The Evolution of Learning: A Conversation with AU Experts

“Organizations are incredibly dynamic and undergoing continual change. Learning and knowledge development are everything.”
—Randy Swearer, VP of Education Experiences, Autodesk

Where once we learned in order to do, meaning that we acquired professional skills that we used over the course of our career, we now do in order to learn. Today, learning is part of the job, whether it’s a new workflow, a new skill, a new technology, or an entirely new approach to completing a project.

“It’s not that expertise is no longer valued; it’s that the nature of expertise has fundamentally changed,” says Randy Swearer, VP of Education Experiences at Autodesk. “A lot of expertise now is about how well you can learn, how fast you can learn, and how well you can teach other people what you know.”

“People move from project to project all the time,” points out Matt Murphy, a trainer and consultant with 4D Technologies. “The tasks and the skills that you used for one project may be different on the next one. So it’s important to be able to evaluate what the team’s current knowledge is and then provide the content to get them up to speed so they can start working on the new project.”

Murphy, Swearer, and others shared their thoughts in the AU Theater and in 1-on-1 conversations as part of our AU Explainers series. 

Matt Murphy and other AU speakers explore how learning is changing.

The Autodesk Learning Engine is an important tool that can help support your learning. As Swearer explains, it uses machine learning to help you visualize what you know and what you need to learn next to move ahead. When using Fusion 360, for example, the Learning Engine will show you what commands you use, what commands you don’t, and direct you to the appropriate learning resources.

And it’s not just for individuals. You can view your team’s skill set all the way up to the organizational level. That means it can help you evaluate and train each person, as well as build the perfect team for a project.

Randy Swearer discusses the future of learning on the AU Theater stage.

“The world we’re entering is about the continuous course of learning itself,” Swearer says. “The only way to thrive in this world is to surf down these waves of passionate, unending learning.”

You can build your skills and your professional knowledge anytime on the AU web experience. And there's still time to register for AU Las Vegas 2019. Get your pass, register for your learning sessions, and we’ll see you in Vegas.