Basecamp Preview: The Dashboard: Signal vs. Noise Weblog / Blog (by 37signals)

I really admire the guys (and gals?) at 37 signals. They do great work. They are about to launch a new project management tool:
Basecamp Preview: The Dashboard: Signal vs. Noise Weblog / Blog (by 37signals)

However, I have my reservations about project management software. I wrote the following comment to them outlining what they were.
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Hi guys,

I admire the design work that 37 signals produce and your take on usable design, BUT (you knew there was a 'but' coming didn't you) I do wonder about the likelyhood of Project Management software such as Basecamp. There have already been too many big failures (anyone remember Macromedia Sitespring?). I suspect there are several big problems with this type of software and Basecamp in particular.

1) Most people already have several places to view when running a project. They probably keep e-mails and To Do lists in something like Outlook. They probably have shared documents and files in particular directories on a network. They probably have bug trackers and maybe an Intranet. Products like Basecamp just force people to look at another place where key information is kept. They are unlikely to give up the tried and tested tools they already use and migrate everything over to Basecamp.
2) This type of software doesn't integrate with the other tools I just mentioned - so it can't become a 'one stop shop'
3) The 'posting/blog' idea seems to go against most people's aim on a project - spend less time reading stuff and spend more time getting things done. I mean, we already have the problem that NOBODY reads the minutes of the meetings they didn't attend. People prefer to catch up on this essential stuff in face-to-face meetings. Also, there is a real danger that people get into the mindset of, 'oh the guy wasn't available so I posted a comment or a post it isn't my fault that he didn't read it later on'.

Essentially, I think all these tools try to automate and make efficient what is naturally a fuzzy and messy process. Even teams using a well worn process have all sorts of chaotic work-around elements on a project. I just don't think you can delegate all this stuff to a tool. People don't work that way.

Actually, I hope I'm wrong. I like what I see and I always want to see well designed products succeed. Actually, I'm probably wrong...I usually am :0)

Good luck guys, sorry if this sounded like a bit of a downer
Mindful_learner

Variety not greed

I'm in a good mood today, so I'm going to make a charitable interpretation of what appears to be greed....

We all know we live in the material society. Everybody seems to want to buy the latest, greatest cool stuff. Plasma TVs, fast cars, PCs, DVD recorders, etc we want them all. And, once we've bought something, we immediately seem to want the latest version or a different model. Greed, right?

Maybe not. When people crave new stuff, I don't think it is greed. I think it is a deeper craving: the need for novelty and variety. We don't necessarily want more things in our lives or even better things...we just want variety and novelty. We get bored with what we've got.

Sooooo...when I get bored with my shiny new car, I don't necessarily want a new one. But, I would like the novelty of driving another one for a while. It's kinda the urge to play and experience new things.

I'd love a system where instead of buying a new product or car or somesuch, I bought the right to use a class of product over a period of time. In other words, I could drive one car for 3 months then swap to another in the same price band for a further 3 months and so on. Same with gadgets, I'd like to play with MP3 player #1 for a few months, and then #2 for the next few months. This might even lead to decide to finally buy one product when I knew I really preferred it over the others having lived with it for a decent amount of time. This might avoid all of the divorced products on E-bay, unloved after only a couple of uses.

Croc o' Lyle - beyond bookmarks and powermakrs

Some interesting stuff on bookmarks via Croc 'O Lyle
Croc o' Lyle - Usability, Information Architecture and web design commentary by Lyle Kantrovich

My own thoughts:
1) The Microsoft stuff looks way too much like another convoluted search interface
2) I think the key to effective search History and Bookmarking is going to be aroud having visual representations of the sites not just text descriptors
3) Blogs can actually be pretty good for creating a favourites list, if the 'Blog This' functionality is used. It allows you to add a little commentary to each link, which would be useful for searching andreminding yourself why the link would useful. If you could build in a small thumbnail of the visited site, (date it was accessed is automatically put in there), a generally good search such as Google and perhaps something tracking other sites you visited around that time you might have something........Hmmmmmmm...........that gives me an idea....I might try to prototype something like this soon in blogger....It also lets you auto share your Favourites...hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......definitely something there I think.

Blog Bookmarks, you saw it here first..............

Rory Blyth - Neopoleon.com - choosing a career

With my current career dissatisfaction, this is just the advice I've been looking for:
Rory Blyth - Neopoleon.com

Do you know, I've just realised. I am CRAZY about comics!

Rory Blyth - Neopoleon.com

This is sooo, sooo spot on:
Rory Blyth - Neopoleon.com

However, should we really laugh at the 'dumb' marketing folk who from their perspective are making rational choices based on their past experience with software? Yeah. Course we should ;0)

They might stray but they always come back

The comments box has finished its ill-founded affair with the search field. Predictably it has now come back to me saying we need to work things out and that really there was fault on both sides. It says that I need to make my posts more interesting so that people will post comments and it can feel fulfilled again. I'll try my best.

Um, on a less surreal note, my new comments service is provided by the nice, kind people at HaloScan. If you'd like the same, follow the link at the bottom of this blog.