July 2008 Archives
Since moving to the North West I have been very keen to visit my fellow social enterprise ambassadors and so went to see Clare Dove within the first few weeks of moving up. It took a little more planning to visit Daniel Heery though. Dan is literally based in the middle of nowhere and is the most northerly of all the SE ambassadors, living and working in Alston, Cumbria.
I had a few meetings in Lancashire and an evening meeting in Cumbria, so I thought I would ‘pop’ in and see Dan in the afternoon. I soon realised you don’t just ‘pop’ anywhere in Cumbria. ‘Just 20 miles off the M6’ doesn’t sound too bad (apart from the fact that junction 40 is basically the one before Scotland) and then its 20 miles of the most winding , twisting, single lane roads which I carefully negotiated behind a German lorry delivering bedding plants?? (No doubt his SatNav had decided it was a good route to Newcastle) I have to say though it is without doubt the most beautiful 20 miles I’ve ever driven.
Alston is set at the foot of a mountain (which you go over to reach it). I was glad it was summer! The village is absolutely beautiful, what you might expect from a Cumbrian location but actually a bit more special in real life.
What’s more, Alston is a social enteprise hotspot. Dan said there were 12 social enterprises located within the immediate village area. I did wonder whether whoever calculated the 55,000 social enterprises figure in the UK had actually just stopped after visiting Alston and thought ‘sod it, we’ll just correlate the figures from here’! Either way it’s a pretty impressive thing.
Dan’s Social Enterprise, Cybermoor, is located in the Town Hall which when I arrived was undergoing renovations. I found him at the top of a flight of stairs in an unassuming office at the end of the hall. The first thing you notice is the technology everywhere. Parabolic satellite dishes, computers, monitors, servers. This is definitely a technology based Social Enterprise.
I knew from our previous meetings that Dan had established wireless broadband connections for people living in Alston and nearby villages when BT wouldn’t touch them – great idea, but it wasn’t until I visited that I realised the true extent of what Dan has achieved with Cybermoor and just how impressive his Social Enterprise is.
Building on the broadband link, Cybermoor applied for funding to provide isolated rural homes with computers, then promptly distributed them. Having created a new wireless network of previously unconnected people in one of the most remote areas of the country, Dan realised the huge value of this link and its potential value to public sector agencies who would really like to reach this group.
The genius in Dan’s Social Enterprise was in making several sideways links to other social opportunities. Seizing the NHS Social Enterprise Pathfinders funding opportunity, Cybermoor successfully pitched an idea to link health professionals to those they previously had little chance of reaching. The idea is to put health monitoring equipment into people’s homes and then link it over Cybermoor’s wireless network to the NHS. This would give patients the ability to measure their weight on a daily basis and sent it to the NHS through the TV with a set top box. Any variations can be spotted straight away and someone dispatched to administer whatever care is needed.
The thing that really hits you about Cybermoor and Dan is that his clear lateral thinking and building upon the organisation's core competencies have enabled him to achieve even greater social value than his initial great idea. Cybermoor is a fantastic Social Enterprise run by a dedicated and tallented Social Entrepreneur. Well worth a drive up the M6!
