Bilingual Insights and Future Trends in Training with Michelle Bonkosky

Discover the transformative power of bilingualism in training and development as we explore the unique insights of our guest, Michelle Bonkosky. Michelle takes us on her compelling journey from Puerto Rico to pursuing a doctorate in online education, highlighting how her bilingual abilities have enriched her understanding of linguistic and cultural nuances in Spanish-speaking regions. Her story, combined with my own experiences navigating language barriers, underscores the vital role of language skills in fostering effective communication and connection in global training environments, particularly within healthcare and life sciences.

We also discuss the role of AI in enhancing productivity and the importance of developing diverse, accessible training formats to cater to varied learning needs. Learn about innovative trends in online learning, the significance of mentorship in bridging generational gaps, and the need for learning and development professionals to align closely with leadership.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Chapters

• 0:39 Bilingualism in Training and Development
• 14:47 Design Challenges in Healthcare Training
• 26:16 Personalized Learning Trends in Training
• 30:36 Future Trends in Organizational Training

Transcript

Jay Johnson: 0:39

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. I am very excited to welcome a special guest this week, Michelle Bonkosk. Welcome to the show, Michelle.

Michelle Bonkosky: 0:51

Hi, jay, I hope everybody's okay. So yeah, so my name is Michelle Bonkosk and I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I have a master's in environmental health and I'm right now pursuing a doctorate degree, actually in online education. My background is primarily within life sciences and healthcare sector, so I've done learning and development pretty much wow, for I want to say 13 years now. So I've done pretty much everything from instructional design all the way to managing learning programs. So I've worked with nonprofits within life sciences. I have worked with the pharmaceutical and diagnostics sector, as well as public and global health. Very, very nice to be here.

Jay Johnson: 1:38

Thank you so much. You've got an incredible background and a lot of experience. I can't wait to tap into that, particularly in the healthcare space. So you and I share a little bit of passion on that. You know I have a degree in health communications and started out training doctors how to basically improve their communication. But before I go there, there's something that I want to dig into just a little bit. You know in your profile, and one of the experiences that you bring to the table is bilingualism, so you can train in both English and in Spanish. How has that impacted your career and your ability to connect with people?

Michelle Bonkosky: 2:19

This is such an amazing question and thank you so much for that Actually. So being bilingual has given me the opportunity to understand not only the intricacies right of the Spanish language when it comes to training and development, but then also see it from a cultural standpoint in what's going on right within Latin America and even other Spanish-speaking countries, right from a training and development standpoint Spanish-speaking countries, right from a training and development standpoint. Again, you know I have been exposed to different, you know technologies, to LMS, to ed tech, as is happening right in Latin America and I think it's bustling right now and there are tons of people that want to do great things, you know, within our industry, and it's amazing right to see what's happening in Latin America and then how that is progressing right here in the United States, in Europe. So I think that being bilingual has given me the opportunity right to see the market with other eyes. So that's a really good question.

Jay Johnson: 3:14

Well, and it's so important and I will admit so I took four years of Spanish in college. I took two years of Spanish in high school and if you hit me with Spanish right now, it would take me about eight seconds to even like translate a very simple hello and greeting and welcome and doing consulting for a couple of different organizations. I was basically dropped into Guadalajara, into Mexico City, and I was there for like a week and a half at a time and by day three I had found myself to be fluent again. But I imagine and walk me through this, because I know that some of our audience is going to be bilingual and some is not, and some may be working, they may be jumping on a Duolingo platform and trying to, uh, you know, learn a new language or anything else.

Jay Johnson: 4:09

But you know, I I think it's super important, but one of the things that has always, um, you know, so we, we were responsible at one point in time for all of Ford of Mexico, uh, training, uh for their LL6, their management teams, and they had asked me they were like do you feel comfortable facilitating in Spanish? And I, honestly, I didn't, I really didn't. I was like no, I'm so much more comfortable in my native language and I ended up skipping that opportunity and outsourcing it to an incredible, incredible trainer who is bilingual. But with that being said, like, what challenges did you find what you know? What challenges did you find in sort of starting that space, that first time that maybe you were doing a training outside of your native language? What was that experience for you?

Michelle Bonkosky: 5:04

Absolutely yeah, so this is so. So this is where it got interesting, right. So I am a native Spanish speaker and then I had to learn English. But the science and the technical part of it, I learned it in English, right, going into training laboratory technologists right In real time PCR, what a primer is know, and all those you know technicalities. That's where I had a little bit of a problem translating that into Spanish, right and so, and so it to me it also became a learning process in terms of learning how, what again, you know how to say primary, which is Salvador.

