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I think all businesses have experienced similar problems at some point, if not routinely. Hindsight is always 20/20…. but the fine line comes when you’re waist high in a bad solution and make the jump to start over with a new approach. It takes guts.

Well Done.

Jason,

I got to hand it to you, the reason I keep coming to your blog, isn’t always because of the information in it, but how its presented. Now sometimes I disagree with your POV in some areas but, hey you’ll probably disagree with mine in others; its a wash.

What I really like is a company blog that’s professional when it needs to be and tells it like it is when it needs to. Case in point.

“So three weeks in we said what the fuck?”

I would love to see my company include that in their blog…wait a minute…oh yeah I forgot…i work in a company that believes in “traditional business” and a “real” company has no business with a blog.

Love this post! Love the honesty, love the lesson learned, love the no-nonsense. This is why I keep reading this blog.

hi Jason,

I hope you will take a moment to read a piece I wrote about importing vs. syncing when Highrise first came out:

http://www.tashian.com/carl/archives/2007/03/nsync.php

I’d love to hear your comments if you feel compelled.

Hmm…

Judo already has a meaning!

It’s the gentle way… it’s supposed to be using your opponent’s force in a way where both people win. I say “supposed to be” because the more popular sport judo is very different from the other, lesser-known kind.

But I guess you’re meaning something which skilled martial artists use all the time, and is actually more appropriate to Ninjutsu than Judo: applying the minimum effort to gain the maximum effect.

As one shifts from being a student to being more skilled, one brings one’s circle of effort in, closer towards one’s spine: one takes the amount of physical effort required down, yet increases the amount of potential effect.

The same would be for writing software: using well written software and frameworks and languages that encourage re-use means less effort ongoing; as one gains more and more skill, one needs less and less to perform such large sweeping gestures to make one’s intended mark.

Ironically, at the seat of these “effortless efforts” is relaxation.

I recommend a book called “Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power” by Peter Ralston.

Cool ; ) Love ya’s. : ) Julian.

@Carl – Dude! Echoing my sentiments exactly when Highrise came out. Don’t want to crap on their parade.

This is a great app, and it does what it does really well, and now, it does Address Book syncronisation with Apple’s Address Book with that new Cocoa App of name which escapes me at present! (Pretty awesome).

However, what we’re stipulating is a shift in thinking. In fact, if you look at it, ALL address book apps assume that they’re the black box. What we need is a system of having all your contacts available from all the points where you need them. Your phone should have all your phone numbers in it, for example… but probably doesn’t really need all your email addresses in it unless it has that capability. Your computer probably doesn’t need all your phone numbers in it, really, unless you’re going to be sending those numbers to other people, or looking them up for reference because it’s easier, or using a stupid phone where your mobile isn’t present. Basically, the ideal we’re looking at is when the information you need is at the point you need it, or even better – when the things or people which need the information get the information when and where they need it.

This links in with (i don’t know if you saw this) the Identity 2.0 speech of some years ago (youtube or google for it, if you haven’t seen it) and it also ties in with infrastructure of the internet concerns.

Essentially, we have SO MUCH TECH . It’d be nice if all the information we want is always present whenever we need it, or at least got to us by the shortest possible route. So if I need to phone someone on my VoIP phone, why can’t my mobile tell my VoIP phone the phone number? It should be as simple as touching a finger-print sensor (or some auth device) on my phone, which goes through the next-gen internet, which would not be end-to-end but rather shortest-route, in this case, the mobile phone in your pocket, and grabs the phone numbers that you can call from this device, and displays them as possible, allowing you to search or browse as that device allows.

Anyway I digress… we’re in a SYNCING world now, a world which requires synchronisation, or preferably a higher level above that… one where there is only one true copy of the information, and it can cloned and fetched and expired to wherever it’s needed. It ties in with a good auth mechanism, because passwords are shit.

Meh anyway :)

Thanks for such a great post…and for building an Outlook importer.

MI, Where can I synchronize Plaxo with Highrise? I use Plaxo to sync up my Address Book on my Mac, with Outlook on the PC, and LinkedIn, but I don’t see Highrise offered as a link point… It would make Highrise much more useful to me.

Jeff: Plaxo Labs likely has what you’re looking for. If you have any questions beyond that you’ll need to get in touch with Plaxo. I hope this helps.

Granted, this may be a ludicrous request, but I would love to see some design decisions around the actual code. After all, coding needs to be “designed” too, right?

The reason I say this is probably a ludicrous request, is because it almost fits into the “give an inch, want a mile” paradigm. With Rails itself, conferences, workshops, etc, one could argue that 37s has supplied enough code out there for people to see.

But it’d be cool to see the thinking pattern when considering or adding in a new feature.

It’s a very interesting post.

I like how you guys can openly admit you effectively over-engineered the solution. The “One True Importer”(tm) is exactly what most of us would have come up with.

The road to engineering hell is paved with with the thought that “ CSV is an easy little format”.

If you were true academics you would have created an intermediate format that you convert all these other formats into. And then you could have had one true importer :)

So, where’s the ACT 6 .0 import at? I wish.

Good for you to be naked about your thinking and the problems that sometimes come from your philosophy. With this experience in mind, I hope you’ll hear the many requests for an import/migration tool between basecamp accounts.

It’s disappointing to me that a company so central to the evolution of the fast-moving web2 environment doesn’t allow its customers to merge/split basecamp data effortlessly. Isn’t the whole point of working on creative, collaborative projects together, to allow new companies and ideas to flourish or die, expand or contract, merge and divide, with nimbleness and ease?

I’m not suggesting letting people take their data and go (which you already allow)- I’m asking, and many are asking, to simply move projects between basecamp accounts.

Perhaps you’re wanting a third party dev to figure this migration tool out using the API ? If so, please blog about this and invite them to the table. It’s a very real problem for our entities, and others, judging by the forum and other feedback.

Just curious—how many people asked for import from a Web form on a landing page? That’s what we would need to switch from Salesforce.

The truth is you do provide a CSV import. It just so happens that the CSV file must be formatted to the Outlook specification.

It might be worth highlighting that point on the site as it may not be immediately obvious to most people.