Topic: Miscellaneous / Comments on "To-Dos" = AWESOME

Just wanted to let it be known publicly that the comment ability to the “ToDos” has been a huge boon to our productivity. Great job guys.

Topic: Campfire / FEATURE REQUEST: Alerts

37Signals preaches that interruption is one of the deadly sins of work. I agree. Consequently, I turn off the “Ping” noise a new message makes because when I need to work, I don’t want to listen to constant pings of a conversation.

However, if I turn off the ping, or leave the room, it defeats the purpose of being involved with my team. I still want to be there when someone needs me to be there to talk about something.

Consequently, I’m wondering if you guys could make an “alert” system within Campfire? It could be a little button next to the users name in the upper-right. That way I can turn off the new message pings, but when a team member needs to talk to me, they can ‘alert’ me, and I hear the same ping noise (or something else if that’s what you’d like).

What this solves: With the new message ping on, I’m not forced to leave the room when I want to get some work done. With the new message ping off, I’m missing any messages for me from my co-workers because I don’t hear any notifications.

Possible current work-a-rounds: I realize that the reply might be that I leave the room or turn off my ping noise when I want to get work done, and then hop back in the room when I’m ready to chat. That, however, defeats the purpose of our team’s dynamic—we use Campfire as a way to asynchronously talk with each other when we need to. We only interrupt sparingly, so it’s not a big deal when someone really needs to get ahold of me for something important.

I also realize that they could call me if it was important. That defeats the purpose of why we use Campfire, plus I don’t have a phone right now, just Skype.

Lastly, I realize that I could sit in own room and they can come talk to me when they need to, and that would be the same thing, but again that defeats the purpose of Campfire with our team—when I do have a break and want to jump in a see what was last said, I shouldn’t be forced to join the other room.

I hope those thoughts were explained well enough. I’d love to hear if 37Signals has something like this in their radar for a future Campfire release!