Michelle Bonkosky: 5:40

How to say you know, for instance, you know how to say primary, which is cebador. How to say you know, for instance, you know real-time, you know real-time PCR and other concepts, right when it comes to diagnostics and molecular biology. And I think that to me that was you know. That was part of my challenge right in my learning process as I developed right the slides you know for the training, right the the slides you know for the training, but then also the validation Right For for that particular assay, another, another challenge.

Michelle Bonkosky: 6:13

I think that to me that I and it's not necessarily a challenge, again, it's a learning opportunity has been because I was traveling to several countries, like you. Right, there are ways right in which you say you know things and there are certain you know idioms right, for you know for different things, and so I had to also learn that right, being exposed to the day to day and saying you know, people saying to me hey, you cannot say that word here, instead, we say this. So it was funny, but it was also a learning experience for me.

Jay Johnson: 6:41

I learned that the hard way. I was doing a leadership retreat in Suriname, south America, and I was doing it in English and at one point in time one of the people in the audience had asked me a question and I was like, oh yeah, I'll get to that, let me kill two birds with one stone. And everybody kind of gave me this really strange look and I was like that didn't translate, let me go back and let's talk about this. But you're so spot on. You know everything from.

Jay Johnson: 7:08

You know, I've been to Cuba, I've been to Mexico, I've been to a number of other Spanish speaking Latin American countries and there's differences and there's differences in speed and tone and just like you know, anything else, like the accent in the lower United States is going to be very different than the Northeast. How have you been able to, how have you been able to sort of manage that? If you have, you know, unique, different aspects, because I think this is something that every trainer at some point in time is going to be in front of an audience that maybe they're speaking to somebody that you know their native language is not the first language of the audience, or maybe the you know the location of geography that they're in. There is going to be some challenges with idioms or translations or anything else. What would be some of your tips, tactics that would help navigate some of that challenge? Michelle?

Michelle Bonkosky: 8:01

Yeah, this is really good because this is when you, as a learning and development professional, tap into really caring about your audience, right. So, just as when you do you know your needs assessment right for your organization, which is very local and very near and dear, right to your heart, you need to practice also that you know with other countries, right? So what's worked for me has been to find an ally, if you will right, that will help me do that needs analysis prior to going right to the training. Of course, you know there is books. You know even going to something so simple as YouTube and watching you know the news a little bit, or maybe even going to TikTok. Now that we're in TikTok, you know era and trying to see, right, what's out there.

Michelle Bonkosky: 8:44

Because, then again, to me as a learning and development professional, yes, there is a component of complying with or completing the uh rather the uh the training right and making sure that you have your materials, that you have your slide decks and everything.

Michelle Bonkosky: 9:01

But I want to make sure that whatever I build is useful for my audience and my audience can thrive.

Michelle Bonkosky: 9:07

And so, not only that, but if they do have questions, that the questions are like wait a minute.

Michelle Bonkosky: 9:13

I like the way that you're thinking and that's the kind of environment I'd like to foster, right, whenever I do learning solutions, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in e-learning, right, so, as a trainer, again, you want to tap into that needs, analysis, but make it, or do it, you know, in a sensible way, right, I mean find allies, you know, try to do, you know, your research, and I think that that goes a long way, right, understanding your audience.

Michelle Bonkosky: 9:40

Now, we're all adults in the room, right, and they're going to be instances in which, of course, things are going to happen, you know, like what you just mentioned, right, and so, but I think that if you come from a place where you're really caring about your audience and where you're really trying to understand it, I think that those things the word is not necessarily overlooked, but they get forgiven, almost, and it gives you an opportunity to be a human right, to not be this perfect person sitting, you know, on a pedestal. So so, yeah, so I mean, again, you know it's it's just tapping into, into network and just networking and doing your research.

Jay Johnson: 10:13

I love that, and you know, I recognize the importance of being able. So, being somebody that's in the behavioral science space and studying neuroscience, studying psychology, understanding how the brain works. When we hear something that is in a second language, we tend to, our brain translates it into our native language. Then we actually decode it or try to understand it. Then, in order to speak it back, we often retranslate it back into whatever language that we're going to be speaking and then send it out, and there's a couple of extra steps there, and I love what you had to say, though, on thinking about the audience. So this is a couple of things that I've tried to do in the past is, if I am using some kind of PowerPoint, I do try to have a translation, and generally, I do exactly what you said. I love that I reach out to somebody, because I realized one time, when I was training in Japan, I had tried to do Google Translate and it was about riding a horse, and let me tell you, when the audience started laughing, I realized riding was not the word that I had selected from Google Translate. We all had a good laugh about it, but you, but it is so important to be able to think about that audience when you are in that space and let's dig into that for just a moment, because I think that's such an important aspect you have that sort of audience mentality and I think that a lot of times trainers, coaches, can get really caught up on themselves.

