Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less
by Mike Allen
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15:20
Jim VandeHei speaks about smart brevity in Tedx format
101K
2K
Jan, 2022
Spoiler:
Jim VandeHei, who spent much of his career as a journalist, tells the audience how he realized, in an article he wrote that had over a million views, that almost nobody read past the first page. Saying he either had to “give up” or pay attention to the data, he went on a quest to figure out how to get people to pay attention. The solution is “smart brevity,” or concise, brief, but substantial information.
5:25
MSNBC interviews 2 of the book’s 3 authors in video format
10K
142
Sep, 2022
Spoiler:
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, authors Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen discuss Axios, a side project they started to help companies learn how to get their customers to “pay attention to what matters.” They promote the concept of “short, not shallow,” emphasizing that brevity can be substantial and purposeful. They state that people often try to camouflage insecurity or lack of knowledge with a deluge of words. VandeHei urges viewers to “distill your thought, then write it in as few words as possible.”
51:07
Mike Allen gives live talk + Q&A on smart brevity
1K
9
Nov, 2022
Spoiler:
Mike Allen, one of three authors of Smart Brevity, shares that when someone can’t stop talking, it’s almost always because their idea is “foggy.” Along with better distillation of ideas pre-talking, he recommends that we all pay more attention to the subject lines of our emails, rather than writing them as an afterthought, saying that the subject line should be three or four important words and that if we don’t obtain “smart brevity” there, the rest of the email likely won’t be read.
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Publications
The Wall Street Journal: ‘Smart Brevity’ Review: Riddled With Bullets
The New Yorker: The Dubious Wisdom of “Smart Brevity”
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