"Smart Brevity": Surviving the communications hellscape
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Cover: Workman Publishing. Illustration: Axios Visuals
Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes:
Never has communicating internally and externally been more important to U.S. companies. Never has it been harder.
- And never have most people been worse at it.
Why it matters: Our minds and attention are so scattered, so hypnotized by our phones — and so atomized across social media, podcasts and web-based platforms — that grabbing them is virtually impossible.
I realized this during a series of recent speeches to CEOs and top executives who are desperate to understand how to communicate in this era. The gap between how they see the world (familiarity with only a few, mostly old-line platforms) and communicate (like it's 1999) is gigantic.
- It's like they woke up in a new world and can't understand how to communicate in languages they can't speak.
Three years ago, we wrote a book — "Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less." A revised edition rolls out today, after the original sold 350,000 copies in hardcover, e-book and audio.
- We've marveled at the book's sustained success, and realized the core thesis — you must write shorter and smarter to grab attention — is more relevant and important than when we first published it.
📚 If you don't already own the book, get the revised version here.
- 🎧 If you're a Spotify subscriber, the audio edition of "Smart Brevity," with a new author conversation, is included — no charge for Spotify subscribers to download it here.
In the three years since "Smart Brevity" dropped, two big things changed:
- Consumer attention has shattered into hundreds, if not thousands, of shards of different-sized glass. More people are flocking to more information bubbles on more platforms — YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, newsletters, private chats and gaming sites.
- Most businesses are changing at a faster velocity, juiced in part by AI and anticipation of its future automation capabilities. That makes communication with nervous team members all the more important.
To win in this environment, companies need two new superpowers:
- Super-savvy communicators who understand the demographics and native languages of each shard of glass. This requires fast-twitch instincts and deep understanding of the tactics for moving opinion on each shard.
- Short, smart, memorable and repeatable ways to communicate what matters most internally or externally. If people are distracted, you can't expect them to engage or remember long or confusing ideas or messages.
This is the magic of Smart Brevity. We hate to raise problems without solutions. So here are five easy steps any person can take to make their writing shorter and smarter. (Buy the book if you want to go deeper!)
- Stop being selfish! Think about the person you're communicating to, not your own ego or ambitions, when writing. This instantly makes you more respectful of their time and attention.
- Grab me! Before you write anything for social media, or text, or your boss or your friend group, think about the most important thing you want them to know. Then distill it into one sentence.
- Write like a human. Most of us are pretty normal in conversation. But there's a defect in our species: For whatever reason, when we sit down to write, we try to sound like Walt Whitman or a Harvard nerd.
- Keep it simple. Short, tight words and sentences are always winners. Subject, verb, object! Break multiple points into bullet points to juice recall.
- Just stop. The greatest gift you can give to yourself and others is time. So use as few words and sentences and paragraphs as humanly possible. Then stop!
