The Teacher Is Always In
Learning the Lynda.com Way
By Jason Dean
Photos by Christopher Brereton
There’s nothing quite like the exhilaration of feeling you’ve been lapped by technology, coupled with the unsettling realization that it’s perpetually breathing down your neck. The information age is a sleek stallion, and if you’re not actively jockeying for position, you might as well strap on a feedbag and head out to pasture. Back in the 20th century, Lynda Weinman (Carpinteria, CA) saw a need for a service that streamlined the “how to” aspect of essential software programs; today, that vision is paying huge dividends.
Lynda.com, a member-supported online learning platform launched by Weinman and husband Bruce Heavin 15 years ago, houses an ever-expanding virtual library (currently 54,000 strong) of tutorials it produces to teach the nuts-and-bolts aspects of software packages by Adobe, Apple, Corel, Macromedia, Microsoft, and many more. Individual subscriptions and multi-use plans for an office or classroom are available, making the chore of learning new programs or just staying in the loop with frequently updated software a more manageable task.
Lynda.com
An Office in the Country
Standardized but not hyperactively so, the lynda.com Web site inspires an earnest thirst for knowledge. Fueled by substance rather than slick marketing, the site thrives on a new way of learning.
Much like its online destination, an air of approachability inhabits the spacious lynda.com corporate office in Carpinteria. The yellow and black silhouette visage that welcomes online visitors comes to life in the form of co-founder Lynda Weinman, who details the 15-year-old company’s evolving station in the fast lane of the information superhighway.
Lynda.com employs over 160 people and operates offices in nearby Ventura and Calabasas as well. The company relocated to its current location in 2009; Weinman felt it important to remain close to the company’s roots. “It was a lifestyle decision,” she says of the choice to stay in Southern California yet outside the corporate nucleus of greater Los Angeles. “When we got too big for Ojai, we found an office park and realized there was room for our entire offices.” The 125,000-square-foot campus is sufficiently spacious to accommodate Weinman’s expectations of continued growth in the next few years.
An indoor-outdoor wraparound balcony girds the corporate office, accentuating the mountainous and rustic landscape. At the reception desk, expected guests are greeted by name on a hanging flat-screen monitor. Eight other flat-screens function as animated wall hangings, displaying looped, motion-graphic artworks. Circular patterns are a theme, recurring in the overall design as well as individual elements. The occasional muted yellow lounge chair or throw pillow is the only deviation from the austere charcoal grays and blacks of the office color palette.
“We believe anybody who has a computer can benefit from lynda.com,” Weinman said when CSQ paid a visit to the company’s expansive campus in the coastal town of Carpinteria, in the southeastern portion of Santa Barbara County. “We don’t want to be pigeon-holed and say we’re only for education, only for young people, or only for professionals, because we think the digital divide is real. Everyone needs a resource where they can learn these skills.” Lynda.com’s subscribers number in the hundreds of thousands; the company grossed $37 million last year.
What started as an online destination for Weinman’s book on web design in 1995 eventually became a brick-and-mortar learning institution when the company formed in Ojai. “My husband said, ‘What if we started our own thing? Do you think people would come?’” The answer was immediate. “Ever since the very beginning, there’s been an insatiable demand for what we’re doing,” says Weinman. “When the dot-com crash happened and the economic downturn occurred in 2001, we had to reinvent ourselves and figure out how we were going to survive,” explains Weinman. “A lot of people weren’t traveling, it was after 9/11, and budgets had been cut.” The emphasis shifted from conventional learning center to virtual information library.
Today, lynda.com boasts more than 200 instructors who teach a formidable array of mainstream software packages applicable to business and the arts. They recently unveiled an iPhone app, which further increases the brand’s accessibility. Whether you want to learn a new software program, stay current with those you already know, or just figure out how to use your email’s calendar function, lynda.com can coax even the staunchest Luddite to be a bit more erudite.
“It’s been proven that if you hear and see something, that your retention is much higher than if you’re just reading it,” says Weinman. “I think today people get their information differently and the purpose of a ‘live’ education can and will change. Lynda.com teaches computer skills through video training, it’s an online library with a lot of topics, it’s cost effective, and it’s a new way to learn.”
