The lynda.com StoryEarly roots| 00:04 | (music playing)
| | 00:11 | Lynda Weinman: The first time I ever used a computer,
I went to the manual to try to teach myself
| | 00:16 | how to do it, and I was
mortified by how it was written.
| | 00:20 | I just couldn't believe that it was
supposed to be consumed by people.
| | 00:25 | It was so technical and so unapproachable.
| | 00:29 | But for some reason I was able to teach myself,
and as I learned it just became really joyful
| | 00:35 | to me to share it with other people.
| | 00:37 | I was really enthusiastic about what computers could do,
and I was sad that most people couldn't learn how to use them.
| | 00:46 | And eventually, just by default, people came
out of the woodwork asking me how to do things,
| | 00:52 | and it was right at the kind of beginning
of the desktop publishing revolution when
| | 00:58 | a lot of people realized that
they needed to have computer skills.
| | 01:03 | And I ended up choosing to become a
teacher eventually at university level.
| | 01:08 | So I taught at Art Center College of Design,
and it was there that I also first discovered
| | 01:14 | the Internet, probably in about 1994, and I was
thunderstruck by how powerful I knew the Internet would be.
| | 01:23 | And I thought that my art students were all
going to need to learn how to publish to the
| | 01:28 | web because that was where their portfolios were going to
need to go, that was where business cards eventually would live.
| | 01:35 | It just hit me maybe earlier than a lot of
other people that it was a very important
| | 01:39 | medium that everyone was going
to have to know how to use it.
| | 01:43 | And I decided because I couldn't find a book
to recommend to my students that I would write
| | 01:48 | the first book on web design.
| | 01:51 | And I ended up doing so, and Bruce, my
husband, helped me research a lot of the different
| | 01:58 | facts and we put this book out and it became the
de facto textbook for web design of that generation.
| | 02:07 | And it was adopted by many colleges, it was--
it sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and
| | 02:15 | it was translated into dozens of languages,
| | 02:17 | and it really put lynda.com on the map
because we have used my website, lynda.com, as the
| | 02:25 | sandbox and sort of experimental area to teach
ourselves web design and then explain it to other people.
| | 02:32 | And fast-forward, we moved to Ojai, California,
and my husband had this idea that people might
| | 02:42 | want to come to us to learn web design.
| | 02:44 | And so we tried the idea by renting a computer
lab at a local high school and putting a sign
| | 02:52 | on lynda.com that we were offering a class.
| | 02:56 | And people came from all over the country,
and one person came from Vienna, Austria,
| | 03:00 | which really kind of blew our minds.
| | 03:03 | And it gave us the encouragement to start
a business, and initially lynda.com was a
| | 03:07 | physical school where people came.
| | 03:09 | Bruce Heavin: Our business was booming, we had
classrooms, we had books, we had videos, we were doing
| | 03:16 | VHS tapes, and it was growing and the
Dot-com Crash hit, and it hit really hard.
| | 03:22 | At first we didn't only feel it, that there were just
moments where we thought this wasn't going to hit us.
| | 03:29 | But all the people that were going to us were all the
Dot-coms, and once their budgets run dry, they stopped coming.
| | 03:36 | And after 9/11, travel budgets dried up
and training budgets dried up, and we've been
| | 03:43 | for about a year two recording
videos, we had a small number of them.
| | 03:48 | And we had this idea of putting the videos
online and starting them as a subscription
| | 03:54 | business as opposed to selling them off one by one,
and this is really where lynda.com took off.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Growing pains| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:06 | Bruce Heavin: lynda.com didn't take off like a rocket.
| | 00:10 | It took a long time to get to where we
are today, but it had a very good growth rate.
| | 00:17 | So, even if you're only making 100 new
customers a month, and you're growing at a
| | 00:21 | certain rate, you're growing at that rate,
and it compounds every month over month.
| | 00:25 | That was the most exciting
thing to us, but it was painful too.
| | 00:30 | We lost a lot of our other businesses.
| | 00:32 | We gave up our books, we decided to focus, we gave up our
conferences, we gave up our classrooms and our training,
| | 00:41 | and this allowed us to focus and really dive
into what we were both passionate about, which
| | 00:46 | is education in web design
and imagery and photography.
| | 00:51 | Lynda Weinman: I think it's important to say that when
we first started the online video subscription
| | 00:56 | business, we were not terribly successful.
| | 01:00 | We were before broadband, before YouTube,
before so many, you know, Internet companies
| | 01:08 | that we take for granted today, you know,
even before people had really high-resolution
| | 01:15 | monitors, I mean, before
digital video pretty much.
| | 01:19 | And so it actually took several years for
the world to catch up with what we were doing,
| | 01:26 | to be honest, and we were struggling.
It disrupted our existing business.
| | 01:32 | Bruce: When we first made the Online Training Library,
we had a growing business in selling
| | 01:40 | CD and DVD-ROMs, and it was actually producing
significant revenue, and we were really happy with it.
| | 01:47 | But once we made all of our lessons for $25
a month, it's just like the sales just went
| | 01:53 | straight down into the toilet.
| | 01:55 | I mean, they went down faster
than you might ever believe.
| | 02:00 | And it was alarming and
the gut instinct was cut it,
| | 02:05 | cut it, it's going to kill us.
And it really sent us into the desert.
| | 02:11 | It really--it was a lot of pain.
| | 02:14 | And this pain went on for
three, maybe four years.
| | 02:19 | And we faced decisions on whether we should
end this, but it was really after a lot of
| | 02:26 | calculations and looking at the numbers and
looking at the projections and looking years
| | 02:31 | out that I think there's something
here, we just got to survive.
| | 02:35 | This isn't about a short-term
selling CDs, this is really long-term.
| | 02:39 | This is about building something better for our
customers, better for us, and better for learning.
| | 02:46 | And we decided to stick to it.
| | 02:49 | And I think we came out the
other side, and boy did it take off.
| | 02:54 | Lynda: We just found that there was an insatiable
thirst for what we were teaching, and it really
| | 02:59 | extended beyond web design, that in general,
there were very poor learning materials on
| | 03:06 | how to even begin to start, you know,
with these different subject matters.
| | 03:13 | Bruce: I think the sole driver of
lynda.com, sadly, was never marketing.
| | 03:19 | We never had marketing downright. We kind
of blew it at every chance, and every time
| | 03:25 | we tried to do something,
it would never succeed.
| | 03:30 | But it was brilliant as I think we built
truly a great product where our membership were
| | 03:36 | our marketing, and it was
them telling other people.
| | 03:40 | And I think that word of mouth and that spreading
was a constant growth that we just kept experiencing.
| | 03:46 | Lynda: And then, you know, it just started--the
numbers started to get, you know, astonishing.
| | 03:51 | It was, you know, to this day, I don't
think we ever dreamed that lynda.com would reach
| | 03:55 | as many people as it reaches now.
| | 03:57 | Jacqui Burge: When I first started at the company,
we had an office in Ventura, and at the time Bruce
| | 04:02 | and Lynda thought that would be our office
forever, and we would never have to go anywhere else.
| | 04:07 | When my first day I came in and my desk was
in the hall, I knew we were kind of in trouble,
| | 04:12 | and that it was going to be a constant
challenge to keep up with the incredible growth of the
| | 04:15 | company, and that's been the case ever since.
| | 04:18 | Lynda: When we first conceived of our service,
it was only for individual membership.
| | 04:24 | But people started to ask us, "Can we have
a discount if we have, you know, more people
| | 04:28 | in our company who want to use it?"
