Russell Shaw--geek turned friend--we'll miss you

Elisa Camahort Page called me this morning,

"Did you know Russell Shaw?" she said.

I know that line of questioning, when someone asks you about someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. Something's happened.

Elisa confirmed that she had just read reports that he had died in his sleep, potentially from a severe cold or flu, while he was on the road in San Jose. Of course, when he was working: Russ traveled a lot to catch up on panels, connect with other geeks like him. He'd called me before to say he was in town. we'd reconnected after four or five years.

"Didn't you know him before the Huffpo interview?" Elisa asked. Yes. Russ was a fan of BlogHer and wrote a piece about the org a couple of years ago, but prior to that he'd reached out because he had been reading my blog. When we re-connected I immediately remembered the jolly man who had come to the office of the Start-Up media company where I worked as an editor. I had hired him to cover the technology beat.

Back then I was as non-techy as someone working at a tech start-up could get away with; I hadn't yet caught the bug. But Russ, I could see, was 100 percent certified geek. He liked this stuff without having to be paid to write about it, was how I had described him to myself. And, years later when he had reached out, I was able to appreciate his work beyond the punctuation and ability to fill a niche need we had. His specialty had become a standard beat. And he was a highly respected representative of all things techy, namely VoIP and PDAs. I remember he had reached out to me after reading my rant about wiping out the data on my Handspring. He was kind to the Luddites.

I'm sad about Russ. Glad we reconnected again.