Jane Bird

Jane Bird (born May 1957) is an English journalist, copywriter and media trainer based in London.
Academic background
Bird graduated from Hertford College, Oxford University, in 1979 with a BA(Hons) in English Language and Literature.
Early career
Bird joined ICL in 1979 where she trained as a Cobol programmer and worked in the public utilities division technical support team on the North Thames Gas account, before moving into sales.
First experience in journalism
In 1981, Bird was recruited to Computing magazine as a staff reporter on the news team. Her brief included software, artificial intelligence, monitoring the “bunch” (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell), and tracking the new “personal computers”.
Editing Personal Computer World
In 1983, Bird seized the opportunity to develop her special interest in PCs when she was offered the post of deputy editor on Personal Computer World magazine, then the UK’s leading PC publication. Within a few months, she became editor. During her editorship the magazine published a series of exclusive previews and benchtests for machines made by Sinclair Research, Acorn Computers, Commodore and others.
TV and radio
During the 1980s, Bird made many appearances on national TV and radio. She co-presented a family-orientated computer series Chip-In for Granada and presented monthly reports on BBC’s Breakfast about home computing. She gave weekly news reports on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday afternoon show, The Chip Shop, hosted by Barry Norman, and on the BBC World Service’s Computer World. She also presented business videos such as The Communications Programme, published by BT.
The Sunday Times
In 1984, Bird was recruited to The Sunday Times as the newspaper’s first computer correspondent. Based in Business News, she also contributed regularly to home news and the colour magazine covering business, technology and consumer issues involving IT.
In 1986, Bird was appointed editor of The Sunday Times Innovation page, a weekly science and technology roundup. After a two year stint, and the birth of her first daughter, she returned to full time writing as the newspaper's technology editor. In this role, her brief extended from cancer cures and cold fusion to folding bicycles and Britain’s first astronaut.
Freelance career
Following the birth of her second daughter, Bird went freelance in 1991 contributing to publications such as The Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and Revolution. During this time, she was commissioning editor on IT for Management Today and wrote weekly columns for magazines such as Human Resources and Mobile Communications News.
Library House
In addition to her freelance work, Bird is editor of the weekly newsletter for venture capital and private equity companies published by Library House, Private Company Intelligence Executive Briefing.
Publications and copywriting
Bird has written a management handbook on networking for 3Com, The Reuters Guide to Good Information Strategy, and the technology chapter of Wirefree Working published by Management Today. Among companies for which she has done copywriting are Orange, AT&T, BT, PWC, Intel, Cable & Wireless, and Motorola. During the 1990s, she edited a dealer newsletter for Sun Microsystems and a customer magazine for Madge Networks.
Media training
Bird runs media training courses for companies, public sector organisations and professionals such as bankers, lawyers, management consultants and technology experts. She has media trained spokespeople from: Adobe; Akamai; AT&T; BT; Beat That Quote; British Osteopathic Association; Dell; Energis; Expedia; FT Information; Forrester Research; Fujitsu-Siemens; Granada Learning; Hewlett-Packard (Germany, France & UK); Hitachi Data Systems (UK, Denmark, Israel); Hyperion; IBM; Intel (Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Israel, Russia, UK); Logica CMG; London Metropolitan University, psychology department; Macromedia; Microsoft; Motorola; Nortel; Novell; Packet Vision; SAS; Sitel; Sony; Sony Ericsson; VersionOne and Vodafone. She also runs courses for professional training companies such as Electric Airwaves.

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