And initially, we did just that.
| | 04:34 | But we had a teacher who came to us, and she
said, you know, "I really need to see reports.
| | 04:41 | "And there--if you could build a version of
lynda.com that would have this sort of minimum
| | 04:47 | amount of reporting, then I could
get it adopted in my entire school."
| | 04:53 | And so we listened to her, and we actually
crafted a version of the library just for her school.
| | 05:00 | And then eventually, other schools found out
about it, and what they discovered was that
| | 05:07 | having lynda.com was
actually liberating to the teachers.
| | 05:12 | And our product grew word-of-mouth, and originally
very slowly--or what we now call our enterprise product.
| | 05:20 | And it's just fascinating to me that, you
know, today we're in all of these Ivy League
| | 05:24 | schools and so many schools are adopting us, and
it's so exciting, and businesses are adopting lynda.com.
| | 05:32 | But we really just started that part of it
in response to a single teacher's request.
| | 05:36 | Bruce: You know, we were being
approached again and again by investors.
| | 05:41 | Lynda: It was a little bit overwhelming to me and Bruce
because we had never built the company to flip it, you know?
| | 05:47 | We knew a lot of people in the--you know,
early Dot-com days that was kind of their idea
| | 05:51 | was build business and sell
it, and that was their dream.
| | 05:54 | But that was never our dream.
| | 05:55 | Our dream was to build something
really great, which we knew we were doing.
| | 06:00 | But there were a lot of things that we
didn't understand how to do, and we weren't sure
| | 06:05 | that we have the right level of experience to run a
business, besides that our company was growing too.
| | 06:11 | It was about 35 people.
| | 06:13 | Bruce: It got to the point where our phone wouldn't
stop ringing, and we just couldn't ignore them.
| | 06:19 | So I asked someone to help us
out, and there was Eric Robison.
| | 06:21 | He took a look at our business and he
vetted a lot of these people who came our way and
| | 06:26 | he was really impressed with what we've done.
| | 06:28 | So he wanted to come on board and he wanted
to help guide us and bring in professional
| | 06:34 | management and he did a good job with this.
| | 06:37 | Eric Robison: In 2007 I was serving on boards and
consulting with different companies, and mutual friends
| | 06:44 | introduced me to Lynda and Bruce.
| | 06:46 | And at that time the company was just really
growing in an incredible rate, and they were
| | 06:50 | looking for someone to advise them, to
help them with what the next step should be.
| | 06:55 | I met them in October of 2007, and by
January 1st, 2008, I was on full time.
| | 07:02 | No intent to go back into a role with the
company full time, but this was such an incredible
| | 07:07 | opportunity to work with
them and work with the company.
| | 07:10 | Lynda: Well, bringing on Eric
was a huge turning point for us.
| | 07:13 | There were so many things that he
understood how to do that we didn't understand.
| | 07:18 | He built out our finance team,
he built out our sales team.
| | 07:22 | He understood what the business needed from
a architectural and hierarchical view, where
| | 07:29 | I think we understood what the
business needed from a vision perspective.
| | 07:33 | Bruce: We didn't know management. We didn't know a CEO
from a VP from a--we didn't know any of this stuff.
| | 07:41 | We didn't know management structure, and Eric
brought in a whole new level of professionalism
| | 07:48 | that really just changed things.
| | 07:52 | And really, the goal was
practically to put ourselves out of a job.
| | 07:55 | Eric: Since I joined the company, we've gone
through incredible growth, and that growth
| | 08:00 | forces us to evolve as a company.
| | 08:03 | The people need to evolve, the processes,
the systems, the decision-making we go through,
| | 08:08 | it all evolves as part
of this incredible growth.
| | 08:11 | Lynda: Well, when you grow something like we
have, from literally just the two of us in
| | 08:16 | a garage to having hundreds of employees,
your roles are constantly changing, and sometimes
| | 08:23 | it's really sad, you know?
You miss doing what you used to do.
| | 08:28 | But I think one of the discoveries that
I've had is the most important role today that
| | 08:34 | Bruce and I can perform is to share our values
and communicate our values and make sure that
| | 08:41 | everyone in the company is aligned with
what our mission is and what our values are.
| | 08:45 | Bruce: It's been the best decision because
it's really allowed us to grow and to scale and
| | 08:52 | to bring in better people and bring in
better educators and bring in better data analysts
| | 08:57 | and just a whole new level that
took us from down here to way up here.
| | 09:06 | Eric: I've had the opportunity to work with a
lot of companies over my career, and lynda.com
| | 09:10 | is a very, very special company.
| | 09:13 | It's a special company because of
the people that I get to work with.
| | 09:16 | It's a special company because of the passion
around what we do, and it's really a special
| | 09:21 | company because it's
interesting every single day.
| | 09:23 | No day is like the other day, and every single
day there is a new opportunity, a new challenge,
| | 09:29 | because what worked for us two years ago
as a company doesn't necessarily work for us
| | 09:33 | today, because there is so much change.
| | 09:35 | And that really creates an
interesting day-by-day opportunity.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| lynda.com 2012| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:06 | Lynda Weinman: I think one of the beautiful things
about having a subscription company is that your
| | 00:11 | customers keep you very honest.
| | 00:14 | If they don't like what
you do, they don't subscribe.
| | 00:17 | So the fact that we're growing at the rate
that we're growing, it's really a testimony
| | 00:21 | to the fact that people
find what we do valuable.
| | 00:25 | The demand and the thirst for knowledge is so
insatiable, and the way that we're delivering
| | 00:31 | it is working for millions of people.
| | 00:34 | Michael Schaeman: Our members use our
service in three different ways.
| | 00:37 | The first way is they
want to learn something new.
| | 00:40 | They're taking a course that
they've never taken before.
| | 00:42 | The second is they want to get
better at something they already know.
| | 00:46 | A good example of that is
learning Pivot Tables in Excel.
| | 00:50 | The third, which I think has a huge differentiation
in the marketplace, is the user to get unstuck,
| | 00:56 | very similar to a virtual helpdesk.
| | 01:00 | They're actually in the application, they
can go no further, and they zoom into the
| | 01:04 | exact part of the movie that
shows them how to do it the right way.
| | 01:08 | Those are the three ways that we see our clients use
the service in a really meaningful and differentiated way.
| | 01:14 | Michael Ninness: One of the things that's been very
core to our value proposition from day one really
| | 01:18 | comes from the founders' philosophy of
education is that notion of serendipitous discovery.
