Lara Hogan at Postlight

L. Jeffrey Zeldman
@zeldman
Published in
3 min readJan 19, 2017

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LARA HOGAN kicked ass at the Lara Hogan Demystifies Public Speaking event sponsored by Postlight and A Book Apart, and held last night in Postlight’s big beautiful public space on Fifth Avenue, around the corner from NYC’s famous Union Square Park. Speaking coach Bill Smartt led the smartly paced Q&A session. Postlight co-founder and event host Rich Ziade introduced the event, and, as publisher of her new book, I had the honor and pleasure of introducing Lara.

When I first met Lara, she was touring behind her excellent O’Reilly book Designing For Performance, a topic she brought to life at An Event Apart in 2016. But, as important as performance is, I was even more excited to publish her new A Book Apart book, Demystifying Public Speaking, because, for nearly 20 years, I’ve impressed on my design/development colleagues and students the vital importance of public speaking to the success of their projects and careers — and now there’s finally a book that tells them how to do it.

I believe in public speaking (and writing) because a person who is comfortable sharing ideas and communicating to groups can evangelize designs, principles, and best practices. This in turn helps build consensus, support collaboration, and keep everyone’s eyes focused on what’s best for users — instead of, say, which colors a powerful committee member dislikes, or how much bigger we could make a button or logo.

Those who communicate comfortably, even when opinions vary and the subject is contentious, spread reassurance, which means the project not only focuses on the right things, but does so in a positive and supportive environment. Effective communicators inspire their groups to dig deeper and try more things — to work, and ponder, harder. This generally leads to more successful iterations (and, ultimately, projects), spreading good work in the community and leading as well to greater career success and longevity. Whew!

That’s why I speak. And why I strongly encourage my students and work mates to speak. Thanks to Postlight and to everyone who attended last night’s event.

Originally published at zeldman.com

I’m Jeffrey. Follow me @zeldman. I publish A List Apart Magazine and A Book Apart “for people who make websites,” and co-founded An Event Apart: three days of design, code, and content for web & interaction designers. Most recently, I opened the NYC design studio.zeldman. Let’s work together!

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L. Jeffrey Zeldman
@zeldman

A List Apart, A Book Apart, An Event Apart. Designing With Web Standards. Happy Cog. The Big Web Show. Jeffrey Zeldman Presents the Daily Report. Ava’s Dad.