3/23/2006
Hi, I’m abenamer and I’m a compulsive Web surfer. There — I’ve said it. I’m one of those people who will take a simple URL and expand it into a adrenaline-drenched session of fiendish link-clicking. An hour later and I’ve got a whole new obssession complete with a link list and a sense of faux-mastery over the topic. So here’s how my most recent manic surfing went:
I’m talking with a friend about an upcoming Non-Profit Tech Blog project (more later) and he gives me something from 37signals.com about how to build a great web app. It’s a wicked little tract on web app design — much I’ve already known and much I’m still pondering over. And it’s written in a breezy conversational style not unlike yours truly. So I decide to hop on to the rest of 37signals.com site and like a big dummy realize that they’re behind the Ruby on Rails project that’s been making everyone go gaga in the OSS world.
But even better… they run Basecamp. Probably like you, you’ve heard of the name of the software but thought it was some sort of intervention session to get database developers off of Jolt Cola. Well, it’s a project management tool.
I set it up, play with it. And within a few minutes, I realize that this is a great project management tool. You see, I was planning on doing a MS Project deployment complete with the MS project server. I’ve used MS Project before in the for-profit world for software development. It tends to be a de facto standard for project management for most Microsoft developers. However, when I thought of rolling it out, I cringed at the prospect of yet another server on our DMZ just so I can provide web access to the project server. Worse, I was cringing at the rollout of MS Project clients just so they could work with the MS Project server. It has all the earmarks of a closed, proprietary solution with limited user access and a lower likelihood of user buy-in due to the training involved. MS Project can be overkill for most non-profits, at least from the point of view of the application and systems administrator (of which I’d end up wearing both hats).
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3/30/2006 I wrote that about a week ago and decided not to post it until our org had some time to play around with it. Also found out that Aspirationtech has a site on project management and that they’re going to do a conference called M3P here in New York City. I get on the phone to call them about the conference and what do you know, I get Allen Gunn himself, Aspiration’s Executive Director. We talk for a bit and he busts out with a “You ever try Basecamp?” and I say, “Uh I’m starting to use it.” Nice to know we’re on the same wavelength.
Yeah, I know project management isn’t a sexy topic but it’s a huge business need for many non-profits. Unfortunately, they hoped to hold the conference in July but now it’s going to be in November. When I mentioned the whole notion of Basecamp to my ED, she jumped at the chance of introducing it to the other employees. We’ve got a semi-live site now — not much action yet besides myself but the vendors are starting to figure out that they’re part of the project.
More later — the developers among you might be interested to learn about the new Basecamp API that just came out.
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Thanks for sharing the Links. Your Blog alrdeady Bookmarked
Basecamp's a great tool, one app that actually makes boring tasks less boring. I love the to-do lists and writeboards. What helps is that my clients, all of them small nonprofit organisations, seem to like it too and we get some good collaboration going. I think 37 Signals talk about how they keep their apps as simple as possible and having been forced to use MS Project recently, I quite agree with their approach.
Portfolio managers have a great deal of responsibility within an organization; not only do they have to be mindful of individuals responsible for managing portfolio components, but they also have to be mindful of executive management, which sets the strategy.