| | 01:25 | You know, you come in to learn say something
in Excel, but then you discover there's a
| | 01:28 | photography course, or you come in to learn
how to do a website, and you see that there
| | 01:32 | is a conflict negotiation
course available for you.
| | 01:35 | So you discover things that you didn't even
know were there but that ignite that passion,
| | 01:39 | ignite that thirst for knowledge.
| | 01:41 | So I think choice has always been a
key part of our value proposition.
| | 01:45 | We do not sell our courses on
the cart, right? It's one price.
| | 01:48 | It's as if you go into a library, a real
physical library and, you know, you don't have to pay
| | 01:53 | for access to go to this aisle or this aisle.
| | 01:55 | The library is completely
there for you to explore.
| | 01:58 | That is completely what we've done with the
Online Training Library for lynda.com is really
| | 02:03 | empowered and enabled those members to come in
and learn exactly what they want for one low price.
| | 02:08 | Michael Schaeman: Whether you're 10 years old or 90 years old,
there's this huge thirst to be digitally literate.
| | 02:15 | With the downturn in the economy, we see individuals
wanting to re-skill themselves, extend their career.
| | 02:21 | We see organizations not being able to send
their employees out for instructor-led training
| | 02:28 | the way that they did in the past.
| | 02:31 | Whether you're a small business, a mid-size
business, or a Fortune 1000 company, at every
| | 02:36 | level of education we're seeing massive
adoption of lynda.com through our lyndaCampus product,
| | 02:44 | and every agency within the federal
government and state government and even international
| | 02:51 | governments, corporations, and education systems are
adopting the engaging courseware that lynda.com offers.
| | 03:00 | Tanya Staples: The content and production teams are about
85 people, and about 20 people in the content
| | 03:06 | team making decisions about what content we
should produce and recruiting our world-class authors.
| | 03:12 | And then our production team partners with
them to develop and record and produce all
| | 03:16 | of the training materials.
| | 03:18 | Cynthia Scott: So the content directors and the content
team are figuring out what we think our members
| | 03:24 | are going to want in, say, six to nine months.
| | 03:26 | Externally, we're looking at trends that are
happening in the world, we're trying to see
| | 03:30 | around corners, we're paying very close attention
to what our members are looking at when they're
| | 03:35 | inside the library, what they're asking for.
| | 03:37 | We're thinking about what's the best possible
content we can create over, let's say the
| | 03:42 | next one to three years.
| | 03:44 | We do a worldwide scan for the
best possible authors for the content.
| | 03:48 | We're looking for people who are experts
in their field, who are great communicators,
| | 03:53 | and who can speak to our
members as peer-to-peer teachers.
| | 03:57 | We're not looking for people to speak as
lecturers or to speak down to our members.
| | 04:01 | The voice we look for is your best friend
talking over your shoulder and telling you
| | 04:06 | something cool that they figured out how to do.
| | 04:08 | Ramey McCullough: What I like so much about lynda.com is
from the top-down, they care about the customer,
| | 04:14 | they care about their employees.
| | 04:17 | It's not just about the dollar. It's about
getting the education out there and everybody
| | 04:22 | having high-quality content, having happy staff,
happy customers, so that's what they're passionate enough.
| | 04:28 | Bruce Heavin: There is this cliche
that the win-win proposition.
| | 04:32 | I hear it a lot, but we really mean it, and we believe
we operate in an ecosystem where it's a win-win-win.
| | 04:40 | So we like to believe that we win and we like to
believe our author wins and they get compensated
| | 04:46 | well and we like to believe also first and
foremost as our direct goal that our member
| | 04:52 | or our subscribers win, that they're getting
the education, they're getting the knowledge,
| | 04:57 | they're getting everything they need.
| | 04:59 | It's a beautiful ecosystem because it really--
it keeps the authors engaged and the teachers
| | 05:05 | and it keeps us engaged and honest in developing
the platform, and we believe this win-win-win
| | 05:12 | is part of the fuel that will get us there.
| | 05:16 | Lorrie Thomas Ross: As much as we work really hard to
produce the courses we produce, I have to say that
| | 05:21 | it's an enjoyable, fun, rewarding experience.
| | 05:23 | I feel like I'm family when I come here,
and I come maybe a couple of times a year and
| | 05:27 | I see the familiar faces, it's hugs, it's
laughter, it's joking, it's wonderful, it's
| | 05:33 | just a culture that, you know--and this is
coming from someone who goes to a lot of different
| | 05:37 | organizations and sees a lot
of different company cultures--
| | 05:40 | what happens here at lynda.com
is really remarkable.
| | 05:44 | Bruce: One of the biggest
things about value to me is brand.
| | 05:49 | And to me, brand is all about
experience and how a user experiences lynda.com.
| | 05:57 | One of the ways we work on
experience is very indirectly.
| | 06:01 | We look at our own employees and we say,
"How can we give them a great experience here?"
| | 06:07 | And it's really because we want them to
impart a good experience to our customers.
| | 06:13 | Monetta Williams: So what employees love about working
at lynda.com is the great benefits that we offer:
| | 06:19 | 100% paid medical dental and vision
for employees and their dependents.
| | 06:25 | On-site cafeteria for employees, so they
don't have to leave the campus and go find a meal,
| | 06:30 | and they are healthy,
organic meals that we provide.
| | 06:33 | Bruce: We do so many things on so many levels.
We have lots of activities.
| | 06:38 | But we try to make sure the work environment
is just paramount and solid and really good
| | 06:43 | and very healthy and highly collaborative.
| | 06:46 | We really look for the best possible
experience we could give our employees so they can give
| | 06:51 | that experience to our members.
| | 06:55 | Jacqui Burge: Four years ago Bruce and Lynda and Eric
came to me and said, "Please go up to Santa Barbara
| | 06:59 | and find us just a little office,
so we're a little bit closer north."
| | 07:03 | And I was like, "No problem!"
| | 07:04 | I came up, we found this great space for 5000-
square feet, and then the next thing I know, four years
| | 07:10 | later we have 160,000 square feet, and it's
just gone by in a blur, but it's been incredibly
| | 07:15 | rewarding to see the company
grow and to be able to keep up.
| | 07:19 | Bruce: I'm watching new buildings open up every
month, and sometimes our biggest problem is
| | 07:26 | not just hiring, but it's
where do we put all these people?
| | 07:29 | And these are fun problems
to have, not horrible ones.
| | 07:34 | But the most shocking thing to me in all this
growth is really just seeing all the new faces
| | 07:39 | walking up and down the
campus here at lynda.com.
| | 07:42 | It's just unbelievable.
