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Smart Brevity

Written by: Jim VandeHei,Mike Allen,Roy Schwartz
Narrated by: Mark Chamberlin
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Publisher's Summary

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

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    3 out of 5 stars

Contenu du livre très simpliste

Lecture rapide (3h), mais le contenu est léger. Soyez concis, utiliser des mots simples, favoriser les bullet points.

Ne soyez pas un robot.

Voilà.

Je recommande si vous avez aucune experience en communication, mais sinon c’est la base,

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  • Voldi Way
  • 2022-10-18

Should've been more brief

Incidentally, this review would have been more brief, but Audible requires at least 15 words.

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9 people found this helpful

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  • John Bauman
  • 2022-11-01

Whiny

The repetitive tired whiny complaints about Trump were very distracting. Could have been a much shorter book.

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7 people found this helpful

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2023-01-22

Finished the book, didn’t learn a thing.

This book is completely misleading, they don’t teach anything. They spend an entire book talking about why smart brevity is important and how they were successful at employing the tactic in their career. Waste of an opportunity.

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6 people found this helpful

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  • K. Lewis
  • 2023-01-07

Nothing new

Not much here which could have been explained in 30 mins vs a 3 hour read.

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4 people found this helpful

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  • Eablue
  • 2022-11-20

Devolution

Word emphasis in the sentences was weird. This emphasizes losing touch with eloquence and higher education.

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  • Sarahdox
  • 2022-12-30

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!

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3 people found this helpful

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  • Brad
  • 2022-12-27

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.🎉

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  • Kindle textbook purchase
  • 2022-12-23

Not recommended


When a topic was introduced it was not developed and reverted to referencing their own broadcast station. I felt like I was listening to the shopping network.

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3 people found this helpful

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  • Unubold
  • 2022-12-30

Sales speech

Few good ideas that could be explained in much shorter but made it longer to sell their business

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2 people found this helpful

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  • S. Yuloff
  • 2023-11-07

I’m a convert!

I’m excited to visit their website and transform our emails and blog posts. Let’s see what our clients, prospects and referral partners think of this style!

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