2001 Movers and shakers

Interview by:

Joel Schettler

Training Magazine November, 2001

Even though he has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Buenos Aires and has taught at universities in Argentina and throughout the United States, Mariano Bernardez does not consider himself an academic.

Rather, he's a doer-more proud of the real world application of his many ideas- about power of e-learning to overcome cultural and geographical barriers.

Bernardez's international training interests began at the United Nations where he developed projects for public administration managers in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Chile

At the United Nations he first became aware of e-learning's potential, when he saw one of the earliest forms of computerbased training, developed for application software, and he's been interested in technology for learning ever since.

Two years ago, Bernardez created his own company, Chicago-based MBC Consulting, to help businesses, primarily in Latin American cultures to develop international projects. The consulting company devotes resources both "onsite and online," says Bernardez, "using the latest technology for e-consulting, mentoring and e-learning projects."

One such project has MBC assisting in the development of e-learning services for Overlap Consultores, a .mare traditional" training company located in Madrid, Spain.

The company wanted to build on its core training business and develop e-learning for its target market: Spanish-speaking learners throughout Latin America and Europe. Bernardez is now a partner in the newly developed company and director of e-learning practice.

Building an e-learning company involved more than wiring servers and designing Web pages; barriers stood in the way of learners and trainers, both cultural and geographic.

"In some ways, the successful trainer's core strength was a major obstacle, because trainers consider themselves strongly as performing artists," Bernardez says-'”E-learning is a consulting art. Some trainers are used to thinking that the value is delivered in a single act, such as a course or a .seminar, With e-learning you literally move from the classroom into the workplace. And this is not a single act, but a process that involves business codes and a longer-term involvement with performance”.

Once Overlap's trainers began to think of themselves as consultants, Bernardez's next task was to develop the infrastructure to truly create an international e-learning company on the back of what became known internally as the knowledge factory.

Bernardez and his team created an online platform to host the many e-learning programs the company would soon create for its clients. While the technology and design is developed in the United States, the knowledge factory's onsite infraestructure -the computer servers and more than 65 programmers, consultants and instructional designers required to produce e-learning—are located in Madrid.

Yet with the entire infrastructure in place and despite being lured by the power of technology, Bernardez doesn't advocate an e-centric path to learning at the expense of other methods, "it would be a mistake to separate and make an artificial division between online and on site training processes." he says. 'It's like using only one hand to eat. There is no rule that forces you to do that. It is easier with two hands."

But where e-learning is part of the solution, the transition will take time, Bernardez says, as learners change from relying on trainers for direction to guiding themselves through the content. e-learning consumers in Latin American countries are not accustomed to self directed learning.

When producing, e-learning programs, American-trained designers must first guide students in how to learn. "It is like beginning a chess game with someone who only knows how to play checkers," Bernardez says.

One way of overcoming this obstacle is to simply become more familiar with the online educational experience. And that applies, to designers too, At Overlap, everyone is required to take an online course, says Bernardez. "Our trainers and consultants are now making a lot more sense because they know how it feels. After all, you cannot cook if you do not know how to eat,"

Interview by:

Joel Schettler

Training Magazine November, 2001