There are literally new people here every day.
| | 07:46 | Eric Robison: Lynda and Bruce created a business that
really understood the learner, that really
| | 07:52 | understood how to create effective learning and put
it into to a mode that was affordable and accessible.
| | 07:59 | Silicon Valley was chasing after free and
interactive and community and forgetting about
| | 08:06 | how do you really make learning that's
effective, how you make learning that really makes a
| | 08:10 | difference in people's lives, and
Lynda and Bruce understood that.
| | 08:13 | They understood that from all of their
experience, starting out with traditional learning and
| | 08:18 | then evolving to technology and really being at the
forefront of using technology to reach the learner.
| | 08:25 | And now today we have an iPad and iPhone app
and a mobile site that works on Android and
| | 08:30 | other Smartphones, but the business that they
started was ready for that, and that's really
| | 08:36 | put us in this position we are today
and being able to be a leader in learning.
| | 08:41 | Lynda: Today I walk around with so much
pride when I walk around our campus.
| | 08:47 | I just can--almost have to pinch myself on a
daily basis because I don't think I ever dreamed
| | 08:53 | that it would get this big, and I know it's
going to get much bigger than it is today,
| | 08:57 | because I just know that there is so much
need for what we do, and we're solving such
| | 09:02 | a big problem in the world.
| | 09:04 | But I do walk around with a
lot of joy and a lot of pride.
| | 09:09 | It's really exciting to get to work with so
many smart people and watch initiatives that
| | 09:14 | were so hard to get off the ground when we
were fewer people really take flight and just
| | 09:20 | witness the progress and witness
the energy. It's just so exciting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| How we do it| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:06 | Lynda Weinman: I think on the surface, lynda.com
might look simple, and that's great.
| | 00:12 | We want it to be simple to use.
| | 00:14 | But it's actually a very complex organization,
and it's just like any other company.
| | 00:20 | We have finance and HR and we have marketing
and we have an executive team, and the thing
| | 00:27 | that's unusual about us is we
also have a film production company.
| | 00:30 | And we're not just creating entertainment
films, we are creating instructional films,
| | 00:35 | and that requires a lot of
testing, much like software.
| | 00:40 | We have people who test our products.
| | 00:43 | We have a big engineering team
that's creating the actual website itself.
| | 00:48 | There are people who do everything from compressing
the videos to shipping out materials for schools
| | 00:56 | that are adopting our service.
The organization is actually very complex.
| | 01:02 | Tanya Staples: In the early days, we really just
focused on screen capture recording.
| | 01:06 | You see the computer screen, you hear the
author's voice, and over the years we've added
| | 01:11 | a lot to our instructional design process, as well
as our production process truly evolve that quality.
| | 01:17 | So now any course can have live action, it
could have booth cam, it could have 3D motion
| | 01:25 | graphics, it could have informational graphics.
| | 01:28 | So we have really kind of upped the educational and
production value to make the best content that we can.
| | 01:34 | Cynthia Scott: Well, people do think that we're
simply putting an expert in a room and putting up
| | 01:38 | a big camera in front of
them, and that's not it.
| | 01:41 | Tanya: At any one given time we can have between
200-300 courses in the production process
| | 01:46 | at various stages, and each course is made
up of anywhere between 5 and 100 individual
| | 01:52 | movies, and we need that many projects and
courses going through the production process
| | 01:57 | so that we can have a steady
stream of programming for our members.
| | 02:00 | The content team is responsible for analyzing
the market and analyzing our members to determine
| | 02:06 | what content we should be producing, and then
the production team is responsible for creating
| | 02:12 | and developing that content
through the production process.
| | 02:15 | Michael Ninness: We get asked a lot,
"What makes lynda.com different?"
| | 02:18 | And I think what we've focused on to make
sure that we are always staying true to our
| | 02:21 | mission is what we call the Three Cs.
| | 02:22 | When it comes to teaching, we focus on
Conviction, Choreography, and Compassion.
| | 02:28 | What I mean by the conviction part is we choose
experts in their field that happen to be amazing teachers.
| | 02:33 | We don't just use people who are trainers.
| | 02:35 | You know, they're working professionals in
their field, and that conviction of their
| | 02:39 | knowledge and their expertise
comes through in the teaching.
| | 02:41 | J. Chris Griffin: I have been a music producer or a record
producer for 20 years, and I have worked with
| | 02:46 | artists like Madonna and Kelly Clarkson and
Propellerhead's Reason is one of the main
| | 02:50 | software packages that I use.
| | 02:52 | I have been using Reason forever, and I am one
of the sound designers for it back in Stockholm.
| | 02:56 | I did a couple of auditions for them.
| | 02:58 | They liked what they saw,
and they called me out.
| | 03:01 | Michael: A choreography piece is really key.
| | 03:03 | It's designing instructional content that
meets the learner where they are at, and it
| | 03:08 | doesn't assume any prior knowledge,
doesn't talk down to them, doesn't make them feel
| | 03:12 | stupid, and convinces them through the natural
instruction that they actually can learn this.
| | 03:16 | Tanya: Once we made the decision that we are
going to produce the course, our content team
| | 03:20 | partners a producer with our author, and they're
really responsible for developing the content together.
| | 03:27 | It's collaboration between the two.
| | 03:29 | We have the author who brings real-world expertise,
and we have the producer who brings instructional
| | 03:34 | design and an understanding of the video medium.
| | 03:37 | Chris: There is an enormous amount of behind-
the-scenes work that goes on here at Lynda.
| | 03:41 | I mean, it's not all just filming
and just kind of doing the course.
| | 03:46 | There is some preparation and knowing how to
format your course and knowing what to talk about when.
| | 03:52 | The staff here, my producer that I've been
working with has been invaluable helping me
| | 03:56 | to get that done, because he knows kind of
the format, and he knows how it should lay out.
| | 04:01 | He's telling me all these tricks.
| | 04:02 | When I get hung up on a word or a phrase that I
need to use, he's right there for me, it's amazing.
| | 04:08 | Michael: And finally, that compassionate piece,
really meeting the learner where they are at.
| | 04:12 | So the conviction, the choreography, and the
compassion really come together to form that
| | 04:16 | secret sauce for our content.
| | 04:18 | Tanya: Once the author and the producer have zeroed
in on how they are going to teach the course,
| | 04:23 | and they're ready for recording, then we go into production,
and production can look like a number of things:
| | 04:27 | they could be in the booth
recording screen capture.
| | 04:29 | they could be on one of our stages shooting live action,
they could be in the field shooting live action.
| | 04:35 | Once the recording is complete, then we go into post-
production, and that's really a collaboration between the author,
| | 04:40 | the producer, the editing team and then our
design team, which is made up of motion graphics
| | 04:46 | designers and animators, and they're really focused
on what is the best way to teach complex concepts.
| | 04:53 | How can we illustrate that in the most
simple and easy-to-understand fashion?
| | 04:59 | Lorrie Thomas Ross: I was amazed when I walked on set
for the first time, seeing what goes on behind
| | 05:05 | the scenes, from the lighting to the
equipment to the multiple people who are part of the
| | 05:11 | production process to the graphic designers,
creating assets and visuals to support what I'm saying.
| | 05:16 | So many hands go into the process.
