Via TED

What are the things that you could do differently, starting today, to become a vastly more effective communicator?

— How to Write Less but Say More | Jim VandeHei | TED, at 10:49

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Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico and Axios, says Axios built its entire company around the principle that people want smart, essential content delivered as efficiently as possible.

VandeHei's Smart Brevity framework for cutting through the noise uses five principles:

• Stop being selfish: Reverse the way you think about communicating. Write about what the audience needs to know, not what you want to say. "At our company, the first two words of our manifesto are: 'Audience first.'"
• Grab me: Lead with the single most important thing. If readers only have 26 seconds, what's the one thing you want them to remember?
• Keep it simple: One sentence beats two. Use simple, strong words. Call a banana a banana, not "an elongated yellow piece of fruit."
• Be human: Stop stiffening up when you write. Don't use SAT words, acronyms, or wordy clauses. Write like you talk at a bar.
• Just stop: The greatest gift you can give is time back. Use as few words as humanly possible.

Axios received reader gratitude: Hundreds of notes saying "Thank you, you're trying to save me time. I can tell."

The payoff is personal as well as professional: "You will […] start to think more clearly, talk more clearly, write more clearly. And you'll see ultimately that it's selfishly good for you because you'll be heard again."