The Hickensian

9.04.05 Basecamp Eureka

31 comments
Tagged with: basecamp, webapp

OK, a small admission to make. After months of wondering what the fuss and hype was all about, I finally ‘get’ Basecamp. The light bulb has finally gone on, and I’ve found the project management tool that I’ve been needing to get my shit together.

I think the key was Jez explaining to me it comes into its own when dealing with multiple contacts on a project. A majority of my jobs are direct with the client, but one came up recently where many people needed to be in the loop. I set up the free trial, starting entering details, and BOOM! There goes the light bulb. This is genius, and much faster to use than I expected. Speed is an important factor here – if it feels as if its bogging me down with procedure, I just won’t use it. Now I can see this being useful for single clients as well.

If you’re in the same boat as I was – stick with it.

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No.1

∞ Jeroen Mulder said 1767 days ago:

Definitely! I only used it once related to a university project, but during that period it just showed how convenient it really is.

I am still a bit unsure how valuable it’ll be to me with single clients, but you won’t know until you tried it..

No.2

∞ John Oxton said 1767 days ago:

I love Basecamp too, fantastic stuff.

Also did you notice I resisted the temptation to point out something slightly unusual about this post? ;-o

No.3

∞ Jaakko said 1767 days ago:

Yeah, Basecamp is excellent. Just the free version is a real time saver and helps me to keep track on my current projects. Should introduce it to clients as well. Can’t wait for Backpack…

No.4

∞ Julian said 1767 days ago:

I use basecamp too, i think its great. But if i should have some time I’ll build my own basecamp – into my personal admin-center…

No.5

∞ Tom said 1767 days ago:

I was slightly sceptical about it when I looked at the preview. But I have been using the free account for a while now and would happily upgrade in the future when I leave university.

One thing I would really like is to be able to optionaly specify a deadline for items in a to-do list. At the moment i put the date at the end [090405].

No.6

∞ Anatoly Papirovsky said 1767 days ago:

Ok, John didn’t say it, so I will… The link to Basecamp is screwed-up, wrong quotes used… ;)

Anyway, I’ve never used Basecamp. I don’t think that I need it, but then again, if you say that you thought the same… Well, I guess I could try it out, if I have time and I’m not lazy at that moment…

No.7

∞ Jon Hicks said 1767 days ago:

Actually, John was referring to my using the word ‘shit’. Its a fasciantion he’s got with me never swearing on my blog.

No.8

∞ Damon Stephenson said 1767 days ago:

Hmm, i just started making a project management system for my A2 coursework. There’s me thinking it’s original. DAMN!

Oh well, i know what my version 2 of the software i am making will have to beat :)

No.9

∞ Neil said 1767 days ago:

Basecamp makes me feel all organized and sexy, like I actually know what I’m doing. The vast majority of my design clients are located in different cities or countries than I, and Basecamp makes corralling all of the project minutiae so easy.

There’s still some rough edges – I really wish you could only display certain categories in the “all messages” summary page, for example – but it’s still wonderful stuff.

No.10

∞ Tom said 1767 days ago:

John I think that not swearing on your blog is a good thing. As my Grandmother would say.

“Swearing shows a lack of vocabulary and self control”

But sometimes it is hard not to.

No.11

∞ Andy Hume said 1767 days ago:

Definitely useful for single clients also!

I use it as a paper trail, giving clients a chance to see where you are in the process and how things are developing without buggin’ you with mail constantly.

No.12

∞ clint said 1767 days ago:

lol this is a trip, I looked at bc for months also and just an hour ago, signed up for the free account, uploaded my logo and went nutzo entering in proj info and messages etc..

consider me well chuffed…

small world heh….

No.13

∞ Jeff Hartman said 1767 days ago:

I thought John from post #2 was referring to the vague pun in the title “Basecamp Eureka”...Eureka being a company that manufactures tents for camping.

No.14

∞ Bodog said 1767 days ago:

I am another Basecamp advocate. It has just the right number of features and as Jon said, it doesn’t bog you down with unnecessary procedure.

The dashboard is excellent for tracking where you are with any particular project and I even use it for uploading invoices associated with a project. Assigning a Milestone to a client with the due date of an invoice is a nice way to remind them to pay without calling them. Every time they log in, they see a polite Milestone in red at the top of their page saying how long ago their invoice was due. The less time I spend chasing money, the more time I have to do new work :)

No.15

∞ Matt Carey said 1766 days ago:

I agree basecamp does look excellent—I’ve been testing the free trial version too over the past couple of weeks. My only issue is that sometimes I have 10 ‘live’ projects, while other times it can be only 2. All my projects would benefit from basecamp, and I don’t want to have some projects with it, and some not. Which means it will start to cost a bit. :)

No.16

∞ Jason Fried said 1766 days ago:

Thanks for the kind words everyone! We’re thrilled Basecamp is working out for everyone. We have a lot more in store that we’re sure you’ll love, so stay tuned. The best is yet to come.