So much passion goes into the process.
| | 05:21 | I mean, these are artists and scientists in
their respective fields coming together for
| | 05:26 | pre-production, production, and post-
production to give members of the lynda.com community
| | 05:32 | the educational quality content
that they're able to learn from.
| | 05:36 | Tanya: A lot of our courses are based on technology
and software tools, which means that our speed
| | 05:41 | to market needs to be very quick.
| | 05:43 | Our members expect that when a new version
of a software application comes out, we are
| | 05:47 | going to have that training day and
date of release or very shortly after.
| | 05:51 | So over the years we've worked really hard
to optimize our production process so that
| | 05:55 | we can move courses through the pipeline in
days or weeks so that we are releasing our
| | 06:01 | contents in a timely fashion for our members.
| | 06:03 | What I love about the content in the production
teams is the passion that people bring to work every day.
| | 06:10 | They come to work wanting to make the best
content that they can make for the member.
| | 06:16 | And that is through a passion for education,
it's for a passion for technology and the
| | 06:21 | tools and the topics that we teach, and it's
a passion for collaborating with each other
| | 06:26 | and with the authors that we get to work with.
| | 06:28 | Cynthia: The secret about lynda.com is we
are kind of creating poetry of education.
| | 06:33 | We are aiming for artistic and technical expertise,
quality, the ability to create content that
| | 06:41 | will really help people in their lives.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The future vision| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:06 | Lynda Weinman: Well, I think education in general is
still based on a very old 19th to 20th century
| | 00:14 | model that you have a teacher in front of
a classroom, and you know, all the students
| | 00:18 | listen to the same lecture and go
home do their homework, take a test.
| | 00:22 | That's how we measure their success.
| | 00:25 | And the Internet has really just changed how
education can be distributed, and we're living proof of that.
| | 00:33 | We've watched, you know, technology
change and transform so many industries.
| | 00:38 | The way we shop, the way we date, the way we bank, it really
hasn't transformed education yet, but it's going to.
| | 00:46 | And I think we are an
example of how that is possible.
| | 00:51 | And I'm really proud of the fact that we really
offer sort of this flexible learning environment
| | 00:57 | where you can come in, just answer a single question,
or you can learn something from scratch and go deep.
| | 01:03 | Eric Robison: Education is really changing.
| | 01:05 | There is much more need for lifelong learning,
that you have to continue to update your skills,
| | 01:11 | and that you have to be
practical with the skills that you learn.
| | 01:14 | It's a very competitive workplace out
there, but also it's very complicated.
| | 01:17 | The skills--the diversity of the skills you
need today to be successful in a job, it just
| | 01:22 | continues to get more and more complicated.
| | 01:25 | Bruce Heavin: No matter how many courses we do,
we just don't seem to be able to do enough.
| | 01:31 | And I really see a future, a vision, where we're
going to be doing a lot more than we're doing today.
| | 01:37 | Today, this year, we're doing more than one course per
day, and it's going to end in about 370 courses or more.
| | 01:45 | And I really see a future
where we really cover the depths.
| | 01:50 | So, people that really want to get involved
in the subject, really have a good deal, a ways to go.
| | 01:57 | We also look to grow our platform and look
at what we could do with technology
| | 02:01 | to grow the ability of instruction.
What is the best learning environment?
| | 02:07 | What is the best way to find what you're looking for,
to search, to find, to browse, to stumble, you know?
| | 02:13 | How can we--how can we satisfy curiosity?
| | 02:16 | Michael Ninness: As I think about the future and the
opportunity that we have to provide even more value to
| | 02:20 | our members and future members--and we're
living in pretty special times, the convergence
| | 02:25 | of media, the access of the Internet, the
mobile device explosion--and I think we have
| | 02:30 | this unique opportunity to really create a
platform that meets people where they are
| | 02:34 | at, to have continuous learning in their pocket.
| | 02:37 | And even more than in terms of the content
areas, we have a unique ability to create
| | 02:41 | content and teach people the skills that
the schools are just completely missing.
| | 02:45 | You think about life skills and business
skills and design and thinking, those are really
| | 02:49 | untabbed markets, and I think you're going
to see lynda.com truly focusing on those areas
| | 02:54 | to broaden our reach beyond just software tools.
| | 02:57 | Lynda: And so we know that this is a powerful idea
and that we're still in the infancy of this idea.
| | 03:02 | There are a lot of things that we
want to do to improve our service.
| | 03:06 | We have ideas that will take us years to
accomplish, but we're many ideas farther along than what
| | 03:13 | people yet see, and not only in terms of
growing our own delivery platform and our own content,
| | 03:20 | but also the scale and the scope and the reach.
| | 03:24 | So we are interested in taking lynda.com
international, in localizing to many different languages.
| | 03:34 | We think what the Internet
does is it democratizes education.
| | 03:38 | That technology is transforming our lives
and that we can use technology for positive
| | 03:44 | purposes and really advance our culture, advance
ourself, advance our world, change our world for the better.
| | 03:52 | And so we see that as our mission, and
we're not anywhere close to being done.
| | 03:57 | Erik Tarkiainen: As the company grows, our
brand will continue to evolve with it.
| | 04:01 | You know, as we enter international markets,
as we explore different courses and different
| | 04:07 | subjects, our brand will have to
change to accommodate that, you know?
| | 04:11 | At the same time, though, the core of it,
our principles, our values will have to stay
| | 04:16 | the same and be consistent and be authentic.
| | 04:19 | Monetta Williams: Great companies attract great people,
and moving into the global market, we're going
| | 04:25 | to continue to attract even more
talent internationally and domestically.
| | 04:29 | Michael Schaeman: As for the future, we see companies really
focusing on their greatest asset, and that is their people.
| | 04:36 | They want to have their people access learning
content at their fingertips anytime, anywhere.
| | 04:43 | And whether it's a product like lyndaCampus,
whether it's a product like lyndaEnterprise,
| | 04:48 | whether it's accessibility on any mobile device
anywhere, they see this as being the future for E-learning.
| | 04:55 | Lynda: I don't think anybody can really
imagine how much potential we really have because
| | 05:04 | it's on a scale that's unprecedented, you know?
To be able to create something and distribute
| | 05:12 | it to anyone in the world
has never been possible before.
| | 05:17 | And so, I know even though we've been at this for 17 years
that we're still in the infancy of what we're doing.
| | 05:24 | Bruce: I think to see it and to hear it and to do
it is the best way to learn it and retain it.
| | 05:31 | And now I think with the advent of all of
these devices and screens that we're going
| | 05:37 | to be able to see a whole new future in a whole new
direction, where education can go into whole new places.
| | 05:43 | We've never seen that before.
| | 05:44 | And that to me, is exciting,
and lynda.com is going to be there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lynda's profile| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:08 | Lynda Weinman: Well, my mom always describes me as a
precocious kid, and I loved school and I loved
| | 00:15 | learning and I was a straight-A student.
| | 00:17 | I did very, very well in school until my
parents got divorced, and I just kind of slipped into
| | 00:25 | apathy and probably a little depression,
and suddenly school didn't resonate for me at all
| | 00:31 | and I just stopped caring.
| | 00:33 | By the time I was in high school, I was very
disenchanted and disengaged, and I happened
| | 00:39 | to stumble upon a book called Summerhill,
which is out of print today, but it described
| | 00:44 | a type of school that was very
different from the public school I had been to.
