Elizabeth Miles: A True Twitter Friend (2009 – 2013)
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I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear yesterday morning that Elizabeth Miles had passed away over the weekend.
Elizabeth was one of my very early connections on Twitter – way back in the pioneering days of 2009. She was an active participant in the Virtual Twitter Parties organised by Chris Sherliker and when those turned into Real Life Tweetups she would travel down to London from Bristol whenever she could to be there. She was at the first big Twegals Tweetup (Lex2011 Tweetup) where I first had the privilege to meet her in person. I last saw her at The Trial of Charon QC in November. We had attempted to meet up when I was in Bristol in February but it did not prove possible to do so. At the time I expected that I would soon see her again at a Twegals Tweetup in London. Sadly that was not to be.
Over the short time I knew Elizabeth she became a true Twitter friend. We had fun exchanges on Twitter and more serious chats about legal IT. We would sometimes have more indepth discussions via LinkedIn messages. She made a generous donation to Habitat for Humanity when my wife and I undertook the Global Village Challenge to Argentina in 2009 and supported our endeavours through tweets and retweets on Twitter. Elizabeth participated in Inksters Christmas Hat wearing including an out of season photo in September having uncovered the hat when moving to new offices. In 2010 I tweeted to all of my followers: “A word of wisdom please for Trainee Summer School. Preparing talk on IT use by Trainee Solicitors. What would you tell them ?” Elizabeth did better than a 140 character tweet in response – she wrote an entire blog post!: 9 Things To Tell Trainee Lawyers About IT. That ended up forming a good part of my lecture to the Trainees and essential reading in the homework I prescribed for them. Elizabeth and I sat on a park bench together in a Jon Harman JibJab #FollowFriday video and danced the Monster Mash in another one.
Elizabeth liked a good debate and would truly engage on Twitter in a way that social media was meant for. She was thoughtful and caring and never used Twitter to directly advertise her company or its products. By just being @IkenCEO she did that without trying.
When not doing her day job at Iken, Elizabeth was a poet and the founder of #PoetryTuesday. A moving example of her talent is The Death of a Child.
She no doubt had many other talents that those who knew her better than me could tell you about.
The name of Elizabeth’s company, Iken, is derived from the Scottish verb “to ken” meaning “to know”. The word is related to the adjective “canny” which describes someone who is wise, perceptive and incisive. Elizabeth was certainly one ‘canny’ lady who I had the pleasure ‘to ken’. She will be sorely missed and I extend my condolences to her family, who Elizabeth loved “to bits” [Twitter Bio], including Andrew, Edward, Tiddlyompompom and Alice.
Update – 17 April 2013
Elizabeth’s daughter, ‘Tiddlyompompom’, has created a page on her blog to list and link to tribute blog posts to Elizabeth: Mum
A service celebrating the life of Elizabeth will take place at Victoria Methodist Church, BS8 1NU at 2pm on 26th April 2013. All are welcome.
As a tribute to Elizabeth, her family are raising money in her memory for two charities close to her and the family’s heart: SANDS and St Peter’s Hospice. Donations can me made via Virgin Money Giving
Thanks for this Brian. She was a great Twitter presence and will be missed.
Elizabeth thought of twitter as chatting in the senior common room. Her presence there provided much wisdom to aspiring lawyers as you describe, comfort to the sick and distressed, and also courteous challenges to those of differing political and religious views. We will miss our day-to-day contact but never forget what she brought to our lives.
IKEN is of course a valid registered trademark and the name of a business whose success will be a great testament to her memory under Dr Andrew Chester who assumes the mantle of Ikenceo
So sad to hear this – she was such a lovely person.
Elizabeth and I were in a hot air balloon on one of Chris’ virtual Twitter parties. I lost my wig and she laughed out loud.
Oh no. This makes me very sad. I met Elizabeth on twitter before I got laid off and she invited me to one of Chris’ virtual twitter parties in 2009. I met so many wonderful people thanks to this good twitter friend. What a loss for the twitterverse. She’ll be deeply missed.
It’s a chock to hear IkenCEO is not anymore with us. I hope her all the best for the second part of her…lfie/existence//future/…. what ever the ‘au-dela’ will be for her.
Hope she had had time to tell Google what to do with her online persona after death.
Warm souvenir from our virtual Tweetup parties.
A lovely tribute to our much missed twitter friend. RIP Elizabeth Miles aka @IkenCEO – sad to lose a tweeting legal, glad we met.
Thank you so very much for writing such a lovely piece about my mum. It has been truly amazing to see how much she meant to people, and I hope she will continue to be an inspiration to many in the future.
Elizabeth — who did not like to be called “Lizzy” as Richard Prickman, Esq. learned — will be greatly missed on both sides of the pond.
Thank you for this post. I met Elizabeth on twitter when we both noted an Iranian twitterer had stopped publishing during and/or after the controversial elections in 2009. With the move to Hootsuite I felt some of my familiar followings had not come across – having a search today of course I come across this sad news. Elizabeth was always generous with commentary on twitter and a true leader in giving confidence to people to find their voice in the new media.