The story of how Spiral came about

Spiral was born with a computer in the spare room at our founders home in Eastbourne but the journey started many years before that.

Our Managing Director and founder, Audrey Shearer takes up the story ...

Computers have been a part of my life since 1974 and part of our family life since we have been a family. I trained as a computer programmer in the 1970's, which was an unusual career path for a young woman just out of school. The organisations I worked for operated in a selfish, isolated processing environment where the goal was to deal with processing the worlds massive growth in information. Geeks happily worked in little cubicles connected by wires to hulking great computers in nearby air conditioned chapels. We churned out code that was useful in it's attempt to control and organise the data but it seemed somehow a selfish, egotistical occupation.

Then in 1993 I discovered the internet via a very slow dial up connection. There I was, at home in NZ with two small children, yet I was able to read peoples stories from the UK, Canada and the USA and the stories were fresh, they were new, they were personal .... it blew my mind and I wanted to be part of it.

So I did, I became part of it, over the next 5 years I surfed and trolled the internet until I was no longer prepared to be a bystander and joined the internet community in the hope that I could help others find their voice on the internet. So many people have something to say and the internet enables even the smallest voice to be heard, if I could amplify that voice for people, use software to deliver that message then I'd be happy.

I started small and each new customer opened up new possibilities and contributed to our growth. Two of our first customers were Janet Simes, of Absolutely Organised and Pat Sheehan, Secretary for PSBG. Both are still customers, thank you!

Our growing community of customers has enabled us to move to proper premises and expand the team to 6 people. Customers have also enabled us to support the local community through pro bono websites and software for groups such as Rotary, MIRO and The Jackson Street Programme. Our simple, easy to use software helps these groups and our many customers, everyday, to communicate their message on the internet.

If you are one of our customers, THANK YOU for being here with us.