No.17

∞ Kaysha said 1766 days ago:

Woah! Fantastic…
I just discovered basecamp from this post and can’t wait to organize an album recording with this tool…
Thanx for the link

No.18

∞ Jaakko said 1765 days ago:

Just upgarded to personal, so I can get file tranfers to work & multiple projects. Well the biggest issue so far is that I can’t get Basecamp to connect my FTP. The problem is that my ISP needs to authenticate FTP connects by IP. And for some reason Basecamps IP isn’t listed anywhere.

No.19

∞ David Heinemeier Hansson said 1765 days ago:

Jaakko: You want to get your ISP to open for the 69.36.39.* subnet. Basecamp is using a number of different IPs, but they’re all within that range.

No.20

∞ Jaakko said 1765 days ago:

Thanks David! Got it working now. Basecamp FAQ-section should really tell this information.

No.21

∞ Nick Stenning said 1765 days ago:

Now linked on SvN :)

... and I’ll stick with Basecamp … but just can’t wait for Backpack.

No.22

∞ Sally Carson said 1765 days ago:

Does anyone have any experience using BaseCamp as a tool for an in-house web design team in a large company? We don’t really have clients, unless you count the internal clients requesting work from within the company. It’s a tiny design team (2 web designers) for a large e-retailer, tons of projects to manage!

No.23

∞ Jon Hicks said 1765 days ago:

Sally, I would’ve thought it wouldn’t make much difference, and be just as applicable to internal, as well as external contacts. If you need to bring a lot of people into the loop, its ideal.

No.24

∞ Jack Mottram said 1765 days ago:

I know it’s meant for keeping multiple clients up to date with projects, but is anyone using Basecamp in a closed one-user way? I’m a freelance writer, mostly, so have to juggle lots of dealines for lots of publications, with longer features often breaking down in to lots of mini-projects (interviews, research, and so on) and am in need of a deadline-based organisation tool – would Basecamp be worth a look for someone with those requirements? (My current messy folders full of todo lists is starting to get on my nerves…)

No.25

∞ Tom said 1765 days ago:

Jack, I have been using the free basecamp account for about a year to organise all 6 university modules. You can set up to-do lists for all aspects of your tasks and link them to your deadlines.

It is quite easy to differentiate between projects. I prefix all my dilestones and to-dos with my module codes e.g. EL3899 – Project Evaluation.

I would highly recommend it to you as would most other people it seems. You have nothing to loose by trying the system out. If you don’t like it then you don’t have to continue using it.

No.26

∞ Patrick Dodd said 1765 days ago:

We do outsource software development and were struglling with the communication process with all of the other PM tool available. Once we got going on Basecamp our work was much more manageable and our clients were much happier. I couldnt imagine using another application.

No.27

∞ Jens Meiert said 1764 days ago:

Basecamp is indeed very useful, mainly due to the focus on usability (thank God there are companies and initiatives really practicing it – disenchanted note). Unfortunately, there is only a web-based version available (CMIIW), and some companies definitely do want project management software within their network – something 37signals could consider.

No.28

∞ David James Nicol said 1758 days ago:

I agree with the majority here that Bascamp is generally excellent.

An alternative solution that some of you may want to take a look at is phpCollab – http://www.php-collab.org/

It may not have the sexiness of Basecamp, but it is open source and it is ideal for managing an unlimited projects at one time.

One of the main selling points is that it “allows for the consulting team to share information with each other in one space and publish that information, when desired, to another space for the client.”

I’ve not actually experimented with using this consulting team / client team distinction yet but I plan to soon.

No.29

∞ Paul Larson said 1758 days ago:

My main complaint with basecamp is the lack of e-mail alerts. (unless this has changed) I simply can’t get my programmer to utilize it, because its too much of a hurdle to login to a system when he proactively has to think about it. ( a busy guy)

He uses Jira at his full-time job which emails him when projects are due.

I voiced this to Jason a while back and he indicated it would be in an upcoming release.

Then I’ll be satisfied. =)

No.30

∞ Ryan Heneise said 1753 days ago:

Basecamp is tremendously useful for coordinating with my contractors and sending files back and forth.

I still have yet to have a client log on to it though – I think they are intimidated by it!

No.31

∞ mark rush said 1747 days ago:

we’ve been playing around with loads of freebie versions, one called Wineglass (italian that i painstakingly converted into pseudo english) was good and somethign in asp called Xtranet is great too – i believe basecamp has crm solutions too?