BKWLD, a marketing firm that creates online games, surveys, videos, and interactive for a wide range of clients. BKWLD team member Ben Borowski wrote in to tell us how the firm uses Basecamp.
How do you use Basecamp and why do you like it?
BKWLD is a company of ~20 employees, split between two cities; Seattle and Sacramento. Our design team is in Sacramento and development team is in Seattle, so coordination is crucial. We do a lot of IMs and emails to communicate, but our primary source of organization is Basecamp. Project Managers field requests from clients, massage them to be more user friendly and add them as messages to our projects. Then via email or online, one of our development leads can estimate hours, indicate whether a request is in scope, etc. At that point, tasks are created based on the approved actionable items.
We usually create lists grouped around our "releases" milestones ... internal launch, alpha, beta, live. We keep track of FTP logins, version control, CDN (basic account data) with messages as well. I personally have found writeboards excellent for spec'ing out phased development of projects. Meaning as the client requests new features, a manager will just paste them in the writeboard and a development lead can provide estimates and remove requests as they are deemed "trashed" ... we then use the writeboard as a starting point for a new proposal. All told, we are usually managing around 20-30 projects with Basecamp.

BKWLD's Dashboard.
Our dev team also uses basecamp for sharing documents such as requirements specifications and ERD schemas, keeping versions so we can track progress. We often share code and links through messages as well. I typically subscribe to the milestones calendar as well and use that in tandem with a google calendar to make sure my work is on track. Also, having all the server access and SVN info for any given project pretty much guarantees that we can fix anything from anywhere.
I love Basecamp because it's intuitive, easy to use, and easy on the eyes. Sounds simple, but that's what makes it so powerful. We use it instead of other systems because it's not developer-centric. We can use it to track development and bugs and what-not, but it's very easy for managers and clients to use. I've found that clients absolutely love writeboards as well. The ajax-based controls are lovely, making repetitious tasks much more pleasing (I referenced The Knot wedding site in my email...I had a very difficult time not having my "checked" items clear as I completed them. You had to scroll all the way to the bottom and click "update" ..ugh).