Applying the cube to Lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/
Lynda.com is a major provider of online training. They offer prepackaged video and interactive tutorials for nearly all of the popular software applications that are used in the design and development environments. This ranges from basic lessons in writing a Word document, to complex and intricate lessons on texture and lighting in 3-D modeling applications.
Face 1: Market Focus
Because Lynda.com has so many resources that cover so many applications, they have a very broad market focus. They mainly differentiate the markets based on pricing and access to their resources. For instance, public schools would most likely invest in a few lessons for the applications that they use, but at a multi-user price point. Higher education and corporations may look at larger site licenses, or they may opt to have the end users purchase only what they need.
Face 2: Types of Offerings
Lynda’s offerings are mainly pre-packaged content, either available online subscription or by purchasing hard copies of the software or videos.
Face 3: Who is the Buyer?
Again, because of the large market focus, there are many types of buyers. Single package licenses are available for individual learners, right up to large corporate site licenses, where all employees have access to all of the available resources on company computers.
Face 4 – Global Markets
As they are produced in English, the main users of Lynda’s resources would be wired Anglophone countries, European countries with language skills, and possibly, thanks to the closed captioning, European countries requiring translation.
Face 5 – Development of the Market
Lynda would fall under the category of “Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports.” It is assumed with this sort of resource that the market is always ready to accept the newest technologies, and that end-users will need training to run them effectively, or more importantly, competitively.
Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning
Because of its prepackaged nature, the resources that Lynda provides would be a substitute for other forms of learning. These tutorials and videos could be used in addition to other forms of instruction, but there would likely be a lot of redundancy. That being said, these resources may not meet the learning needs of everyone using them, so having a proficient instructor would be important for success, especially in that K-12 environment.
4 comments
1 David Vogt { 09.23.09 at 6:59 pm }
Thanks for this, Byron.
Your description makes me think that Lynda is unfocussed – too many products, too many markets, too many customers. Do you agree? Are they trying the shotgun approach (aim everywhere, see what hits, and follow that success), or do you feel they’re simply branching out aggressively from success in their initial markets and products?
2 Byron Kask { 09.24.09 at 8:17 am }
I’m not sure if unfocused is the best description as all of their resources are in the area of learning software. There is just a huge spectrum beneath that title, and they are trying to be the giant in that market niche.
The shotgun analogy seems appropriate, but I suspect that it’s part of their business model. I’m sure that they want to have as many software angles covered as possible to sell those corporate site licenses to high paying well-recognized lighthouse clients. I read the “about us” page, and they did get a fairly humble start, but branched out based on good early successes.
I suppose it’s like trying to be the Microsoft of learning support. They want to cover as many applications as possible to push out competition and make their product more attractive.
3 Ammar Al-Attiyat { 09.24.09 at 5:29 pm }
I didn’t deal with this company before, but I would assume that they have established a well-focused business model and their growth is well managed.
If you look at their “Call for Trainers” pages under “about us”, I assume they have a kind of agreement where they would invite subject matter experts to develop their content for a return (royalty) of sales, this will probably happen through a well-designed courseware development templates.
This way, Lynda would grow exponentially without investing in huge up front cash expenditure on resources.
4 Colin Cheng { 09.27.09 at 12:45 pm }
Byron,
I think you’ve chosen an excellent example of an e-learning product. While I’ve not used Lynda.com to a great extent, I am aware of the extensiveness of their products. The analogy that I would use is that it is trying to be the video version of the popular book series: ___ for Dummies with the blank being whatever software package you’re trying to learn. I would say that this product is designed more for the individual learner or the corporate end user rather than for students whether it is at the elementary, secondary or even university level.
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