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The forums are where customers can help one another, share tips and tricks, and more.
WiseClicker, a resource for small businesses and entrepreneurs, offers up this review of Basecamp.
As a reflection of 37Signals’ philosophy for product development, Basecamp offers functionality that is easy to use, avoids bells and whistles and focuses on communication and collaboration. It is more for users that prefer getting things done practically and don’t really care about the formal charting and reporting side of project management.
Check it out: MacAppStorm has posted a great piece on "The Ultimate Collection of 37signals Mac & iPhone Apps." It offers summaries and reviews of over 25 Mac and iPhone apps designed to work alongside Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire, and Highrise.
Rainn Wilson of "The Office" runs a philosophy/spirituality site called Soul Pancake. Nightline profiled Wilson and the site the other night. The bottom screengrab below shows the Soul Pancake team using Basecamp to manage the site.
Chris Anderson, General Manager & Principal at full-service web agency Freshout, wrote to tell us what a great job Basecamp does for his team:
Basecamp is hands down the best project management app on the market. We use Basecamp for managing client and internal projects alike, and it's been an amazing tool for storing and organizing conversations, files, milestones, and tasks. From initial kick-off conversations through the design and development phase and quality assurance process, it helps everyone on the project stay on the same page and on track, without getting lost in an endless slew of emails and files.Simply put, Basecamp just works...which is more than I can say for many web apps I've used. Thanks for continuing to enhance such a great application, you guys kick ass!
SF, Philly, and Guadalajara
We asked Chris to give us an in-depth look at how his team uses Basecamp and he wrote up the following:
Freshout is a full-service web agency providing product strategy, design, development, and marketing consultation services – in other words, we build and launch web applications that provide real business results for clients. With offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Guadalajara, having streamlined communication among our team is extremely important in our ability to collaborate effectively and deliver finished projects on time.
The Freshout team at work.
From project brief to post-launch
From the initial project brief to the design, development, and QA processes, and onto the rollout and post-launch feature enhancement phases, we use Basecamp for all project correspondence, file sharing, task delegation, milestone management, and time management for each and every project we work on, both internally and for clients. When a new project signs, the first step is always setting up a Basecamp project, adding the team members that will be involved, uploading the initial specs, and posting a message introducing the team to the project.
Graphic Design Degrees offers up a list of the Top 100 Graphic Design Blogs.
Got a creative mind, love of technology, and tons of ideas? Then graphic design might be for you. Learn more about this profession, along with thousands of insider tips, by taking a look at these top 100 graphic design blogs. Also useful for professional graphic designers, they are written by sites, professionals, freelancers, and contain information on everything from jobs to resources.
Not really "blogs" per se, but on the list are Basecamp ("Stop here for a leading web-based project collaboration tool. They have various plans and options, a free 30 day trial, and sign up takes as little as 60 seconds.") and the 37signals Job Board ("This job board stands out for its notable listings from top companies. Currently, there are openings with Sony Music, Barnes & Noble.com, and Yahoo.")
Jay Owen started Design Extensions 10 years ago (1999), while he was still in high school (17 yrs old). The company focus on small to medium sized businesses with web site design and graphic design services. Below he details how Basecamp has helped him grow his business.
How do you use Basecamp?
Before Basecamp, I did most of the work myself and could only juggle a few projects at a time.
With Basecamp, we are currently maxing out the 35 project account level (about to upgrade). We went from a 1 man shop doing under 50k/year to a 5 man shop doing over 250k/year. Basecamp allows us such flexibility and ease of communication, that we don't even have a physical office. Myself and my team work from home (or anywhere with a good wifi connection) and are able to seamlessly communicate with Basecamp and Campfire all day. Basecamp has become a key part of our business and helped us grow to where we are today.
Which features do you use most?
Milestones and Time are the two features we use the most. Milestones help us map out major assignments each day of the week for various members of our team. Using the Milestones overview page, we can easily take a glance at the company as a whole or individuals to see who is assigned what and we are on our schedule. The time tab lets us keep an eye on how much time is being spent on each project and account for it at the end of the week.
Tell us a story about a specific project/situation where Basecamp helped you out.
When I started Design Extensions over 10 years ago, our projects were managed via e-mail. This worked for a while but only allowed for so many projects to be managed at once. Even with a good calendar and organized network files, it wasn't ideal.
When we signed up for Basecamp, 5 years ago, we had no idea how much it would revolutionize our workflow and allow us to grow. With Basecamp, we are able to easily work with clients, employees, and contractors all over the world with ease. It's easy enough for newbies to pick-up quickly and has just the right feature combination to get things done - on time and in order.
Any tips or tricks for other customers?
Once a project moves from a production status to more of a maintenance/on-going project that may not be accessed on a regular basis, but we still want to leave active, we move them to the company "ZZ Maintenance." This helps separate the projects we are in and out of every day from accounts we might only be in once a month.
We are in Basecamp, Highrise, and Campfire every day. Highrise is for pre-sale or individual communications outside of an active project, Basecamp is for active projects, and Campfire keeps our team together in multiple locations.
Anything else?
We are often approached by other sites and services that claim to offer "more features" than Basecamp. What each of these companies fails to understand is that the joy of Basecamp is not that it offers more features than anyone out there, but that it does what we need to get the job done and nothing more.
The joy of Basecamp is in its simplicity and focus. Features for features sake are not a bonus, they are a burden. 37signals understands this extremely well and it shines in each every product produced.
We're constantly working under the hood to make our apps better. While we usually announce any major changes here at the Product Blog, there's a constant stream of little changes going on too. You can now follow along with everything that's happening at the Basecamp change history and Highrise change history pages. These pages will show you every little bug fix, tech note, update, and feature addition.
Today we added a new feature to make organizing image files in Basecamp even better. Now files such as JPG, TIFF, PNG, and GIF images uploaded to Basecamp show a thumbnail preview on the Files tab. You can click the thumbnail to zoom-in for a larger preview. This makes finding files easier and brings image zooming available elsewhere in Basecamp to the Files tab.
To see this new feature, go to the Files tab in any Basecamp project.
Click any image thumbnail to zoom-in for a larger preview. You can then click the link at the bottom of the zoom window to download the full-size image.
We also reduced the clutter on the Files list view by only showing the edit and delete file controls when your mouse is hovering over a single item. This is similar to how you can already reveal the controls on to-dos and milestones. Just place your mouse over the file to see the edit and delete links.
Click "edit" to change the file's details.
We think these improvements will make the "Files" tab in Basecamp even more useful. Enjoy this new feature and thanks again for using Basecamp!
Sherpa is an iPhone application that gives you access to your Basecamp information on the go. You can manage multiple projects and view and update your To-Do Lists, Messages, Milestones and Contacts, as well as get an overview of your outstanding tasks. And now you can get it for just $3.99.
We have dropped the price of Sherpa to $3.99/£2.39We are also awaiting Apple approval of our latest version of Sherpa v 1.2 – with multiple account support.
