Before
Email draftA long executive update buries a key decision among background and next steps.
The reader has to search for the point, the impact, and the next step.
★ The Smart Brevity Standard
Transform how your organization communicates.
The proven method from Axios to be more concise and clear in a noisy world.
Real client edits
Community update
The community cleanup event was a resounding success, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of our colleagues at The FlipTide Foundation and San Diego community members. The event helped clean up our local environment and brought the FlipTide family together, strengthening our commitment to sustainability and community engagement. Over 100 participants joined the cleanup, including 23 of our own teammates, and the Foundation plans to organize more community initiatives like this. Keep an eye out for upcoming events and opportunities to make a positive impact.
Community update
The community cleanup event was a resounding success, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of our colleagues at The FlipTide Foundation and San Diego community members.
•Why it matters: The event helped clean up our local environment and brought the FlipTide family together, strengthening our commitment to sustainability and community engagement.
🏫By the numbers: Over 100 participants joined the cleanup, including 23 of our own teammates.
What's next: The Foundation plans to organize more community initiatives like this. Keep an eye out for upcoming events and opportunities to make a positive impact.
Why it matters
People are drowning in information and tuning out.
"Never have humans talked, tweeted or texted more words, and found it more difficult to be heard."
Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios, TED Talk
Workers spend less than 60 seconds scanning content.
(Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index Annual Report)
−$62.4M in productivity at large orgs every year due to communication barriers.
(The Holmes Report)
40 points is the widening gap in growth, retention, and reputation between orgs that invest in comms and those that don't.
(2026 State of Workplace Communications, Axios HQ)
What Smart Brevity is
A writing method that gets readers to tune back in.
Smart Brevity is a science-backed method from Axios to think sharper, communicate clearly, and save yourself and others time.
Here's what it looks like…
What is Smart Brevity?Email
After Smart Brevity
1 big thing: The decision employees need first.
Why it matters: The audience can act without reading a wall of context.
→Two decisions, clearly named
→One owner for each next step
→A deadline employees can find
Set the standard
What we offer
01Meet the method
Training
Virtual and in-person programs that make Smart Brevity the standard your org runs on, including individual and team certification opportunities.
Get to know why 93% of our training clients say their training was effective.
Certification
Bring colleagues together for 8-weeks to weave the Smart Brevity method into your workflows and major milestones.
Go deeper →Keynote & On-Site
Pass us the mic at your next all-hands, leadership retreat or conference.
Go deeper →02Systemize the approach
Consulting
Bespoke engagements to adopt Smart Brevity in your organization's most important communications for your most valued audiences.
Comms Strategy
Transform your strategy for engaging employees, stakeholders, and key external audiences.
Go deeper →Editorial Programs
Launch and sustain a best-in-class newsletter that serves your communications goals.
Go deeper →03AI for effective comms
AI Services
Custom agents, training and coaching to embed a Smart Brevity perspective and editorial judgement within AI workflows.
Custom Agents
Influence an agent to deliver a consistent voice and tone in every output without generating useless drafts.
Go deeper →GEO Optimization
Structure your content so AI engines surface it. The new SEO for the AI era.
Go deeper →Case studies
We make companies more aligned and efficient, through better communications.
How bp transformed global comms with a team of Smart Brevity “Ninjas”
6,000
employees trained across 37 countries
"These kinds of communication improvements make a massive difference in the way a company like ours can operate and the way our staff can stay safe."
Mark Salt, Transformation Manager, bp
Zoom inHow Johnson & Johnson united six medical technology brands under one name
70,000
employees looked to a Smart Brevity series to guide the change
"The support…helped us learn, grow, and really level-up our writing skills, and then share that with our colleagues."
Sarah Dezendorf, Director of Global Employee Engagement and Brand Governance, J&J
Zoom inCSX transforms employee communications
4x
organic subscriber growth in three months
What we did: We changed their daily media monitoring series from link soup into “exclusive info” and a peek into the business employees say they can’t get elsewhere.
Zoom inThe impact
What changes when you run on Smart Brevity.
01
Put the audience first.
Who we're writing for is the first and most important question we ask. Every decision we make is in service to the audience.
02
Be worthy of their time.
Every sentence, every detail has to have value. No waste. The result is communication that earns readers' trust and gets read.
03
Structure for clarity.
We lead with the two most critical details the reader is searching for: what is this and why should they care, helping a communication demonstrate its value at a glance.
04
Bring human judgement.
AI can generate mountains of text, but it can't decide what matters. Smart Brevity builds the editorial judgment that AI can't replicate: the human skill of knowing what to say, what to cut, and what to lead with.
The guidebooks
Read all about it
The original
Smart Brevity
The guide for clear and concise communications, with pro tips and case studies.
Go deeper →Check out our proprietary software that brings Smart Brevity to comms planning. See Axios HQ →
Coming September 2026
Simplify
A playbook to distill what really matters and focus on what you do best in life, at work, and across your company.
Go deeper →Smart Brevity FAQs
The essentials, in one place.
What is the Smart Brevity method?
Smart Brevity is a communication methodology used to communicate what matters to staff and stakeholders more effectively. Based on brain science, it uses data to help you style and format information to be smart and impactful so individuals can easily absorb and act on what they read.
Who wrote Smart Brevity?
Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less is a business book written by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. It teaches readers how to understand and apply Axios' famous Smart Brevity style that makes communications smart, brief, and clear.
Get in touch with us
Let's figure out what the right engagement looks like for you or your organization.