This weekend we pushed a couple of new features to Basecamp. One was long overdue (email notifications on Writeboards), and the other is a sign of things to come (working with Milestones on the Dashboard).
Milestones
When you log into Basecamp you are dropped onto the Dashboard. The Dashboard is information rich but functionally poor. There’s a lot to look at but not a lot to do. We want to change that.
The first thing we wanted to tackle was milestones. Milestones show up in a few places on the Dashboard, but mostly you’ll see them right at the top of the screen. They are either overdue or they’re due in the next 14 days.
Prior to this update, if you wanted to change the date or check off a milestone you had to click on the milestone. Then you’d be taken deep into the project so you could do your thing. That’s fine if you only have one thing to do, but if you want to complete a few milestones or move a couple back because the schedule changed it was a hassle. You had to move back and forth between project and Dashboard repeatedly. It was click consuming and frustrating.
No longer. Watch the video to see how we solved this problem:
This is the first step to “flattening” Basecamp. We want to bring more functionality to the Dashboard so you don’t have to click deep into a project to take care of common tasks. We’re exploring more ways to implement this technique in more places.
I’m very opinionated. When I was at art college, the teachers who helped me were not the ones I agreed with, or the ones who encouraged me, but the ones who took very strong positions. Because if someone does that, you can find your own position in relation to it: what is it that I don’t agree with? In the studio I want to articulate a position clearly enough so that other people can use it – or chuck it away if they don’t want it.
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In modern recording one of the biggest problems is that you’re in a world of endless possibilities. So I try to close down possibilities early on. I limit choices. I confine people to a small area of manoeuvre. There’s a reason that guitar players invariably produce more interesting music than synthesizer players: you can go through the options on a guitar in about a minute, after that you have to start making aesthetic and stylistic decisions. This computer can contain a thousand synths, each with a thousand sounds. I try to provide constraints for people.
Have you seen the weapons prisoners make out of soap, spoons, or whatever they can get their hands on? It’s amazing what you can do with limited resources, if you really put your mind to it.
A good business example: Southwest Airlines. The airline has succeeded in large part due to its embrace of constraints. For example, its fleet consists exclusively of aircraft from the Boeing 737 line. By flying only a single aircraft, the company spends less to train pilots, ground crew, and mechanics. And maintenance, purchasing, and other operations are also vastly simplified, which reduces costs too.
More ways that Southwest keeps it simple: It offers flights only to select cities, no seating class distinctions, a simple pricing structure, a bare-bones frequent flier program, no meal service, etc.
Shows how executing on essential functions and leaving the rest out can still take you a long way.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
“But I was told I need to have a ____ to start a business.” Fill in the blank with a board of advisors, business plan, or some other obstruction between you and the thing you want to build. Have you noticed how all these commonly held notions about things you “have” to do are just excuses in disguise? They’re a reason for not doing something. They put a layer (or a lawyer) between you and getting something out there.
Board of advisors is a good one. Some people think they need one to get started with a business. But really, that’s just another excuse for not beginning. Why do you think everyone else knows how to run your business better than you? You know plenty — and what you don’t know you’ll learn as you go. Of course it can be a good idea to ask for advice and learn from other people’s experiences, but there’s no need to formalize it.
And notice who spreads these scare tactics about things you need and hoops you have to jump through. It’s the people who sell the hoops. That means publishers and authors of business books, business magazines, lawyers, and everyone else that makes a buck from showing you the “right” way. And don’t forget all the venture capitalists and established businesses who would like nothing better than to swoop in and tell you what to do for their own reasons.
Next time you hear that “you need this” or “you need that” to get your business off the ground, question it. Ask yourself: “Is this really necessary or can I get by without it for now?”
We get a steady stream of requests from people who have apps that integrate with one of ours asking to be included on the Extras page (here’s the Basecamp Extras page, for example).
A nice move whenever someone sends one of these: When they include a badge image that’s the right size and text that’s the same length as the other entries on the page. It’s just a little thing but it really makes a difference for the person who has to add that extra. It saves a step and makes the request ready to go “out of the box.”
