May I ask why there hasn’t been a Java course released yet? May I ask do you have plans to release both a Java and/or a Google Adwords course? I like the idea of releasing titles a chapter at at time, but I am so far behind on all the other courses that it is going to be awhile before I get caught up to you! Thanks for all you guys do!

We work 100% for our members here, and so we want to always be exploring how we can evolve our production and publishing process to enable us to provide the training our members need and want in a more agile and quicker fashion. To that end, the poll and the comment discussion was very helpful. It verified that it isn’t an either/or, and helped inform us that for any given body of content, we should consider how we go about “packaging” the content so that it can be delivered to our members as quickly as possible.

For example, we will continue to publish New Features courses, day and date when a new software application or upgrade is released. We will continue to publish our Essential Training series as close to the release date of software as possible.

For the more intermediate to advanced topics, we will be trying out some new ideas this year. For example, we have a new series for intermediate to advanced Illustrator users coming out in the very near future, by our good friend Mordy Golding. Rather than publishing a single 20-hour course, we’ll be releasing a new 2-hour course every 6 to 8 weeks as Mordy completes them.

You may have noticed that we started a new weekly series format in January called Deke’s Techniques, were we publish 1 to 2 new video tutorials every week. These are Photoshop and Illustrator creative projects that can be done in 10 minutes or less.

At the end of the day, we realize that to truly serve the needs of our members, we can’t use a one size fits all approach. Some members prefer to start at the first video of a course and work their way through an 8 to 10 hour course one video at a time in linear fashion until they are done. Some simply look for the one video that answers the one question they have at that moment. And others aren’t looking for the answer to a specific question at all — they just want to be inspired. And still others do all of the above throughout any given month.

We’re just trying to make sure we live up to our promise that our platform and service truly allows our members to “learn at their own pace”.

Also, we really do appreciate that you take the time to tell others about lynda.com. We do indeed have an Affiliate Program where you can earn revenue when those you refer to us becoming a paying member. You can read more about the program here: http://www.lynda.com/partners/affiliates.aspx

Cheers,

Michael Ninness
VP of Content, lynda.com

However, if the course is one that’s teaching features about an already known topic, breaking that course up would be feasible and probably preferable.

Of course, I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who is “behind the times” so to speak. None of the stuff I’m learning is (less than a year) time sensitive.

For courses that are time sensitive, perhaps you can do short intros to new software? Like, for example, a short video on Photoshop CS5 new Content Aware feature within a week after CS5′s release.

Also, you could do demo videos of the software. Again, going with the old CS5 example, showing someone using photoshop cs5 and as all the new features happen, point them to where they can (or will be able to) learn how to do them. This would also help people to know what the programs do (so when my coworker talks about ProgramX I’ll have a basic idea of the type of work she is doing).