Talk of the Town

maybe tomorrow, maybe someday

now the last time I was at the University Club in Santa Barbara was for an event hosted by Clark Vandeventer.....remember Clark was running for some seat in California and wanted to discuss some things with Lois Capps in a public forum...but Lois didn't show up... ex- Carp Councilman Joe Armendariz was also Clark's guest and Clark gushed about how smart and savvy Joe was...that night was very weird to say the least but I did see some pretty young things...

http://santabarbaranewspressblogcom.blogspot.com/search?q=university+club

Clark of course is from Iowa or Idaho or some bibley place and he's a Christian and loves nonprofits and was president of the Young Miss America Foundation or something and Clark's dad is a minister and Clark wanted to spread Christian principals around California as a political Jesus figure...whew!!

now we know what happened to Joe...he kerplunked.... however, I will give credit to Joe for bagging #69! and Clark went off to become a blogger or something....still, I never could figure out what these two guys actually did for a living...

and this brings me to Lynda.com...what do Clark, Joe and Lynda have in common? the University Club, that's what!!

it seems that the founders of Lynda.com are being honored at the U-Club and the whole thing gives me the heebie-jeebies..first of all the chick Lynda looks like that society-fluff Erin Graffy gal with the weird glasses 'n all...

the University Club will give Lynda and her partner honorary memberships and honor them for their contributions to the Santa Barbara educational community...and future honorees will be Kathy Ireland and Paula Lopez....that's alot of honoring...Paula has been making like Houdini lately so who knows where she'll pop up next!! and I'm just gonna have to get into the Kathy Ireland gig somehow....

I'm not exactly Einstein but I have never needed Lynda.com to learn anything...early morning sunshine tells me all I need to know..and they apparently give you access to online educational materials and honestly I can't figure out their business model or how in the world they can make hundreds of millions of dollars!! oh wait, according to the Ventura County Star, they raised the money from venture capitalists to the tune of $103 million!

"The company was founded in 1995 by the Ojai husband-and-wife team of Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman. At its start, Weinman taught Web design in a classroom. She soon began to sell videotapes and CD-ROMs, and eventually the training went online."

and from this they rake in $103 million in investmnet capital?? selling some CD and video tapes online....video tapes???

then in March they laid off 45 people: "Online-based learning company Lynda.com laid off 45 employees this week, including workers at its Ventura office, company officials said.

A total of 45 positions were eliminated after a reorganization that took effect Tuesday, said company spokesman David Glaubke."

ok... so the company is a subscription service for online learning and the board will expand from four to six people, adding representatives of the two lead investors, Accel Partners and Spectrum Equity....I'll check those dudes out later

I still don't get how they make all this money......and the explanations from Lynda.com about their finances aren't really detailed...at least not to my satisfaction

See, if it doesn't jell, it isn't aspic, and this ain't jelling.....