How LinkedIn Views Its Role in Education
On the one hand, colleges are big users of the professional social network, setting up university pages and encouraging graduates to set up profiles to get jobs. But some officials are also wary of how much the company plans to move into education, especially after it purchased the online-course library Lynda.com last year.
A year has now passed since that acquisition, and the company’s plans for the service are coming into sharper focus. To find out what those plans look like, The Chronicle spoke with Michael Korcuska, LinkedIn’s vice president of management for learning. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q. LinkedIn paid $1.5 billion for Lynda.com, and that's a pretty hefty price tag. Why is this video library worth that much to a social network for professionals?
A. We think there's a lot of opportunity in marriage between LinkedIn and Lynda, and the main thing is, we have a large professional audience who need to keep their skills up to date. We believe Lynda has the highest quality professional-training content in the marketplace. And we think by bringing that learning offering and being able to distribute it to LinkedIn's professional network, there will be a lot of benefit.
Q. Is this just the beginning of course offerings from LinkedIn?
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Q. Facebook has the social graph, and LinkedIn has been talking about building what it calls the "economic graph," but I'm a little unclear what exactly that means. Could you sketch a vision for this larger effort that LinkedIn is doing?
A. The basic notion of the economic graph is that we want to build a digital representation of the economy: a profile for every member; an electronic profile for every company; a list of all the jobs, full time, part time, temporary, permanent, that are available; all the skills that are needed to get those jobs, as well as the skills that our members have; all the vocational institutions that can provide those skills, whether those are formal higher-education institutions or providers like Lynda.com; and then finally all the knowledge our members have and are willing to share. We believe by representing that digitally, we can help people find careers more quickly, help companies find positions more quickly, and make the economy more efficient over all, and even improve GDP.
Q. So you could affect the entire country’s wealth somehow?
A. Yeah, we believe that that's possible. That's a long-term vision. We're talking 10 years out. We're not near to achieving that. We've made progress, but yes, I think if you take friction out of the economy in that way and help companies fill their jobs more quickly, people get into positions where they're more fulfilled and more effective. So that yes, it will improve economic well-being. One of those pillars is skills, and that's a large part of why LinkedIn acquired Lynda. It's a great business opportunity for us, but in terms of fulfilling our vision, that's a pillar where Lynda fits squarely.
Q. This is obviously a powerful place to sit, as unique a data set as any of these social networks end up being. You mentioned the country and the economy, the big frame. What if, though, the person's best educational path might be through some other brand of education, either formal college or some other network? Lynda is your preferred choice, so doesn't that limit what you're suggesting, in a way?
A. First of all, those educational institutions are already using Lynda and incorporating it into their programs. And the spending on education is huge worldwide. Even at scale, we don't believe we're going to be the only answer to people's educational needs. At some point, it could be that there is a marketplace for learning offerings on LinkedIn, especially when Lynda doesn't meet the needs of particular students. Just a really simple example: Today we have courses in English, Spanish, German, and French, and a few in Japanese. If you're sitting in Russia and you want to take these courses, and your first language is Russian, we don't have much to offer you.
Q. So going back to this idea of data, the economic graph, and how you could be in a unique position as an education provider. Netflix makes its own shows now, and people have noted that it obviously knows a lot about what its users like; it can tailor its shows to what people seem to like. Does that mean LinkedIn might do something similar with building courses based on what it knows the educational needs are of users — the same idea?
A. Very insightful question. The integration between Lynda and LinkedIn goes two ways. We've already talked about offering Lynda courses to our LinkedIn members based on what we know about their career trajectories, but we can also look at skills that seem to be in demand based on data we have on LinkedIn and use that to inform the catalog of what we want to build for Lynda.
Q. Is that happening already, do you think it might?
A. It's happening already.
Q. Can you give a concrete example?
A. I don't have a specific example to share today. We see in job postings where new skills are mentioned. There's other ways of getting that information, but we think this is an interesting input to building out our course catalogs.
Q. Is this a new kind of competition for higher education? Should colleges be a little worried about this mammoth new education player?
A. I don't think they should be worried. They're already using our offerings to make themselves more efficient and make their learning more effective for their students, so I think that would help make higher education more accessible and more affordable for more people. Everybody shares that goal. Our primary focus is really on lifelong learning. You and your readers know that the lifetime of skills gets shorter and shorter as time passes, and that a four-year degree is superhelpful in launching your career, but it's not enough to sustain your career.
We see Lynda as primarily focused today on helping professionals stay at the top of their field, not as a substitute for a four-year degree.
Jeffrey R. Young writes about technology in education and leads the Re:Learning project. Follow him on Twitter @jryoung; check out his home page, jeffyoung.net; or try him by email at jeff.young@chronicle.com.
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