Product blog update: Versatility Skateboards case study, Open Bar video, etc. Nov 06
9 comments Latest by Rich Aviles
Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:
Basecamp
Versatility Skateboards: “Basecamp is the body of our business’s communications and Campfire is our brain”
“Basecamp is the body of our business’s communications. Every project, from designing a new skateboard to planning a contest sponsorship, is tracked in Basecamp. Campfire is our brain. All three of us leave it up and running all day, which allows us the ability to brainstorm at the drop of a hat. The best feature of Campfire is that it’s logged and we can revisit the ideas we discussed 10 minutes, 10 days or 10 weeks later. Without Campfire, a lot of ideas would be lost!”
Campfire
How Beanstalk uses Campfire when things go wrong
“We just had a short outage on Beanstalk, which required a quick reboot on our slices at Engine Yard. While this situation really sucks, it happens. The best thing you can do is let people know you’re working on it and update them on the progress. By using Campfire, we’re able to give people an extra sense of comfort that real people are hard at work on the problem. In the end, a negative thing becomes a positive experience.”
Backpack
Plotters use Backpack to create “the greatest birthday scavenger hunt of all time!”
Tim Sullivan plotted out an elaborate alternate reality birthday game for his girlfriend using Backpack. He writes, “I don’t think we’d have been able to even conceive of organizing this without Backpack. It’s keeping us completely organized and allowing us to pull off what could be the greatest birthday scavenger hunt of all time!”
Multiple products
Video: Setting up 37signals Open Bar
If you use more than one 37signals product (or have multiple accounts within a product), you can make your life a lot easier with 37signals Open Bar. In this video, Jason and Jamie show how easy it is to set up Open Bar so you can switch quickly between your accounts.
37signals products are “essential web tools for virtual students”
Three 37signals tools made the list at “Ditch the backpack: 100 essential web tools for virtual students.”
37signals tools make list of 45 top cellphone resources
Mobile Maven, a site dedicated to cellphone tips, recently published “45 Mobile Resources Every Road Warrior Must Have.” Three 37signals tools made the list.
Got a web design project in mind? Find a web designer on Haystack. Browse by visual style, portfolio, budget, and geographic location.
Over 1 million people use 37signals' simple web-based software to collaborate on projects, track contacts, and organize their business with an intranet.
9 comments so far
Rich Aviles 06 Nov 08
Stop staring at me like that, Jamie.
Rich
Charles 06 Nov 08
Odd about the cellphone/mobility list since 37S products are not necessarily optimized for mobile. (Not that I can’t use them pretty well on my iPhone, but it would be sweetness to have an optimized interface like what the folks at Outpost were working on).
Justin Reese 06 Nov 08
Where are Jason and Jamie in that video? A cafe? A hotel banquet room? I think I see baskets of bread in the background.
Oh, and this new standing/over-the-shoulder video angle annoyed me at first, but now I quite like it. Feels very human and approachable, plus I see how it gives you the ability to toggle between human faces and on-screen presentation without any editing necessary. Very clever regression!
JF 06 Nov 08
Justin, we were in Maine.
JD 06 Nov 08
Rich, I just can’t help it. I can see your soul from inside this machine.
Kurt 06 Nov 08
It looks like “Ta-da Lists” made the cut of essential web tools for virtual students too! So now it is 4!
Andrew Brown 06 Nov 08
Why is Jamie staring into my soul?
Daniel 06 Nov 08
All the cars Maine must have driven by where you were in just a couple minutes!
Rich Aviles 06 Nov 08
Jamie, you’re inside of a machine?!
Especially enjoyed and related to the Versatility post. We use Campfire all day around these parts, too, as I’m sure many people do.
We end up chatting about random non-work-related stuff most of the time but it is still used heavily to share ideas and get feedback. It has certainly brought us closer as a team.
Comments are closed