This week I have learned:
Rupert Bowater and I first got in touch with one another after I had delivered a short presentation about the madness of measurement in my strange few years at Microsoft. We corresponded on Twitter, and caught up every so often at events in London and down at Silicon Beach in Bournemouth.
He was funny and warm and self-deprecating and just great to be around. One of many people who I’ve got to know in the last few years who are in that blurry intersection between colleague and friend. We did little bits of work together with his clients.
At the end of 2017 he got in touch to ask if I would like to be a part of a bid for work at the Cabinet Office in the UK Government. It looked up my street, and also gave the chance for us to work together again, so I leaped at the opportunity. We won the bid, and had a wonderful few months at the beginning of 2018 working together alongside Stephen Hale, Richard Hare and Lisa Reimers for Glyn Jones and his team in Whitehall.
We saw each other a few times after that work, but illness and treatment sadly, and suddenly, intervened. The witty exchanges on Twitter continued.
Rupert passed away at the weekend.
Rupert had many wonderful traits. One was that he almost always seemed to bring cake. That’s something we should all do more of, literally and figuratively.
Be like Rupert. Bring more cake.
mmitII 