No one is reading your emails. Here’s how to improve internal comms.
The challenge: People are barely reading your emails. Research shows my email attention span is ~12 seconds. Use that time to tell me:
→ Something essential
→ Something new
→ Why it matters
The solution: Smart, brief writing that distills important information or news into clear, consistent, and visual formats. One approach is Smart Brevity, a communication formula built by Axios journalists. Its audience-centered principles align with evidence-based course design, which includes clear and consistent content, organized from a student’s POV.
Why it matters: Anyone trying to convey information amidst today’s “war for attention” needs to be a skillful communicator. Yet we struggle with it. Jim VandeHei, the pioneering journalist who co-founded both Politico and Axios, explains this challenge in the context of internal communications.
“When communication fails, teams and ideas fail. 30% of all project failures are the direct result of poor communication, according to a Project Management Institute study.”
The Big Picture: Email newsletters are still a powerful tool for distributing information and content. But email makes us miserable and it’s because we get too many bad emails. So what’s a good email look like?
Go deeper: Five writing principles from the Smart Brevity approach:
- “What’s New”: A single straightforward first sentence. The newest, most interesting, most relevant detail. If you remember one thing, make it this.
- Explain why something matters: “Explore the collision of key organizational themes and strategic focuses.”
- Write like you speak: Picture yourself getting coffee with a co-worker. In jargon-free language, what do they need to know?
- Ruthlessly prioritize. Fight the urge to overshare. It’s better to exclude than include something unworthy. Remember, 12 seconds is all you have.
- Repetition matters. If you want someone to remember something, communicate crisply — and repeatedly. Create a predictable, consistent format.
