[jesseg17]

While I understand the motivation to move away from Slack, Basecamp, to me, seems like a worse alternative.

Most of my Basecamp interactions come from the emails that are sent on every thread change. It almost seems to be a proxy between conversation and email, which is counterproductive to its goal.

The key issue in this article is about the lacking of separation of concerns in Slack. I may be missing something, but it seems to be diametrically opposed to Slack's "always-on" structure. I would argue that Basecamp tends to devalue workplace communication through impersonal Basecamp-templated emails which often hide the original sender and thus any sense of urgency that would otherwise be generated. We have so many fantastic tools, but often email seems to be the unsung, yet essential, hopper for all of our notifications. For workplace communication and general project discussion, just email (under the right direction and guidelines - along with supplemental direct chat) strikes the perfect balance between urgency (or lack thereof), the ability to compartmentalize, and personal touch, without interfering directly with work by breaking concentration.

[1123581321]

The new version of Basecamp is pretty smart about notifications. If you have the site open, it doesn't send you a ton of email. It also has something to disable notifications during certain times of the day and catch you up later (probably in one longer email.)

Sadly, some people need those emails to keep using the tool everyone else is using directly. I wish it wasn't like that.