Digital Peninsula Network, Penzance

Today the network, which is funded by Objective One, SWRDA, Penwith DC and members' own contributions, has three full time posts: a director, centre manager and technical support person. It also has a part time evening administrator who ensures that the centre is opened for the members to use in the evenings, a financial controller who completes funders' returns a part time technical support contractor.

The catalyst effect

'DPN has been a huge catalyst,' says one of the founding directors Kevin Brownridge. 'Many of us now, because we are better connected with one another, feel we can offer services we would have been nervous to offer our clients. For example, if a client wants a website from my company I can now offer that and know exactly who to get in to help me provide it. Before DPN that wouldn't have been so easy at all. Many of us were subcontracting work to graphic designers in places as far afield as London. Today, because of DPN, we can offer high quality services, all from Cornwall. In effect, we are downloading wealth into Cornwall and subcontracting the benefits of the contracts to other businesses within the county. It is very hard to imagine this happening on anywhere near the same scale had DPN not existed.'

The network's history

Digital Peninsula Network was established in 1999 when a small group of micro businesses based in west Cornwall began to meet monthly in Penzance Arts Club. This was at a time when creative, ICT and knowledge businesses were often relatively isolated. There was no broadband and very few projects or places where freelancers could meet one another, share ideas and collaborate on projects. The meetings began with 12 attending and swiftly grew to 40 or so coming to monthly meetings.

A bid to get public funding through Objective 5b (ERDF) was successful, creating sufficient resource for the network to take over a building and to hire two staff. Members from the outset were a wide range of micro businesses, some extremely successful with multinational links (including animators providing cartoons for the BBC and a software company providing international news feeds for a major global news agency) all the way through to unemployed individuals with expertise in computer use trying to start their own businesses.

A strong board of directors not only set up the project but midway through the initial funding had to cope with the loss of the first director, successfully running the network on a voluntary basis, which took a great toll. As the early wave of directors began to pass on to new blood, some of the energy in the organisation was lost. Yet despite the challenges faced by an organisation unable to continually replace high quality staff and directors from a relatively small pool in the far west of Cornwall, the membership of DPN grew to over 150.

Government Office South West remained impressed with the outputs achieved under the early ERDF funding and the current Objective One funding. In 2002 South West RDA suggested that DPN should be a recipient of innovative cluster fund support. This funding (mainly capital money) saw the network centre kitted out to a very high specification, including high speed (2 megabit) broadband at a time when ADSL broadband was not yet available in Cornwall. This, along with a range of high quality software, 12 terminals and equipment such as digital printers and digital video cameras, gave the centre the kind of equipment that many of its members would not normally expect to have in their home offices or small studio offices.

'It was a huge lift up for members,' says Kevin Brownridge. 'We were using broadband for the first time, getting used to what this kind of equipment could do for us. Since ADSL came to the area through the Objective One funded actnow project, the need to use the centre for routine browsing of the internet lessened. However, we were all given a huge kick start and were familiar with broadband before we could get it here. There was a huge skills uplift in that period and because many of us were working alongside each other in the centre, many strong contacts were made between members who began to network with each other and to share work and collaborate on projects.'

Today, many DPN members combine their strengths and successfully win tenders and contracts often in six figures