How did that happen? Was it something Basecamp did? No, not at all.

Basecamp is a fantastic product. It was only three years ago that I gave a TIG presentation about Basecamp in which I sang the praises of Basecamp and how it was an indispensable tool in planning, editing and building out the California Food Stamp Guide web project, one which involved collaboration among eleven editors sprawled across four different legal services organizations. At that juncture, Basecamp was the web-based benchmark for project management: A secure, well designed, user friendly set of core project management tools (tasks, milestones, messaging and file storage) in a web-based workspace enabling multiple users from multiple locations to get things done on a shared project. It was an especially remarkable application 3-5 years ago because it effectively — and uniquely — integrated in one web location what we increasingly saw the need to do: Share stuff via the Web. Or as the metaphor for web productivity is now called, “the Cloud.”

What has changed in the last several years is that the notion of “sharing” things via the Web, once a novel or niche concept, is now the new norm. And the options for sharing work activity and work product have exploded exponentially in the last few years. During a recent telephone conversation with an executive director of another non-profit advocacy organization here in California who had called to talk about our organization’s experience with Google Apps, I started talking a fair amount about how the work paradigm has shifted so dramatically the last few years because of the proliferation of web-based applications like Gmail and Google Docs and Google Calendar. Part of that paradigm shift is the increasingly widespread expectation that someone you work with can “share” things with you, which is to say you are able to let the other person, via a web browser or mobile app, view, edit or comment on a shared document, presentation, image, whatever. I commented during the conversation something to the effect that there was a point in time when I thought it was odd that someone told me I could not send them a fax because their office had no fax machine; and at a later point in time when someone explained they had to fax something to me because they did not have email at their office; and then I observed that “I think we have reached a new tipping point, where others will reasonably expect you can offer or accept sharing of documents and files using applications like Google Docs.”

There’s the rub for an application like Basecamp. Five years ago what Basecamp offered was unique. It no longer is. The practical reality is that most everything we used to do with Basecamp we can now do with, or better, or in a more facile fashion with our hosted Google Apps. Shareable files with Google Docs. Check. Shareable real-time “writeboards” and editing with Google Docs. Check. Native document editing and sharing of MS Office files via Google Docs with Google Cloud Connect. Check. Integrated messaging with Gmail, Google Chat, and Google Docs. Check. Real-time document commenting with Google Docs Discussions. Check. Shareable private or public project content sites with Google Sites. Check. And for larger private or public work projects that require more complicated task and milestone management, well, there is Manymoon with Google Docs and Google Calendar integration. Check, and then some.

That is what the share explosion has done to our use of Basecamp, which remains an exceptional product but is no longer integral to what we do.

Other posts of possible interest...

• Google and the Circle of Life
• What our tech training survey tells us
• The Manymoon experience
• Integrating Gmail and Google Groups with the Pika CMS

Following up on all things TIG 2008 in Austin last week, I have posted a slightly trimmed version of the presentation given by Tony White and me: Rethinking Collaboration. It is a bit heavy (5MB+ zipped) since the presentation was built with 100+ screenshots. I could have saved some weight posting it as a PDF, but that invariably compromises the quality of the screenshots, so I’ve instead posted it here in all its original PPT glory. I saved you a few KB of download by excising all the lame joke slides, as well as the screenshots of Google Docs with local LSNC office information. (Yes, a copy of the same slides will be available via the LSC 2008 TIG repository.) Hope the slides are helpful to others in getting at least a modest feel for how use of Basecamp and Google Docs can be powerful tools in your organization for managing and sharing projects and documents. That was the goal at least.

I must apologize for attempting at TIG to cram 10 pounds of cement into a five-pound bag. As a result, the Google Docs segment got truncated and I never even got to a planned discussion of the wonders of MediaWiki, WordPress, Live Writer and a slew of alternatives to the Google Docs paradigm. While at TIG I posted links to those various alternatives, so I encourage those interested to try them out as well. Google Docs is fab, for sure, but other options may suit your work style better. (I must admit I do not actually use it, but on my personal Web slick-o-meter, I have to give props to Adobe’s flash-based Buzzword. It’s worth a Web drive-by just to take a look at it. It is a beautiful thing.)

I give public thanks again here to Tony White of Bay Legal for his participation in and support of the presentation. In my book Tony remains the best sounding board in the legal services tech business, and he committed a huge amount of unseen time to help our presentation come together. Thanks, of course, to Glenn Rawdon and Joyce Raby for all the hospitality and their patience and attention helping me out with some last minute logistics. Mea culpa, guys! And it was great to meet and talk with so many familiar names but unfamiliar faces (Gabe, Steve, Siobhan, among many others) and others I knew well but had not seen for many years. Keep up the good work, people.

Other posts of possible interest...

• Promises, Promises (made at 2008 TIG)
• Bulk uploading to Google Docs
• How the Google Docs integration with Pika works
• Google Docs file uploads: Major improvements but still lacks local synchronization

• Basecamp
• Buzzword
• Google Docs
• Live Writer
• MediaWiki
• Microsoft Office Live Workspace
• WordPress
• Zoho Office

• Google Docs Bulk File Uploader
• Google Docs Sidebar (for Firefox only)

• The Search Party, Ken Auletta, The New Yorker (January 14, 2008)
• Writing a Book in Google Docs, Philipp Lenssen, Blogoscoped.com (January 23, 2008)

Other posts of possible interest...

• Post-TIG 2008: Beaucoup Basecamp … and beyond!
• Bulk uploading to Google Docs
• How the Google Docs integration with Pika works
• Google Docs file uploads: Major improvements but still lacks local synchronization

Other posts of possible interest...

• Post-TIG 2008: Beaucoup Basecamp … and beyond!
• Promises, Promises (made at 2008 TIG)
• How the Google Docs integration with Pika works
• Google Docs file uploads: Major improvements but still lacks local synchronization