In case you haven’t heard, LinkedIn recently acquired an online educational learning portal, Lynda.com for a whopping $1.5 billion.
Another thing you don’t know, is that Lynda.com has been around since 1995, and was founded by Lynda Weinman and her spouse Bruce Heavin.
Lynda Weiman after whom the site is named is a self-taught computer expert, author, educator, and entrepreneur. Another thing you don’t know is how she grew her site into something that caught the eye of professional social media network, LinkedIn.
Lynda who is a web graphics and design expert, and the author of several best-selling books first taught herself how to use a computer in 1982! According to Lynda: “In 1982, my boyfriend at the time challenged me to help him with his new computer. I started to read the manual and was mortified by how it was written by engineers for other engineers, with no sensitivity to the uninitiated. I threw the manual away and started trying things. I realized through trial and error that I could teach myself, and remembered my steps as I learned new software and techniques.
Eventually my boyfriend complained that he became a computer widow, and I fell in love with all the new things I could do in ways that had never before been possible. As the computer era gained popularity, I started sharing what I taught myself with others, and after years of this “hobby” realized that I had a gift for simplifying technical instructions and had a true passion for teaching.”
Lynda’s passion for teaching inspired her to launch Lynda.com. She told Forbes in an interview that, “I realized instantly that my art students would need to know how to publish to this new medium and looked for a book to assign to them. As I browsed through the bookstore and considered the earliest books on HTML, it reminded me of reading that first computer manual.
All the books on web programming were written for programmers. I realized with my knack for teaching, love of sharing, and ability to learn new things that I should write a book for my students and other people who wanted to learn how to leverage this new communication medium. Unable to get a publisher to accept my book proposal, I wrote the book as magazine article instalments while I researched and shared web design techniques. A woman wrote to me who was [email protected], and that made me wonder if Lynda dot com was available. It was, I bought the domain name for 35.00, and lynda.com became my personal sand box to teach myself as I wrote the book.”
The success of Lynda’s book prompted her and her husband to quit their day jobs, launch a small web design school, and put their lessons online as videos.
Today, Lynda.com is the go-to learning site for Photoshop, HTML, CSS, management practices and several other subjects with tutorials and instructional videos.
And in case you’re wondering whether LinkedIn’s buy is a smart one, imagine how much cooler it will be if LinkedIn not only hooked you up with other professionals, but also provided you with the required skill set to get better jobs.
Thank you Lynda.