Bittersweet thoughts as Lynda.com site shuts down.

This week is bittersweet for me, Lynda.com is fully migrated to LinkedIn Learning, we flipped the switch on June 1st. Traffic to the old Lynda.com domain is now redirected to LinkedIn Learning. My association with Lynda started 11 years ago, there are so many good memories associated with the company and its people. I’m excited for what we have coming at LinkedIn Learning, but I won’t lie, it’s sad to say goodbye to Lynda.com.

Lynda wants me to create an online course.

My first course for Lynda.com was published in 2010, this was the time when they published courses online and on DVD’s. Yes, I still have my DVDs on my bookcase.

It all started with a phone call. I was working in Alabama that week, teaching a WPF course for a client.

David Gassner, who was working as a content manager at the time, called me and explained he was looking for an instructor to create Silverlight content. Silverlight, at that time, was a popular Microsoft application framework for creating “rich” internet and mobile applications. I’d been approached by book publishers about doing a Silverlight book, but wasn’t sure I wanted to take on that responsibility, this was the first time someone at a reputable company talked to me about video publishing.

I’d never heard of Lynda.com, but I knew that online training had potential and it was an area I wanted to explore. David explained how courses were published and the royalty model. He followed up with an email (which I found in the archives).

My name is David Gassner and I work as a Content Manager at lynda.com, with a focus on expanding the range of training for the developer crowd. Toby Malina, who works with me at lynda.com, gave me your contact details – she’s seen you speak at VSLive, and recommended you for both for your presentation skills and technical knowledge.

We are a video-based training provider with a very successful Online Training Library subscription service. We currently have a video series on Silverlight application development that was created for Silverlight 1, and we’re interested in creating a new version of that series for the recently released Silverlight 3. We’d like to consider you as an author candidate for this and other Microsoft development subjects.

Our approach is much like writing a book, but the end result is video based. The work is much less drawn out then when working on a book. Recording only takes one week. We handle all production in house in our California studio, pay for all expenses involved and provide you with a monthly royalty revenue share…

David Gassner Content Manager, Developer Titles, lynda.com

David, who is now my manager at LinkedIn Learning, offered me a free subscription so I could check out the courses. I was stunned, the content was so good, it was well crafted, the production values were very high. It wasn’t like the piecemeal content I had seen at other “online training sites”. Plus, the variety of topics was appealing, at that time Lynda was the premier destination for creatives. Their legendary Photoshop and Adobe courses were interesting, I appreciated how the content was presented. Their photography content was so remarkable that I spent hours watching it, even though I wasn’t much of a photographer. They even had a documentary team profiling interesting people in the creative world.

The tech library was small however, I was to be part of the new push to build a library of compelling content for the tech library.

I’m an Author, now what?

I signed the contract and flew to Ventura California to record my first course a few months later. The onsite experience was amazing. Once again, I was bowled over by their attention to detail, and how they treated their contractors. It was a first-class experience, from the time I stepped off the plane in California to the moment I left the recording studios on the last day.

I worked closely with my producer Nick Brazzi (now a fellow staff instructor on our content team), he guided me through the process, helping me understand how teaching in a screen cast is different from teaching in a classroom or conference setting. He taught me patience, explained that long pauses during a take can be edited out of the final video, that it’s okay to make a mistake, just do it in a way that can be fixed in post-production. To stop wiggling the mouse, to make it easier for the editors to snip out sections that need fixing.

One morning we went over to the live action stages to record the welcome video. It really was bright lights, makeup, camera crews and a director to manage the shoot. They even had a prop department and set building crew available. We didn’t use them on my video, but I saw the sets they’d created for other courses filming the same week. Wow. A few hours later we had the footage for the two-minute intro video.

Production time

After seven intense days I was done and went home. Now the Lynda production team took over. They cleaned up the audio, made me sound intelligent, created beautiful graphics to enhance my slides. The final product, eight and half hours of content, was released on DVD, and streamed on the website about a month after I flew home.

Recording that first course was such a positive experience that I couldn’t wait to do more for them. I recorded another 5 courses as a contract author. Then another opportunity appeared. LinkedIn bought Lynda, and shortly after that deal closed, I joined as a full-time employee in 2015. Since then, I have created another 70 courses for our library.

Final Thoughts

Lynda.com was an amazing company, really striving to make learning useful and approachable to their members. Don’t get me wrong, LinkedIn Learning is a fabulous place to work. We are continuing the tradition yet modernizing it to fit into the LinkedIn ecosystem. We’ve grown, but there are many Lynda team members working here, still striving to make our learning content the best it can be.

We still follow the same model with our contract instructors, recording in Carpinteria California and Graz Austria (when the pandemic allows). We’ve doubled the number live actions stages since my first trip and expanded our campus many times. The tech library that was getting started in 2010 is now a huge part of our catalog. I found a spot in the company that fits my skills and lets me chart my own path forward.

And yet, I’m a little sad this week, as we sunset the Lynda.com site, the last visual remnant of the Lynda legacy. My eyes are a bit misty as we see it fade away and we prepare the servers for final shutdown.

Farewell…