| | 00:49 | And the premise was that you would offer a
lot of great classes and allow students to
| | 00:54 | pick what subjects they wanted to
take, rather than having prerequisites.
| | 00:59 | And I was so enamored with this idea that
I found a school like this, and my parents
| | 01:05 | couldn't afford to send me to private school.
| | 01:07 | So I actually worked at a hot dog stand,
and I convinced the schoolmaster to let me go
| | 01:11 | to school on my hot dog stand
income, which was about $80 a month.
| | 01:18 | Anyway, I was really kind
of reborn at this school.
| | 01:22 | I thought this type of education
would work for me, and it did.
| | 01:26 | And I found myself becoming curious again,
becoming interested again, and I think it
| | 01:32 | instilled this passion for lifelong learning.
| | 01:36 | And one of the premises behind this idea is
that if you can choose what it is that you
| | 01:42 | want to learn and you are passionate about
the subject, that you'll become better at
| | 01:47 | it than you might be if you were
being forced to learn something.
| | 01:51 | And I think this type of education really
influenced lynda.com in that we believe so
| | 01:57 | strongly in the power of a library, the power
that, you know, you offer the great learning
| | 02:03 | materials, and it's not for you to presume
where people should start and end, that if
| | 02:10 | somebody is already expert they can skip
ahead to the advanced section, if somebody is new,
| | 02:15 | they can study it over and over again.
| | 02:19 | And I think that what I feel so fortunate
about my early education is that it encouraged
| | 02:26 | me to find my passion and to pursue it, and I
feel so lucky that what I do as my profession
| | 02:36 | is what I love to do.
It would be my hobby.
| | 02:38 | When people say, "What is your hobby?"
| | 02:40 | I can't really say anything
different than what I already do.
| | 02:44 | And I wish that for more people, that I see
so many people who seem to not feel that they
| | 02:51 | have the option to follow their
dreams and follow their passion.
| | 02:54 | So I would love to believe that lynda.com is maybe
a steppingstone for others to find their passion.
| | 03:00 | When I graduated from college, I had a friend
who is an animator, and he invited me to come
| | 03:09 | be his assistant, and that
was how I learned animation.
| | 03:13 | And I ended up working in the film industry
for a number of years, and that was when I
| | 03:17 | first discovered the computer.
| | 03:20 | And when I started to teach myself computer and
computer graphics, I was also interested in animation.
| | 03:26 | So I was actually at the forefront of animation
on personal computers, just sort of by following
| | 03:33 | my own interests and my passion and the
industry that I was already working in.
| | 03:38 | And I got invited to give a lecture at a
college on some of the work that I had been doing
| | 03:42 | on personal computer with animation, and
I just realized that I was born to teach.
| | 03:48 | I mean, it wasn't a profession I had ever
considered, but I gave this lecture and a
| | 03:54 | day later I got a phone call asking if I would
come teach permanently at this college, which
| | 04:00 | was Art Center College of Design.
| | 04:02 | When I was teaching at Art Center, I
discovered the Internet for the first time and I just
| | 04:07 | sort of was thunderstruck by it and I knew that
it was going to have this huge impact on the world.
| | 04:14 | And I realized that I had the exact right
skill sets to teach people how to use it in
| | 04:22 | that I had already been a teacher, I had already
written curriculum, I had written magazine articles,
| | 04:27 | I knew how to research a subject that I knew
nothing about, and I just took it upon myself
| | 04:33 | to get this book into the world.
| | 04:36 | I just felt this incredible pressure that
so many people needed to know how to create
| | 04:41 | websites and that it was
such an important thing.
| | 04:46 | So when I did end up writing the book and
it became way more successful than I could
| | 04:52 | have ever imagined, it was sort of addictive.
| | 04:55 | I realized being able to touch that many people,
all of these hundreds of thousands of people
| | 05:01 | that were buying this book was, to me, a
little bit more gratifying than reaching maybe the
| | 05:06 | 80 students that I was
reaching a year at Art Center.
| | 05:10 | And so I made the really tough decision to
leave the school, because I loved teaching
| | 05:14 | there, and then when Bruce and I started our
school and the company and we started writing
| | 05:21 | other books and making videos and
eventually launching the online video version of the
| | 05:27 | library today, I just don't think that it
could have ever been imagined to have the
| | 05:33 | kind of reach that a single person
could have before the Internet age.
| | 05:41 | Tanya Staples: What I love about Lynda is that at her
heart she is a teacher and she is an educator
| | 05:47 | and that manifests itself
throughout the entire organization.
| | 05:51 | Of course, in our training she has the set the pedagogical
vision and the educational standard for our content.
| | 05:57 | But because she's focused so much of her
career on how to make complex things simple, that
| | 06:04 | leads into so many other areas of our business.
| | 06:07 | Whether it be marketing, whether it
be customer service, whether it be sales,
| | 06:10 | that, that need to make things simple and easy
for people to understand and that heart
| | 06:18 | of a teacher is what comes
through in everything that Lynda does.
| | 06:21 | Ramey McCullough: Lynda is an amazing person.
| | 06:24 | She is warm, friendly, caring,
giving, and she loves education.
| | 06:30 | She wants to educate people.
I think she's the heart of lynda.com.
| | 06:33 | Lynda: It's not only me. I realize that the website
bears my name and that I may get far too much
| | 06:41 | credit for it, because it's now a team of
people, hundreds of people, hundreds of other
| | 06:47 | contributors, authors, and millions of
members who are making up lynda.com, and it's really
| | 06:53 | become a life force that's so much bigger than I
could have ever imagined and so much bigger than me.
| | 06:59 | But it is my pride and joy,
and I love being a part of it.
| | 07:04 | Eric Robison: I felt like I've known Lynda for years.
I've only known her for five years.
| | 07:08 | I feel like I've known her for 20 years.
| | 07:11 | She has that type of warmth, that type of
interaction with people that really has her
| | 07:18 | passion permeate everything that we do.
| | 07:21 | Lynda: A lot of people always ask me,
"Isn't it hard to work with your husband?"
| | 07:24 | and, "Do you bring work home with you?"
