Guy Kewney
The IT journalism world has lost one of its founding fathers
It was with great sadness that I awoke today to the news that one of the UK's if not the worlds greatest IT journalists Guy Kewney had passed on. I never managed to meet Guy in the real world but had known him via CIX, the UK based conferencing service for some 18 years. It was in the late 70's though that I first became aware of him via his articles in PCW magazine and elsewhere. As the years went by, many other journalists came and went but Guy's name continued to appear on the most insightful and interesting articles that I read. He was renowned amongst the PR industry for being the beardy journalist who asked the most difficult questions at presentations and despite making life uncomfortable for many company representatives, he somehow managed to be admired and appreciated by these same people. With his vast experience and deep understanding of the industry, his opinions carried a lot of weight. I remember him talking about the time a CEO cornered him to say his negative review of their new flagship product was credited internally with sinking the product.
Whilst many will remember Guy for his legacy in the field of IT and rightly so, for me it wasn't the only thing that I valued. I've always found religion in all its variations along with people's views on it fascinating. This sort of thing gets discussed a lot on CIX and at great length. Not uncommonly things get rather heated. Generally, Guy stumbled into each and every discussion and provided his usual well mannered and deeply analysed insights. His knowledge of the Bible and Christianity in particular came from many years of musing and research but he also had a wonderful understanding of many other religions and people's motivations in following them. It was a joy to read the message threads as he corrected errors and through gentle probing helped others to clarify their own thinking, mine included.
I had always hoped that one day either at a PR presentation or via something CIX related that I might get to meet Guy and shake his hand but that will never now happen and that makes me feel very sad. Luckily, before Guy's death from cancer, David Tebbutt set up a page on his blog for people to talk about their Guy Kewney memories. Guy gained a great deal of pleasure from reading this in his last few weeks. Guy also documented his experiences of the cancer with an honest yet often amusing narrative which you can read at his blog.
It's an all too common phrase that the world is a poorer place for someone's passing but in the case of Guy Kewney, it is true. I'll miss him.
