FOR Andy Jackson the Internet is a vital part of the success of his business in a remote area in the north of Scotland. He and his wife Allison run charter boats, boat hire and self-catering accommodation in Laga Bay and the island of Carna in Ardnamurchan, Argyll.

Andy is originally from Hampshire but came to this part of Scotland on holiday with his parents in 1975. He fell in love with the area and settled here permanently in 1982.

“I was an aircraft toolmaker for several years, which gave me a lot of technical and engineering skills which are really useful now. And then I worked in fish farming for six years and shellfish farming for three years, so I’ve got a pretty diverse background,” explains Andy.

Allison comes from Cumbria but she and Andy met five years ago when she was a passenger on the boat he was skippering. Together, and with help from two of Andy’s three children from his first marriage, they run the business, while Allison also works as a practice nurse specialising in respiratory conditions, at surgeries in the area.

Andy started out with small boat hire in the ’80s and its success naturally progressed in 1995 to chartering so that he could take passengers, ranging from experienced sea anglers to holiday makers and families, out for sea fishing, or whale watching trips in Loch Sunart. Realising that visitors to the area were struggling to find places to stay, the self-catering followed three years later in 1998.

Their website has always been an integral part of the business’s success.

Running their own business allows them to be in charge of their own destiny and not answerable to anyone else. But Andy is quick to admit that the Internet is a big part of that freedom.

“I would say that 95 per cent of the initial bookings are made through the website. It’s the first point of contact. Payments are made over the phone, though, as we like to have that personal touch with people when they’re booking their break. A lot of our customers come back time after time and have become friends,” says Andy. 

“Our webmaster constantly updates the site and we aim to supply a lot of helpful and interesting information not only on the business but also on the area in general.

“The biggest single thing about the Internet is that it’s eased and speeded up communications. Our marketing is infinitely better than it would be if we didn’t have a website, and we get a lot of visitors to the site, including some from abroad. People can fill in the booking form online, which saves a lot of time and administration at this end. The world is a much smaller place thanks to the ’Net. 

“We have Broadband here — quite a low speed connection but it’s pretty reliable. I suppose the downside of the Internet is if we do get a power cut and nothing’s working, it’s then that we realise just how dependent we are on it. But generally speaking it’s a lot more reliable than the phone lines round here!

“From a consumer point of view, you can shop online for anything, which is a great advantage when you’re as remote as us. It really has brought the shop window to the desk. 

“At our age we could be thinking about downsizing and making life easier for ourselves but in fact we’re hoping to expand the business by buying a hotel. We want to create opportunities for our own children and the younger folk in the local community and put something back into the area.”


www.ardnamurchancharters.co.uk  or 01972 500208.

DAVE WARD and his partner Linda Doran cheerfully admit that they’d be lost without the Internet, but particularly because, in a way, their sanity relies on it!

As a commercial photographer in Cumbria, Dave has recently upgraded to a new studio and taken the business to a whole new level, meaning that he and Linda, who works for Dave on a voluntary basis, are working round the clock, and so any spare time they get is precious. The ’Net is their passport to getting away from the pressures and demands that running a successful business inevitably involves.

“The Internet is quite simply a means to speed up aspects of life that used to take up so much more of our time,” explains Dave. “And if that means enabling us to have just half an hour’s more time to relax a day, it’s worth its weight in gold.”

It may sound a bit like a busman’s holiday but, as well as providing his living, photography is also a hobby close to his heart. Originally from Norfolk, Dave fell in love with the dramatic landscapes of Cumbria, and the photographic opportunities they present speak for themselves. 

“A lot of the equipment I need, both personally and for the business, is quite specialised and is impossible to track down locally, and while I’m keen to support local businesses where possible, I buy the bulk of it online,” he says.

Linda left her job as an HR director down south and moved to the Lake District about six years ago to get a better life/work balance. The Internet has helped her enormously to achieve this. She enjoys learning new things and has used the ’Net to teach herself to read music. It also came in handy for helping her to learn how to play the mandolin, and she tracked down a beginner’s mandolin tutorial online, as well as Celtic folk/fusion CDs where you can hear artists before you buy.

“I used an excellent website by Scottish mandolin player Nigel Gatherer — www.nigelgatherer.com — to teach myself,” Linda enthuses. “Now I can transcribe any music I fancy playing into mandolin tablature.”

Linda has also used the Internet extensively to research her family history and has gone as far back as the late 18th century.

“Creating a family tree made a great present for my mum!” she says.

Linda’s other love is drawing cartoons and she’s done a series of cartoons combining dogs and news stories, using the Internet for research. When it was completed, she created it as a book in a PDF format and sent it out electronically to friends as far away as New Zealand — a cheap and convenient way of sending Christmas pressies!

The list of their online purchases in the way of household goods is impressive too: a laptop, an answer phone, chairs for the office, manuals for computer programmes, the list goes on and on. And they don’t just buy — they sell items on eBay and enjoy the buzz of watching the bidding.

But there can be downsides to online trading. “Shopping-wise, we don’t generally buy items like clothing on the ’Net as you can’t really tell what the quality is like. For most of the stuff we buy, as long as you know what the specifications are, you pretty much know what to expect.

“It can be a bit soulless too — you miss that personal contact. But overall, it has enriched our lives and made many things so much easier and more accessible. We couldn’t live without it.”

www.photographybyward.co.uk 

JOEL KELLHOFER owns an Internet company called AC2.com, with offices in Glasgow and London, and has used his experience of being profoundly deaf all his life as a basis for the business.

“The name of the company is a play on ‘access 2 communication’ which is what the company aims to achieve,” he explains. “We provide video production, multimedia and web development, and anybody who has a video can make sure it’s accessible to deaf people by including sign language or subtitles. I believe it’s important for deaf people to have access to the same information as hearing people. The deaf world is so strong and vibrant but this is not always reflected on the Internet.

“Before I set up AC2.com four years ago, there were no companies offering this service in Scotland. From the start, I had plenty of work from deaf organisations, but I also wanted to attract contracts from mainstream bodies, such as the government. We created the first accessible website in the UK for the Scottish Council on Deafness (ScoD), which included a British sign language clip and we’re still attracting new clients.”

Joel has been fascinated with media and filming since he was a child, and comes from a theatrical background — his great grandfather worked in theatre, while his grandfather worked in theatre and cinema, and his mother was an actress in a soap opera in Spain.

“When I was eight, I played around with a video camera, creating my own studio to film puppets and getting my parents to watch. I knew even then that I wanted to study media and business.”

Having completed a BSc in Multimedia Technology at Glasgow Caledonian University, Joel then started to look at how he could further develop his film interests.

“Most universities in Scotland turned me down as they couldn’t see how a deaf person could work in the media industry,” he says. “I then found a TV video production course with Wolverhampton University, which was much more aware of deaf people and their abilities. The RNID helped me to source funding, and this great opportunity led to work with many different companies around the UK, building up my skills and my own confidence in my abilities.”

Although everyone else in Joel’s family is hearing, they can all sign, so communicating with them is easy. But the Internet is invaluable to Joel in helping him keep in touch with friends and family when they’re apart. The anonymity of the ’Net also came in handy when he started his business, as he explains.

“Most of my clients are hearing and, as I usually communicate by e-mail, I quite deliberately didn’t tell them that I was deaf until we had a chance to meet and I could impress them with the quality of my work. For business meetings I always use an interpreter but now we also have webcam, MSN and videophones so the two offices can communicate easily. The distance just doesn’t matter now!

“Communication is vital to all of us, and the Internet has made it so much easier. Even since I started the business, things have changed considerably.” 

www.AC2.com  and www.rnid.org.uk