And we do bring work home with us.
| | 07:30 | We live, breathe, sleep, dream
lynda.com, but I feel so fortunate.
| | 07:35 | There aren't very many married couples who
get to build something like this together,
| | 07:39 | and it's actually a real joy to work together.
| | 07:41 | Bruce Heavin: Lynda, the thing that drives Lynda,
she's passionate, and she's in love, and she is
| | 07:48 | stubborn when it comes to
education and technology.
| | 07:52 | She knows exactly what she wants, she knows
exactly where she wants it to go, and I believe
| | 07:59 | she wants it so badly that she is wanting
to push everything to the sides and she just
| | 08:04 | opens everything up and I think that is
one of the biggest driving forces in her that
| | 08:11 | gets things done and why she does so
well and what drives lynda.com today.
| | 08:18 | Lynda: I believe so deeply in what we do, and
I think for so many people they are afraid.
| | 08:24 | They are afraid that they're not relevant,
they are afraid that they can't learn new
| | 08:28 | things, they're afraid that the world is
passing them by and they can't keep up with it, and
| | 08:34 | to create a resource that can give people
confidence and give them the tools that they
| | 08:40 | need to succeed, I can't really think of
anything bigger in life to have accomplished.
| | 08:47 | There's just no amount of gratitude that I
can express at how it feels to have stumbled
| | 08:57 | on this idea, been present in this revolutionary
time that we all live in and be in a position
| | 09:07 | to help so many people, and it's very addictive
and very hard to imagine doing anything else.
| | 09:15 | It's definitely my passion, it's definitely my love,
and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Bruce's profile| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:07 | Bruce Heavin: I had a really big passion for art
early on, and it stemmed from visiting my doctor.
| | 00:14 | Every time I came he'd take a urine sample,
a blood sample, and he would take a drawing
| | 00:21 | sample, and it wasn't until I was about
14 or 15 years old my doctor turned around
| | 00:27 | and handed me a little booklet he stapled together of all
my drawings through the years and he flipped through them
| | 00:34 | and he just showed me how much I've improved
and I did practice a lot before I went in.
| | 00:39 | In fact, I was very passionate
about it, so I just kept at it.
| | 00:43 | So I got this book back and I could see my
progress and it was very evident and it made
| | 00:49 | me really believe in myself and it gave me
the confidence that I had a way of expressing
| | 00:55 | myself through energy, through
drawing, and through symbolism.
| | 01:00 | Tanya Staples: Having worked with Bruce for many
years, what continues to amaze me is the number of
| | 01:08 | new ideas he brings to the table.
He is a conveyor belt of ideas.
| | 01:15 | Every day he comes to the office with new
ways of thinking about things and new ways
| | 01:19 | to approach things, and that
really helps drive the business forward.
| | 01:23 | Bruce: I studied for years.
I went to Art Center College of Design.
| | 01:27 | Art was really about communication, it was
about getting ideas across, it was about how
| | 01:32 | do you communicate to the masses, but it
was really illustration, editorial illustration
| | 01:36 | where I really had my true love.
| | 01:39 | I just remember loving doing
magazine articles and album covers.
| | 01:45 | But it was always the editorial
pieces where my heart was really at.
| | 01:49 | The one that didn't pay well where I got 50
bucks for a piece, because it was truly the
| | 01:56 | place where I could really talk about my point
of view in an article alongside the author.
| | 02:03 | I always found that to be
fascinating and fun and challenging.
| | 02:06 | Lynda Weinman: Bruce is a very unusual person.
You know, I've never met anyone like Bruce.
| | 02:11 | He thinks in a different way.
| | 02:13 | He sees the world differently, and he's so
creative and such a big thinker that he
| | 02:21 | just stimulates me all the time.
| | 02:22 | He's always challenging my ideas, sometimes,
you know, in a way where he's questioning me,
| | 02:29 | but most of the time in the way where he's
just stimulating me to think in a new way.
| | 02:35 | And I think he does that for the entire company.
| | 02:37 | I think we all view Bruce as
the creative genius of lynda.com.
| | 02:41 | Michael Schaeman: What I love about Bruce is his passion
for exceeding the expectation of the learner.
| | 02:49 | Every time they view a course, he wants
them to be blown away by that experience.
| | 02:53 | Bruce: It was in third grade, I
guess I got in trouble a lot in class.
| | 02:59 | I didn't pay much attention,
had a teacher named Mrs. Spit,
| | 03:03 | and years later I found out by finding
an old report card, she wrote on it,
| | 03:10 | "Bruce doesn't pay attention in class.
| | 03:12 | He often daydreams, and Bruce
can't tell fantasy from reality."
| | 03:18 | I thought that was really cool and cool
because it's what an entrepreneur does, it's what
| | 03:26 | you do, it's--you go from an
idea and you make it real.
| | 03:31 | You go from fantasy to reality, and there is
something beautiful about that and making it happen.
| | 03:37 | It's one thing just to dream all the time,
it's another thing that to pursue it to the
| | 03:42 | end, to where you can get there.
| | 03:44 | And I think that's a lot of what lynda.com
is about is really having these dreams of
| | 03:49 | what we could do with education and teaching, and
how do we--how do we go from here to here in thin air?
| | 03:57 | How do we connect them?
How do we connect media?
| | 03:59 | How do we connect people?
How do we connect students?
| | 04:02 | How do we connect educators?
| | 04:04 | And that's been a real fun
challenge, and I enjoy that.
| | 04:09 | I enjoy seeing that happen.
I enjoy seeing it come to fruition.
| | 04:12 | Erik Tarkiainen: So Bruce is really the
creative inspiration at the company.
| | 04:17 | He is my partner in branding, he is very
involved in all of the details and looking over our
| | 04:24 | identity, making sure that it's authentic
and consistent and true to who we are, and
| | 04:30 | the great thing about working with him is at
the same time that he's ensuring that consistency
| | 04:36 | and that alignment in our brand, he's also pushing
us to evolve and extend it and challenge ourselves.
| | 04:42 | Bruce: I think I have one of the
more interesting roles at lynda.com.
| | 04:47 | I actually don't exist well on a work chart.
| | 04:50 | I have all these invisible
dotted lines to me, I guess.
| | 04:53 | But what I really enjoy doing is looking
around, and I enjoy crafting the experience,
| | 04:59 | and I enjoy challenging what we do.
| | 05:02 | I enjoy looking at where we are moving.
I enjoy listening to our customers.
| | 05:07 | I enjoy looking at technology
and playing with technology.
| | 05:11 | I'm constantly playing with the new gadget, gizmo,
camera, device, computer, it's just constantly what can we do?
| | 05:19 | Can we use this?
Can we push it forward?
| | 05:21 | And then finally, if something just clicks, if
it's actually smart, if it's actually really
| | 05:27 | good and actually well thought
through, that's what we act on.
| | 05:31 | That's what we move towards.
| | 05:33 | We look for that little
idea that moves us forward.
| | 05:36 | Eric Robison: I've never seen anyone do
presentations like Bruce does presentations.
| | 05:41 | He's just got this genius in
approach that's unlike other folks.
| | 05:47 | I really enjoy my time with him.
| | 05:49 | His creative background as an illustrator,
I think, is so important to the company
| | 05:55 | and the design of the site.
| | 05:57 | He has so much influence in the look, the feel,
and the branding that we've achieved here.
| | 06:03 | Michael Ninness: What's interesting about Bruce is
his drive for excellence and his attention to
| | 06:09 | detail and his fundamental
belief that details matter.
| | 06:12 | So when you think about the member experience,
the site that we offer, the features that
| | 06:17 | we want to build, none of us are actually
satisfied with the status quo, and a lot of
| | 06:21 | that is driven from Bruce's
desire to always strive for better.
| | 06:25 | Bruce: I kind of look at lynda.com in our business,
almost like I look at a game and how do you master it?
| | 06:31 | How do you economize on it?
