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.

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Confront the complexity. Delete what drains you. Amplify what makes you best.
The proven method from Axios to be more concise and clear in a noisy world.
Before Smart Brevity: 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.
After Smart Brevity: 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.
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.
$62.4M in lost productivity
at large orgs every year due to communication barriers.
40 pts:
Gap in growth, retention, and reputation between orgs that invest in comms and those that don't.
Make Smart Brevity the standard your org runs on.
Get to know why 93% of our training clients say their training was effective.
Bring colleagues together to master Smart Brevity method and apply it to your key communications.
Go deeper →Pass us the mic at your next all-hands, leadership retreat or conference.
Go deeper →Adopt Smart Brevity in your organization's most important communications for your most valued audiences.
Transform your strategy for engaging employees, stakeholders, and key external audiences.
Go deeper →Launch and sustain a best-in-class newsletter that serves your business goals.
→Embed Smart Brevity into your workflows and tools with custom agents.
Build a agents that makes Smart Brevity the standard for how your team communicates with AI.
Go deeper →Learn how to apply the science-backed method within any LLM.
Go deeper →Smart Brevity is a science-backed method from Axios to think sharper, communicate clearly, and save yourself and others time.
What is Smart Brevity?Put the audience first.
“Who is this for” is the most important question we ask. Every decision we make is in service to the audience.
Be worthy of their time.
Every sentence, every detail has to have value. No waste. The result: communication that earns readers' trust.
Structure for clarity.
We lead with the two most critical details the reader is searching for — what's new and why it matters.
Bring human judgement.
AI can generate mountains of text, but it can't decide what your audience needs to know. Smart Brevity builds the judgment that AI can't replicate: what to say, what not to say, and what matters most..
Here's what it looks like…
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.
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

USA TODAY bestsellerSimplifyA playbook to distill what really matters and focus on what you do best in life, at work, and across your company.Go deeper →Check out our proprietary software that brings Smart Brevity to comms planning. See Axios HQ →
Smart Brevity FAQs
Smart Brevity is a communication methodology used to communicate what matters to staff and stakeholders more effectively. 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.
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.
Let's figure out what the right engagement looks like for you or your organization.