Organizations are facing an era of rapid acceleration. As new technology and digital strategies are integrated, workers at all levels will be required to build capability much faster than before, navigating more complex systems and processes. Yet, learning and development (L&D) has lagged in this area, as too many L&D functions still focus on transactional interactions across a broad and complex portfolio while starved for resources.

In L&D’s Playbook for the Digital Age, Brandon Carson makes the case that it’s time to reorient L&D, take a more proactive role in enabling the workforce, and create a new framework for developing skills and capabilities. L&D leaders must realize theirs is one of the most critical business functions and must be appropriately funded and resourced to realize the performance gains that are crucial to the business.

L&D cannot be caught standing still and, in fact, needs a new playbook to navigate the radical and complex transformation the digital age is demanding. Stemming from the sports world, a playbook ensures the players know their roles, connect as a team, and understand the winning strategy and how to execute the game plan. For L&D, a playbook can help build alignment across the team and with stakeholders by being flexible as business needs change.

The book takes you through the steps to formulate how a new playbook could help the alignment of your L&D function—whether it’s restructuring, new skilling, or rescoping. He asks readers to speak the language of business instead of the language of learning. For example, does your workforce repair aircraft or do they enable safe flight? In other words, can you be the visionary your organization requires?

We're in a new era of learning, one in which learners expect information to be available anywhere and anytime. How do you make sure your learning experiences keep up with the pace of workplace transformation?

In Learning in the Age of Immediacy: 5 Factors for How We Connect, Communicate, and Get Work Done, learning strategist Brandon Carson argues that five edge technologies (augmented reality and virtual reality, the cloud, mobile, big data, and the Internet of Everything) are transforming the modern workplace, requiring new learning methods to empower the modern worker. Through real-world case studies and interviews with industry experts and business leaders, he shows how these technologies affect training's design, delivery, and evaluation. He also provides practical advice to integrate the five factors into your learning strategy, helping you answer important questions along the way: What will the workforce you support look like in the next several years? How will you provide in-the-moment learning for the streaming economy the cloud has introduced? Do you have a mobile learning strategy? (You should). And how will you use the emerging practice of data science to provide evidence of training’s value to the business?

The stakes are high, and these factors could be the difference between achieving measurable results or driving your learners to seek solutions elsewhere. Use Learning in the Age of Immediacy to create a learning plan that will serve your workforce now and in the future!