How do you make it better?
| | 06:35 | How do you make the education better?
How do you make the results better?
| | 06:37 | I think it's one thing to say we should do
more courses, it's another thing to say we
| | 06:42 | should reevaluate ourselves and really look
at how we're going to go change education.
| | 06:47 | That's what I'm excited about is just with
all the new devices today, what we can play
| | 06:52 | with, what we can see, what
we can do, and where we can go.
| | 06:57 | And I always, always have
my ear open, my eyes open.
| | 07:02 | I'm always looking around, and I'm looking to see
what could change and what stays the same,
| | 07:10 | because not everything has to change.
| | 07:13 | But I do believe that to operate a company
like this, I myself have to change, to grow
| | 07:21 | with it, to learn, because I think when you're not
learning, you are actually in the state of dying.
| | 07:29 | I think learning is fundamental to
pushing you and your career forward.
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| Eric's profile| 00:01 | (music playing)
| | 00:06 | Eric Robison: I started my career about 30 years ago,
working--starting, actually, in advertising--
| | 00:11 | working on brands like Coca-Cola and Microsoft.
| | 00:14 | These were the early days of Microsoft when
they were just beginning advertising, then
| | 00:19 | transitioned into broader business initiatives
and having a chance to work in the film business
| | 00:25 | as a film producer, working for Paul Allen
in Venture Financing, also working with him
| | 00:32 | on Experience Music Project.
About that time I started serving on boards.
| | 00:36 | I have been on five public company boards
and about 15 private company boards, and that's
| | 00:42 | been a great experience because I get to
see as an insider gets to see on the board all
| | 00:46 | of the good and the bad with growth of a company
and all those learning experiences which really
| | 00:52 | lead me to today, being able to apply those experiences
to our growth opportunities and our growth challenges.
| | 00:59 | Bruce Heavin: The MBA I never had is
what I'm learning today from Eric.
| | 01:05 | Eric is really giving me a grand education
in learning on how businesses work, on how
| | 01:13 | companies work, but not just how they work, how
they work effectively and how to manage effectively.
| | 01:19 | And I think it's the guidance of Eric that
has really helped us do well and attract the
| | 01:24 | right people to build a
surprising company within lynda.com.
| | 01:29 | Eric: Back in 2007, I was consulting with companies
and serving on probably four boards at the time.
| | 01:37 | I met Lynda and Bruce through mutual friends,
and they were looking for help with where
| | 01:41 | to take lynda.com as far as a next step, and
they were growing incredibly fast, incredibly
| | 01:47 | successful, and they knew they needed some
additional help, some additional adviser help.
| | 01:52 | I met them in October 2007, and January 1st,
2008, I was here full time, no intent to go
| | 01:58 | back into a company again full time
because I really enjoyed consulting.
| | 02:02 | But it was such an amazing opportunity to
work with Lynda, with Bruce and this company,
| | 02:09 | and you know, I have never looked back.
| | 02:10 | Lynda Weinman: I'm so grateful that we met Eric.
| | 02:14 | I think we found a needle in a haystack
when he came into our life, and you know, Eric
| | 02:20 | has this great ability to be both business
savvy yet very creative and very open to new
| | 02:28 | ideas and adaptable and sensitive, and I just
don't really think there are very many other
| | 02:36 | people who could have filled his shoes and
grown the company with us the way that he has.
| | 02:42 | Eric: In my role of CEO, I help provide
business insight and perspective, and I think that
| | 02:48 | that's in part gained from all the years that I spent working
with companies through a variety of growth situations.
| | 02:55 | Another part of my role here is working with
the team that we have and attracting the right
| | 03:01 | team, and we spent a lot of time both looking
at the skills someone has, but also how they
| | 03:06 | fit into the culture of the organization.
| | 03:08 | And we are a business about people, and if I
can help people realize their full potential
| | 03:14 | through mentoring and coaching them, then
our company has that opportunity for growth.
| | 03:19 | Jacqui Burge: He acts like a mentor in so many ways.
| | 03:23 | He gives you a project, and you have
a complete ownership of the project.
| | 03:26 | If you feel like that trust creates a very
great relationship where you can learn a lot,
| | 03:30 | where you are also have incredible accountability.
You really get to learn when you work with Eric.
| | 03:34 | Eric: There is a couple of things that I
really love about my job, first is I get to work
| | 03:38 | with incredible people: Lynda,
Bruce, the Senior Management Team.
| | 03:43 | Really, frankly, everyone here at the company
is just an amazing group of people to work with.
| | 03:47 | It's a group of people that are very,
very passionate about the product.
| | 03:51 | It's not often you get to work for a company
that has a product that changes people's lives
| | 03:56 | the way we change people's lives.
| | 03:58 | Cynthia Scott: Eric's guidance has
been awesome for this company.
| | 04:01 | He has just been a driving force in our success, in our
future, and it's thrilling to be with all three of them.
| | 04:08 | Michael Schaeman: Eric has the extraordinary ability to
build great teams and great companies are
| | 04:14 | built by great people and Eric has
really built an amazing team at lynda.com.
| | 04:20 | Eric: I spent a number of years teaching
music, primarily jazz, saxophone and flute.
| | 04:26 | Music has really helped me a lot in business in
one: it's just a great relief from a stressful day,
| | 04:31 | but also there are some
really good lessons of music.
| | 04:34 | When you're playing a solo, it's oftentimes
notes you leave out, the notes that would
| | 04:39 | otherwise get in the way of what you're
trying to communicate and allows you to focus on
| | 04:44 | the notes that are really, really important.
| | 04:46 | The notes that really tell the story,
notes that create that arc of communication.
| | 04:53 | In business, it's not only about what you
do, but it's also about what you don't do,
| | 04:58 | and music is very much like that.
| | 05:00 | We have to collaborate.
We have to always listen.
| | 05:02 | Michael Ninness: You know, there is something about Eric
that I've learned personally in my role as
| | 05:06 | a leader here and just always learning myself.
| | 05:09 | You know, things can get
pretty crazy in a company like ours.
| | 05:12 | We're growing very quickly, we continue to
grow, but what Eric brings to the table is
| | 05:17 | that long-term vision, that poise.
| | 05:19 | One of my favorite quotes from him is, you know, we
are not running a sprint, we're running a marathon.
| | 05:25 | And that really helps us focus on what's
important in that long-term goal and getting there,
| | 05:29 | not getting caught up in the angst in the
fire of today, but really keeping your focus
| | 05:34 | on where you want to be in 2, 3, 4, 5 years.
| | 05:37 | Eric: I feel really fortunate and grateful to be
partnered with Lynda and Bruce on this business.
| | 05:43 | I think the three of us together have an
unusual set of backgrounds that just work.
| | 05:50 | Every Tuesday we get together for a pretty
extensive meeting, talking through the business.
| | 05:55 | It doesn't mean we also get together
almost every day in some form or fashion, but we
| | 06:00 | work together in a manner where there's
interaction, communication, and this diversity, again,
| | 06:06 | that we all bring to how we run the business.
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