Greg Davis - Technically Speaking

In case you haven’t seen the news yet, 37Signals has just released the latest updates to their Backpack product.  You can read more about the details of the upgrades here, but here are some of the cool new features:

• Multiuser - This is huge! No more need to share pages via email and a much better tool for group collaboration. There is a world of endless possibilities to the way you can now use Backpack for groups, organizations and even small businesses.
  
  
• Group Calendar - A natural side-kick to having multiple users, the calendar can now be used for the group.  The simple color coding makes it a snap to read and keep schedules coordinated. You can see a demo of how it works here.
  
  
• Newsroom / Message Boards - This is the best way to keep track of what is new or changed on the Backpack and who did it. This is a great compliment to the multiuser functionality.  Check out the demo.
  

If you have never tried Backpack you really should. You can get a free plan to give it a whirl. Watch a brief demo of how easy it is to create a page in Backpack! You can also take the complete tour. More than ever, there is no reason to get yourself and the groups you belong to at church or work organized!

Is anyone currently using Backpack?  If so, how?  I use it personally for many things from keeping track of things I need for work to vacation ideas to developing life goals.  The Worship Design Team I belong to at church also uses it to brainstorm ideas for theme, music, media, etc for each service.  The new multiuser and newsroom features are going to make this much easier.

By the way… if you like Backpack, you might want to check out Basecamp (for project management) and Highrise (for contact management and basic CRM) also by 37Signals.  All of their products are intuitive, simple and elegant which is why I like them so much.