basecamp

3 Other Ways to Use Basecamp

by Andy Brudtkuhl on January 29, 2009

BasecampYes, yes… we love Basecamp. But we don’t just use it for our web strategy and internet marketing projects… Basecamp is a powerful tool for non-business projects as well. Here are 3 other ways you can use Basecamp, outside your business…

Home Improvement
We are currently in the process of remodeling our basement into a man cave. This project is HUGE and has been going on almost six months now. We have been using Basecamp to manage the entire project. We set up milestones and associated tasks to them. We assigned the tasks to either us or our contractors. And any ideas or products we want to remember we just upload as messages… It works FANTASTIC. I’d recommend this to any small or medium size contracting or service company. It works excellent – and you can manage it in your hand, with your iPhone.

Podcasting
You can use Basecamp to manage your podcast or other multimedia productions. Doug and I use it to collaborate on our internet business podcast throughout the week – to figure out what we are going to talk about. We use messages and comments to shoot ideas back and forth. We actually do this using email, but it’s all logged as a threaded message in Basecamp – awesome. Once we have our ideas set we use the Writeboard feature to create our script and the message features again to jot down show notes and links for post production. This works fantastic for collaborating the creation of our podcast remotely without ever even discussing it in person.

Wedding Planning
A friend of mine is getting married next year and I set he and his fiance’ up with the free version of Basecamp to manage the planning of their wedding. Obviously there are certain planning aspects that need to be done on time so they have setup milestones for when they need to have the photographer reserved by as well as other reservations like the reception location. They are using the tasks feature to assign each other items to take care of – which of course are attached to milestones. And they use the messaging feature via email to talk about ideas. And last they are using Highrise (contact management) integration to create their guest list. How bout that for organization!

How are you using Basecamp outside your business use? Let us know in the comments!

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Basecamp on iPhone

by Andy Brudtkuhl on January 28, 2009

As you know at 48Web we are a huge fan of Basecamp for managing our business. We use it to manage projects, research, and even our internet business podcast. Thankfully we are super busy nowadays (who says we’re in a bad economy?) and have to manage a lot of our business while on the move. Getting an iPhone was a huge boost in mobile productivity and thanks to a killer API for Basecamp – there are many iPhone applications that allow us to manage our projects on the move as well.

Here are two tools for using Basecamp on your iPhone.

Groundwork
We use Groundwork so we’ll touch on this application first. First off – we love it. It has all the features we need to effectively manage our projects on the iPhone. You can do messaging, todo lists, manage milestones, and update contacts. It’s $3.99 in the AppStore. Download Now (link opens iTunes)

Outpost
Outpost is another application for Basecamp. When we chose Basecamp and need an iPhone solution – this had yet to be released so we went with Groundwork. Outpost is similar as it provides support for messages, milestones, and comments. A key feature that Outposts differentiates itself with is offline support. Outpost is available for $12.99 in the AppStore. Download Now (link opens iTunes)

Here is a demo for Outpost on the iPhone:

Link

Of course, both of these applications require you have a Basecamp account… Signup today! And breathe a sigh of relief.

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DeskAway – Project Management Solution

by Andy Brudtkuhl on November 12, 2008

Even though we chose Basecamp at 48Web, I wanted to share with you another very promising project management solution in DeskAway. DeskAway is a hosted project management solution for teams to collaborate on projects and/or activities. I found it to be perfect for freelancers looking for a simple, affordable solution with time tracking baked in. So if you are ready – it takes about 30 seconds to jump in and setup an account. Get more details on DeskAway here.

Features:
- All paid plans have unlimited users
- File Sharing
- Document Creation and Sharing
- Time Tracking on all plans
- Branding on paid plans
- Full export and backup

DeskAway has a lot of great features at an affordable rate. I’d definitely check out their free plan if you are in the market for a project management solution. Their free plan offers far more features for free than comparable plans. If you are a freelancer who needs to manage a few projects with clients and track time, their free plan is perfect.

Do you use DeskAway? Let us know how it is in the comments…

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5 Project Management Solutions

by Andy Brudtkuhl on November 11, 2008

Or… why we chose Basecamp for our project management needs…

For the last two years we have been using ProjectPier for project management. We chose it primarily because it is open source, and free. We could customize the design to match our branding and we owned all the data. Over the last week we have been trying to “systematize” our processes and have been readdressing our project management needs. We reviewed the following platforms in an effort to find the best fit for our needs and budget.

  1. ProjectPier
  2. Basecamp
  3. CentralDesktop
  4. activeCollab
  5. Zoho Projects

Our requirements were as follows:

  • Web-Based
  • Under $50/mo
  • Minimum Hassle
  • Multiple Projects and Users

[click to continue…]

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