[Case Study] Leading martial arts site: "Basecamp is a complete necessity for us"

Jason Dainter sent us an email about Basecamp:

As a start-up business (growing from nothing last year to being now one of the leading online martial arts communities) our team of 4 constantly sing the praises of Basecamp. The fact we are not yet office based and are all working remotely (often odd hours) has made Basecamp a complete necessity for us. The days of a disorganised million emails flying back and forth are gone thankfully!

We followed up to learn more about how Jason and his team use Basecamp:

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Jason Dainter and I help to run a business (alongside my business partners Pete Mills, Ian Hales, and Sham Norsham) called Martial Edge, found at www.martialedge.net. We launched the site last year and our aim is to become the largest resource for all martial artists throughout the globe, by offering free forums, articles, reviews, school directories, and a full online store selling martial arts products.

How did we find out about Basecamp?
As a start-up business, we are currently not office based and our entrepreneurial and mixed team of 4 people all currently work remotely from different locations,  often at different hours of the day. After a few months of development, our todo list grew bigger and bigger and suddenly a plethora of emails were being exchanged back and fourth (between all four of us). Before we knew it we were in a complete mess, nothing was getting done,important tasks/bugs on the site were being lost and forgotton about, and it became obvious we needed a good, reliable, and most importantly easy to use project management tool... then we found Basecamp!

How do you use Basecamp and why do you like it?
Currrently we use Basecamp for organising and managing everyones various tasks in the business. For example Pete Mills, fellow Managing Director and black belt in martial arts handles the editorial side, so whether he's conducting interviews, or creating business relationships with core people in the industry, it all gets logged into Basecamp. Similarly, Ian and Sham, our developers, use Basecamp for organising all the coding tasks on the site into various phases (priority and non priority items) which makes my job of project managing the development a hell of a lot easier!

Campus Technology reports on Carnegie Mellon's use of Basecamp

According to "Change Management Meets Web 2.0" [Campus Technology], Carnegie Mellon University is using Basecamp to manage centralized information technology projects.

Carnegie Mellon University (PA) is an excellent example of a campus trying to move from homegrown efforts, to implement a campuswide strategy of project and change management. About five years ago, the Computing Services unit at the university created the Planning and Project Management Office, set up for centralized information technology projects. As the office evolved, it developed a homegrown system based on the FileMaker database. The system was designed to provide tactical planning and included calendaring, milestones and deadlines, and a project status spreadsheet. Currently, there are no campuswide project management standards at CMU, although a number of units have gravitated to Microsoft Project and Basecamp.

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

Getting Real: Not just for software developers

Jim Semple, Vice President of Brandt Engineered Products Ltd., on why Getting Real ideas apply to more than just software companies:

Getting Real is jam packed with sound business advice that could apply to a service business, a manufacturing operation or running an airline just as easily as it applies to building a successful web application. It's all about people and leading them toward optimum effectiveness. We manufacture heavy equipment for customers around the world. In addition to sound engineering, good communications and effective decision making makes the difference between hitting the target and missing the mark. Getting people to perform at optimum levels on a continuous basis is the challenge. Getting Real tells you why it's important and how to do it. Great book! Read this book and you'll dodge a lot of potholes on the road to success. I can't wait for the sequel. I'll need copies for all my managers.

Do you have a Getting Real success story to share? Let us know.

Update on Basecamp comment improvements

Earlier this week we launched a big Basecamp update that allows people to attach files and leave comments on to-dos and milestones. Great uptake so far: About 10.5% of the comments posted in the past 72 hours were comments posted on to-dos and milestones. More details at "Basecamp comment improvements: 72-hours later" [SvN].

Some love from customers at that original announcement post:

Bruno Bergher: "This is great! To-do deep linking is a great feature by itself, but being able to attach a layout to a to-do list or comment on it is just great. We’ve been waiting for this.""

Philip Arthur Moore: "Wow. Up until now I had been really frustrated with the disconnectedness between the messages and the to-dos. You guys have truly outdone yourselves this time around. Thank you for making all of our businesses run a bit more smoothly."

afruit: "This is an example showing how the addition of a feature can actually make the overall system seem simpler. Instead of working around the concept that I had to always rely on messages for ongoing dialog, I now can just settle on the concept that I can create a dialog anywhere."

Tearful Appreciation: "I do believe I’m going to cry. Yes. Yes, now I’m crying."

Chris Nagele: "This is a really big deal. A single feature changes Basecamp from a communication tool to a task management system. "

Chad Davis: "I came across the todo comments yesterday and it absolutely made my whole day. Thank you so much, it really makes a big difference."

Richard Frost: "Love this update, already found it very useful and only been using it 1 day, keep up the great work!"

Jonas Cronfeld: "AWESOME – it changes the whole way we use basecamp. And it’s so much for the better!"

Chance Bliss: "I’m very excited about this update. With direct linking, I think I can get many more people to use Basecamp in my office because of it. Great job."

Elizabeth Saloka: "This is outstanding! Seems like such a little thing, but what an impact. Great job."

Great to hear guys! Glad you're enjoying.

