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✨ Premium offering
Get Smart Brevity Certified
Our most successful partners know building new skills, or strengthening an existing one, requires reps. To go beyond a foundational understanding of Smart Brevity — and become a pro at applying, advocating for it, and even training others on it — we co-create a program to hit your goals.
- Understand the fundamentals of Smart Brevity
- Build confidence in applying it to your everyday work
- Expand your expertise for how it can apply to any communication
- Become a certified expert, able to train other people at your organization
✨ Premium offering
Add us to your onsite
We've been on some of the world's biggest stages, thanks to folks like you who love and believe in Smart Brevity. Our trainers and founders can captivate a room, share the real-world stories of how Smart Brevity can radically transforms communication, and show you real examples of it.
Have a conference, team on site, or other in-person event coming up? Let's talk about what formats and programming would be engaging for your people and who on our team can best bring it to life.
Tailor-made courses
Smart Brevity was born in a newsroom, pressure-tested in organizations around the world, and proven to be the communication method that can engage busy readers without wasting time or watering down details.
Our team is here to understand your communication goals and recommend the strategic programming we've seen work, whether it's...
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Short-sprint courses
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Ongoing team up-skilling
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Transformational internal change
Actionable takeaways
Our courses go far beyond philosophy. While we'll dig in on the data that informed our method and the ways we've watched it work. The bulk of every session is focused on Smart Brevity's practical, tactical application.
Our lesson plans and examples are all tailored to your organization, audience, and goals. After each session, participants will leave with:
- New skills to strengthen their communication.
- A checklist to keep them accountable.
- Our slides, for easy reference going forward.
“By shorter, better, clearer communication — and getting to the point of what we want people to do — we're all saving each other time. It gives people what they need so they can go off and do the jobs they’re there to do more confidently.”
bp's network of
Smart Brevity “Ninjas”
Axios HQ built a Smart Brevity training and editing program to define a new style of communication, train the entire function on it, develop “Smart Brevity Ninjas” to expand the skillset beyond central comms.
How bp transformed its global communication
"Everything was bespoke. The Axios HQ team worked with me to tackle and anticipate our specific needs and made an impressive effort to learn our company. We saw the value in what we were doing and the immediate impact it could have on efficiency and results in their day-to-day work."
Takeda's bespoke storytelling training
Axios HQ developed and led a series of in-depth workshops for Takeda’s global communicators, aligning lesson plans, hands-on exercises and workshop cadence around its core goals.
How Takeda modernized its storytelling
"We’ve embraced the style for news items, transactional content, and even in longer feature stories, which was a welcome surprise. The style really makes it easier to write and edit and has helped our editors streamline their process — a welcome shift in time spent."
USC's shift in style
Axios HQ’s team led in-depth Smart Brevity training sessions with USC communicators — helping them understand how the style works and ways it can be useful to any campus update.
How USC keeps its campus connectedSmart Brevity Training FAQs
What is Smart Brevity?
Smart Brevity is a method used to make communication more scannable, digestible, and memorable. It focuses on what's new and why it matters to readers, and uses formatting like bullet points and strategic bolding to guide them through important points. Most Smart Brevity updates are 40% shorter than typical communications, but hold all the same essential information.
What's the difference between Fundamentals and a Workshop?
Our Fundamentals course is a one-hour overview of Smart Brevity, how it was developed, what data guided its identity, and the techniques you can use to bring it to life. An Axios HQ editor will show you examples of Smart Brevity and answer your questions about it.
Our Workshop includes hands-on practice applying Smart Brevity to communication that's relevant to your organization. Attendees get real-time feedback from an Axios HQ editor to refine and improve their understanding of the format and how to use it.
Who are the Smart Brevity trainers?
Reed Tucker is a trainer and editor at Axios HQ. He teaches professionals how to make their internal and external communications clearer and more efficient using Axios' Smart Brevity methodology. Before joining Axios, Reed was a newspaper and magazine features writer for the New York Post, Esquire and others.
Phil Dufresne is a trainer and editor at Axios HQ. He teaches professionals how to make their internal and external communications clearer and more efficient using Axios' Smart Brevity methodology. Before joining Axios, Phil was a CIA analyst and an editor on the staff of the President's Daily Brief.
Can I customize the trainings to include my organization's real, day-to-day content?
Yes! Before most trainings, we will do a collaborative strategy and planning session with you to understand more about:
- Your organization.
- Its business goals.
- The skills your team needs to refine.
- The types of communication they manage most often.
Are trainings only for comms teams and written communication?
No! We've trained teams in nearly every function of an organization. Communication is a universal skill, and we've worked with teams to apply it to things like:
- Legal summaries
- Security documents
- Board presentations
- Executive briefings
- Speech writing
- Strategic presentations
- Social media posts
- Press releases
- Everyday emails
We really haven't found something Smart Brevity can't apply to. A few years ago, we even wrote our first book in Smart Brevity. Let's talk!
Can you join our corporate retreat or other scheduled programming?
We love to! Our trainers and founders have been on some of the world's biggest stages. Let's talk about what you have coming up, what formats and programming would work for it, and who would be best fit to bring it to life.
What is an example of Smart Brevity?
To see a sample communication written in the Smart Brevity format, check out this sample Axios HQ update.
