Lynda.com is THE place to go for your “web” education

Mac Baby
Tales from the Expo
Artie Alinikoff
1-10-07

There are plenty of venders at the Macworld Conference and Expo, but I doubt there’s a more compelling success story than Lynda Weinman’s. Her site, Lynda.com is one of the fastest growing instructional sites on the web. As a matter of fact it’s one of the most comprehensive, too. Do you want to learn Photoshop CS2 and all of its possibilities? How about Aperture? Or Acrobat, Mask4 Pro, or Illustrator. If you want these lessons on CD or in book form they are certainly available. But the real beauty of Lynda.com is that for a small monthly fee, $25, you can use the site for any lesson, any time, for as long as you want. All the lessons are on QuickTime, and the resolution is excellent.

Online training is fast becoming the training of choice for individuals and companies alike. And why not. Even colleges are in on the action. We all know college students who have taken at least one on-line class. There must be something to it. And what it is is…convenience. Anytime, anyplace, as long as you need, and repeatable. No wonder on-line learning is growing by leaps and bounds.

Sometimes great things happen through accident. If necessity is the mother of invention then Lynda.com is a text book example of this truth.

Lynda Weinman is an educator. I mean that in the strictest sense of the word. She cares about people, especially her students. Sometime back in the 1990’s she decided that a web site dedicated to instructing her students in her graphic design class in Pasedena would help them understand the subject better. She was also into web design, but when she looked for publications with which to teach with she couldn’t find just the right one, so she wrote one.

Her students loved the concept. A book, and graphics on the web. What a project. Her classes became very popular. Then fate, happenstance, politics, idealism, fanaticism, caused our world to turn upside down. It was 9/11. After that tragedy people were afraid to fly. She began to lose the students who used to fly in for her classes. She had to find a way to get to them.

If her students liked the limited instruction she had at the time on the web would they take to full blown classes on the web? And that’s how Lynda.com got started. One course at a time, building over a period of years into one of the most popular instructional sites on the planet. As the site grew so did interest from other instructors. Experts from different fields became her friends, mentors, and family. The list of subject matter goes on and on to the tune of over 250 titles and growing bigger by the week. Instructors such as Michael Ninness and Deke McClelland expertly teach the techniques used in the real world by the professionals the student hopes to someday emulate.

The beauty of the way Lynda.com is set up is that anyone can become a member, and for $25 a month you get unlimited access to any and all classes. That means that you can stay as long as you like on one point, reviewing over and over at your leisure, and moving on at will when you feel you’ve “got it.” You can access these lessons 24 hours a day, every day, for a month. Try that at your local university. As far as I’m concerned that’s the best $25 you can spend. If you have to have a hard copy of any course the books and/or CDs are available for sale at fair market value.

At the time of this publication there are not only over 250 titles available, there are some 16,654 QuickTime videos for your perusal. That alone would keep any of us busy for a lifetime of classes. Remember, Lynda.com is growing fast. By the time you read this those numbers will have changed and it will be even more extensive. But not more expensive. Just a better deal. As far as this writer is concerned Lynda.com is one of the most cost-effective companies at the Macworld Conference and Expo this year.