Smart Brevity

The Power of Saying More with Less

By: Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz

Narrated by: Mark Chamberlin

Brevity is confidence. Length is fear. This is the guiding principle of Smart Brevity, a communication formula built by Axios journalists to prioritize essential news and information, explain its impact and deliver it in a concise and visual format. Now, the co-founders of Axios have created an essential guide for communicating effectively and efficiently using Smart Brevity—think Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for the digital age.

In SMART BREVITY: The Power of Saying More with Less, Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz teach listeners how to say more with less in virtually any format. They also share communications lessons learned from their decades of experience in media, business and communications.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz (P)2022 Workman Publishing Company

Infomercial teaches writing

1 big thing:
Journalists repackage how to communicate with impactful directness.

Why it matters:
it can help you write if you’re not already familiar with the style. The chapters and examples get you into the rhythms easily.👍

Yes, but:
All examples and case studies are about how their AI saved the day for their client company and sending you to their website. This makes the whole book feel like an infomercial. 😬

Bottom line:
It’s not terrible. Following the recommendations will work. If you have a minimum of 12k laying around, their miraculous AI will make you a copywriting god.🎉

Longer than necessary

Don't get me wrong - this book makes a valuable point. Brevity is a valuable skill (and one I personally struggle with). And this book is half the length of a typical non-fiction book, many of which are guilty of padding a page's worth of useful information into hundreds of published pages.

But there isn't much to it. Basically, rewrite what you write and figure out how you can make it as short as possible without being rude - and most of us have to put focused effort into doing this. Heck, a good chunk of the beginning of the book sounds like an Internet marketer's webinar, trying to convince the listener that the product is awesome, so they should buy now.

The book does get a little more detailed, but it all boils down to the same thing: make it shorter. Edit it down. Put the most important information up first. Think of how busy you are, how you skim, looking for relevant information. Then write in a way that's useful to skimmers like you.

It IS a useful book, mind you. It just isn't a complicated one.

Life altering

Wish I had read years ago. Upped my status in my version of the game of life.

Repetetive

It made the same point 24 times (Chapters)
Why it matters:
I’m busy and intelligent. Some repetition is good, but it was too much.

How to get your point across!

Until about the 17th chapter, when it starts talking about oral communications, this book is a five star, must-read. After that, it starts devolving into platitudes and truisms until it finally reaches the chapter on using “inclusive” language - a low point for the book.

Must Read for ALL Professionals

Not totally new concepts, but valuable approach to changing nature of work and communication

Where has this been???!!!

The guidance on capturing the audience to efficiently deliver messaging is top notch. The tools work

Useful concept but...

Most of us could use more brevity (oxymoron?)
Many of the techniques mentioned are quite useful; the constant promotion of Axios was irritating and excessive. However, as another reviewer mentioned, the target audience is clearly the Type A go-getter, not so much the average person who just wants to do a better job of communicating!

I’m bought in - keep it brief.

If you follow the direction of this book you’ll be a step above 90% of others on your communications.

These authors have got it right. This is the future of communications in the news, businesses, and even emails/social.

Meet the reader where they are and give them when they want at the beginning.

It’s 100% worth the time and credit/money to listen.

Very helpful

Useful information for work . Next step will be to use the resources and website to test it out . Thank you