Hooray! South Witham Broadband have won a medal in the e-inclusion awards for geographic inclusion for their fab community network in Lincolnshire.
Having represented them in Brussels, and followed their progress since the very early days (and written a book about them!), I would like to be the first to congratulate them on achieving such recognition at EU level.
This network has done more than just learn the lessons that should be taken on board by ANYONE planning a next gen network. It has also applied them so that it actually connects with its customers and the community it serves. SWBB is a first class example of best practice, of engaging your community, of sustainability, how to connect the 'ethnic minority' of the disconnecteds, and of how those who live and work within a community can create a co-operative solution to next generation communications.
It is unfortunate that the organisation who should be advising on these issues is now just a group of consultants, out of touch with real community networks, but for those who need to understand the solution, why not get in touch with SWBB and employ them to answer your questions and show you how it can be done?
Metro Bytes: Gateway, Great Plains Communications, Tonaquint, Megaport, Duos
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Four items of regional interest to catch up with on the eve of Christmas. …
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2 days ago
3 comments:
woohoo, congrats to SWBB, they surely show us all it CAN BE done, Tom and Helen were among the ones who advised us when we started our community network and they are still always there to help out with questions if we get stuck. They said you CAN DO it and we jfdi.
chris (jfdi wennington)
The old ones are the best! Your original post about advisors reminded me of this joke so I have rooted it out of my archives...
...at least SWBB are good shepherds and know their sheep, going the last mile for the lost one LOL.
Shepherd & the Yuppie
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Prada suit, Gucci shoes, Dior sunglasses and D+G tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd,
"If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers:
"Sure, why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Vodafone cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location, which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an e-mail on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet, uploads all of this data via an e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his miniaturised HP LaserJet printer, turns to the shepherd and says: "You have exactly 1,586 sheep".
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep," says the shepherd.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the boot of his car.
Then the shepherd says to the young man "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says:
"Okay, why not?"
"You're a consultant" says the shepherd.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie. "But how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you, you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you know bu*ger all about my business. Now give me back my f**king dog."
and another one, i googled this one and sure enough, it is there in the ether...
... I won't post any more jokes.
A hot-air balloonist, realising he is lost reduces height to ask directions from a man on the ground:
'Excuse me sir, can you tell me where I am?'
' Yes', says the man below. 'You're in a hot-air balloon hovering about 20 feet above this field.'
'You must work in Engineering' says the balloonist.
'I do', replies the man. 'How did you know?'
' Well', says the balloonist, 'everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone.'
The man on the ground is peeved and retorts, 'You must work as a management consultant.'
'I do', replies the balloonist, 'but how did you know?'
'Well', says the man, 'you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault.'
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