It’s funny how little things like this can have an impact. When someone sends in a request like this, it comes across as them saying, “I’ve thought about what this request entails for you. And I’m guessing this might be a pain point so I’ve gone to the trouble of making it as easy as possible to take care of.”
We tend to think of usability as applying only to interfaces. But it’s so much more than that. It’s about delivering something that’s fit to be used. That means it’s about writing copy that’s understood the first time. It’s about requests that are as easy to accomplish as possible. It’s about manuals that are one page instead of 40. It’s about code that you can paste in and works right away.
It’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. It’s about looking into the future, foreseeing any potential obstacles, and removing them. And that’s a great way to get people on your side.
Update: Here’s a related example. Someone mocked up a screenshot of a Highrise feature request the other day.
Neat way to “get real” with a feature and show exactly what you have in mind.
In a few weeks we’ll be welcoming Michael Berger to our team. Michael will be joining Sarah on customer service/support. We want to provide the best customer support in the business. Sarah has been kicking ass on her own, but it’s definitely time to add another person to the team. We’ve interviewed and tried a few other people, but we just haven’t found the right fit. Until now.
Turns out it’s a small world. Last year my mom went to an Apple Store in suburban Chicago to have an Apple Genius look at a problem with her laptop. She raved about the service and mentioned that the guy who helped her recognized her last name and asked her if she was my mom. Yup, that was her. And yup, that Apple Genius was Michael Berger.
Why Michael?
Michael has been working for Apple since 2004. He started as a Mac Specialist and was promoted to Genius in July of 2005. He was famous among co-workers and customers alike for providing “Bergercare” — beyond kick-ass customer support. Michael really cares about helping people. He’s built for it.
Fast forward to late 2008. Michael heard we were looking for another support person through some mutual friends. We interviewed him a few times, put him through a few weeks of part-time support work and basic training, and decided that he’s our guy.
We offered him the job last week and he accepted.
So everyone please welcome Michael Berger to the team!
Well, we had great rhythm sections, which we did first. We did what we called Polaroids. We must’ve looked at 600 or 700 songs. When you get a song you feel you like, you put it down with a rhythm section to get it on its feet, and then you hear Michael sing a couple of takes on it, maybe with a couple of background lines to see how it holds up, so you can see what it might be and you’re not just wasting your time. We called those Polaroids. Then, when something sticks, you develop it further, get into background lines and horns or synthesizers or whatever else you’re going to be using.
I like “Polaroids” as a way to quickly get across the idea of rapid prototyping. Go through a ton of stuff and give it all a quick shot. Then see what sticks and devote more resources to that. That way, failure is cheap. You’re actually expecting failure and embracing the idea that only a small percentage of your ideas are truly good enough to earn a big chunk of your attention.
The LAByrinth Theater Company, a collective in New York that specializes in new American plays, provides another example of the Polaroid approach. Every year, LAB has a two-week “summer intensive” workshop during which 35 to 40 plays are rehearsed and read. Company members then offer their critiques and the artistic directors then select the 10 or 15 plays they would like to see go to the next step. Again, failure is cheap.
Good inspiration. If LAB can put on 40 plays in two weeks, what can we get done in that amount of time? We always say we don’t have enough time, but maybe the problem is we’re just trying to do things too well.
People are subject to trifling likes and dislikes every day. There seems to be no end to the division and subdivision of taste. In India, in those days, if I wanted ice cream after a meal, I simply ordered ice cream. At most there might have been two or three flavors; often there was only one. Today I have one hundred and forty-seven varieties to choose from, and it’s not enough to want chocolate; I have to decide between possibilities like Dutch, Bittersweet, Super Fudge Wonder, and Chewy White Chocolate Macadamia. (Often I just tell the clerk, “Give me the one you like best.”) And for coffee I have to specify French Roast, Colombian, Kona, or one of a dozen other varieties. I know people whose whole day is affected when they can’t get the coffee they like, made just the way they like it. As our preferences get fractioned finer and finer like this, the range of what we can tolerate narrows to a slit—in everything, because this is a habit of the mind.