The secret to writing a successful to-do list

Some helpful advice for to-do list makers in Basecamp, Backpack, and Ta-Da List: In "Clearing Up a Blurry Work Life" [NY Times], Gina Trapani, the founding editor and lead blogger for Lifehacker, the popular site that offers “tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done,” offers her secrets for writing a successful to-do list.

There are lots of ways you can make a to-do list into something that actually gets done. Often when people get to the point when they are writing it, they are doing a brain dump. They just have to just get things down on paper. But to get to the point where you’re checking things off, you want to make it a do-able to-do list. Things need to be as easy for yourself to do as possible. So you have to break things down into tasks. We sabotage ourselves by writing down things like “Plan the anniversary party” or “Learn French.” Those are projects, not tasks and don’t belong on your to-do list.

Read the full article.

New in Basecamp: Post comments and attach files to to-dos and milestones

This is a big new feature!

Ever since Basecamp's inception, you could only post comments and attach files to messages. This means all discussions had to happen in the messages section. That was fine until you wanted to discuss a specific to-do item or a milestone. Today all that changes.

Now you can also post comments and attach files to individual to-do items and milestones. This keeps the discussion right where it needs to be — attached to the item you want to discuss. No more switching to messages to start a discussion.

Comments on to-dos or milestones work just like comments on messages — you can attach files and set email notifications. Further, for the first time, you can now link directly to an individual to-do item or milestone. Previously you could only link to a to-do list or the milestones section. But now you can deep link right to the item you want.

We're very excited about this new feature. We hope you love it. We think it'll transform the way you use Basecamp.

Thanks again for using Basecamp!

Further clarification on the IE 6 phase out

With a few days of feedback behind us, I wanted to clarify a common question regarding phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 in Basecamp on October 1, 2008. I apologize for not being clear enough about this in our previous announcement.

Will people who use IE 6 still be able to log in and use Basecamp after October 1?

Yes. People who use IE 6 will be able to log into Basecamp and use Basecamp as they always have on October 1st. No one will be locked out.

However, any changes we make to Basecamp in the future — including new features or updates to existing features — may not look right or work right in IE 6 after October 1, 2008.

We will not intentionally break IE 6 compatibility, but we will also not invest significant time or resources into making sure we are backward compatible with IE 6 after October 1, 2008.

Think of October 1, 2008 as a line in the sand. We aren't making any specific changes on or around October 1st that will directly affect anyone, but after October 1st we can't make guarantees that any future changes will work properly IE 6.

So bottom line: It's unlikely that anyone using IE 6 with Basecamp will run into any problems in the near future, but it's important to keep in mind that any future upgrades might not work with IE 6. So please take the browser upgrade notice seriously.

I hope this clears things up. Thanks again for your continued support.

-Jason Fried, President, 37signals

Jolt Magazine: Highrise is "a jewel of an application"

"CRM Heaven or CRM Hell? Seven Options Reviewed From the Trenches" [Jolt Magazine] offers a brief overview of 7 of the most popular web-based CRM packages and interviews actual users of these applications, to give you a little perspective “from the trenches.”

Here's what the piece says about Highrise: "If what you need is simple contact & task management, this is a jewel of an application. The workflow is seamless."

It also includes this testimonial from D. Keith Casey Jr. of Casey Software:

I switched over to Highrise approximately 4 months ago and once I bcc’d all my email to it, found it as a great way to quickly get things moving and keep them (mostly) up to date.

Read the entire article.

Backpack helps on-again, off-again project stay on track

In "How to manage long breaks in your software side projects" [Signal vs. Noise], 37signals Ryan Singer shows how he uses Backpack to manage an on-again, off-again side-project he manages.

I make a single Backpack page for each project with two lists and some notes. The two lists are ‘To-Do’ and ‘Debt.’

The ‘To-Do’ list is for things I really, truly, honestly plan to do next. I keep it very short, always less than five items. If it gets any longer, I’m probably fantasizing instead of actually planning to do those things. Whenever I return to a project, the top item on the To-Do list tells me what I should work on.

The ‘Debt’ list is for things I should have done but didn’t bother to do. The Debt list is partly a psychological trick. It helps me cut corners without feeling too guilty. Should’ve added validations to that model? Add it to the Debt list. Wrote a condition without thinking too deeply about the edge cases? Just add it to the Debt list. But it’s also more than a band-aid for laziness. If something breaks or I run into some unexpected behavior, chances are a quick glance at the Debt list will point me to a corner that I cut or a step I skipped and lead to a direct solution instead of an hour of head-scratching.

Lastly my Backpack account is SSL protected, so I feel safe storing information about my production environment. I can never remember where a project is hosted, what the username and password are or if there are particularities with the configuration I should know about. I keep all this server info on a note at the top of the page, so each time I need to log in I don’t have to go digging for passwords or welcome emails from my host...

For the Backpack lists, try to be brutally honest. A mile long To-Do list is proof of time wasted, not time saved. Focus your To-Do list on the next few things you need done, and limit your Debt list to Debt that actually matters.

Read the entire piece.