through Satchel. Plus, there are hacks and apps for getting Backpack to work well as a web app (like GMail) on the iPhone if preferred.

Read the full piece.

Web Worker Daily: A daily checklist in Backpack helps with marketing efforts

Tools and Techniques for Better Lead Generation [Web Worker Daily] argues that maintaining a consistent effort is key to marketing. The author says you need a reliable system so you can see exactly what you’ve done and when, as well as what’s left to be done — and Backpack is a great tool for this:

I have a page set up for each day of the workweek, and I evenly distribute the action tasks for all of my marketing tactics throughout the week.

On a given day, I simply click on that day’s page and get to work on the tasks, which are within a handy checklist (see image above along the left).

As I complete the items, I check them off. My goal is to get through the entire list on any given day. If I don’t get through the list for some reason, my rule is to get through all of the week’s tasks before the following Monday. This provides me with a little flexibility without letting me completely off the hook or allowing me to get too lax with my efforts (thus, adding consistency).

Each Monday, I un-check all the lists on every page, which helps me to stay accountable to my plans and goals for my business. I can clearly see what got done and what did not get done over the previous week. After un-checking the items, I’m ready to begin another week.