Jay Johnson: 11:44

Right, it's scary walking into a room sometimes. So we think about like how we look, what we're doing, are we comfortable, is our environment suited for us, and so on and so forth, because we want authentically want to deliver the best possible experience. But we kind of internalize and we really do think about ourselves. How do you step out of that box when you're thinking about the audience? What do you do to say, okay, this may be really great for Michelle, but maybe this isn't the best for my audience. How do you make that sort of analysis point?

Michelle Bonkosky: 12:17

I think that it comes down to right, in a way, thinking about you know the business objectives and that sort of. When you start thinking in that sense as well, that sort of removes you from that ego part, if you will. You know, just thinking about, okay, so what are the business outcomes, what's going to be what I think is going to be the ROI right of that training? Another thing you know is the need right of the learners to understand this, you know this content and be able to apply it to, you know, to their daily work. I saw in your LinkedIn profile, because I also looked at it, that you just did a poll, a very interesting poll in regards to training, and one of the results that I saw, in higher percentage, I believe that it was a disconnect right from, from leadership, if you.

Michelle Bonkosky: 13:11

Why, why sometimes you know training and development, you know has, you know a little bit. You know some challenges and one of them will, of course, the, the, the. I guess the main one was you know within, you know ROI. But then I saw another one as a disconnect with leadership, and I think that if you frame your work in that sense, you know you want to connect, you want to be the catalyst of the audience, to be in line right with leadership and with the organization's you know goals. So, for instance, if it's a public health or an environmental health, you know organization, then you know the organization's mission and vision and the good that it does, you know to the public. Then I think that you're going to be positioning yourself better, right To not only have your ego part, I guess, fulfilled but then also serving better your audience and making you know those decisions.

Jay Johnson: 14:05

So you literally just made yourself one of my absolute favorite people in the world that you brought up return on investment for training. And you know, that's one of the big parts that I have been pushing all over is we've got to be able to show that we're strategic partners and that there is a business objective that's being met by the trainings. Otherwise it just becomes a luxury. So thank you for bringing that up, reinforcing that, and what you said is absolutely spot on right, like what's the business objective? How's the audience going to get there? How are we going to make them look good and be able to achieve that? So I really love that tactic, thank you. Thank you, michelle. I think it's super, super important.

Jay Johnson: 14:47

All right, now I want to dig into the healthcare space, because this is one that I think is obviously. You know, we think of healthcare heroes and everything they went through, not only through COVID, but I mean before COVID, after COVID, during COVID, and there's a number of different things that have been a challenge within that industry, everything from retention, being able to keep people from getting out of burnout, and then, obviously, all of the technical information. Medical science is perpetually changing. Yesterday's news is literally yesterday's news, and whatever we have today is today. How did you get into the sort of healthcare space Because you have some just incredible experience in there. How did you get into that space? Why don't we start with that, and then we'll dig deeper into what it looks like to be a talent development specialist working in some of those areas.

Michelle Bonkosky: 15:42

Absolutely, and I think that my story may resonate with others and I hope that it does inspire other people to sort of transition and come to the dark side or the light side, I guess, learning and development.

Michelle Bonkosky: 15:55

So I started out right after my master's in environmental health at the University of Puerto Rico. I started out as an intern at the centers for disease control and prevention, um, and so I was doing pretty much very uh, you know technical, you know research and whatnot. And so one of my uh, one of the pis that I worked, or principal investigators that I worked with, um, she had a great opportunity to develop training for um America for the detection of portotellopertussis using molecular, you know biology methods, such as you know the one that's being used, you know, for COVID. And so, long story short, I was asked to develop all of the slide decks, all of the validation you know, for the assays and whatnot. And so at that time I was literally recently, you know, just graduated, right, I only had maybe a year with the agency as a researcher, you know, contractor, and it was an amazing opportunity to understand or to see, right, talk to, you know, smes and extract, you know that content, put it into slides, because back then, right, we're talking, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago I don't want to date myself here and so it was great, but I didn't understand what I was doing right, but I really liked it. I'm like, well, this is a great opportunity.

Michelle Bonkosky: 17:14

I come from a family of teachers. They're all teachers, my brother's a teacher, my mother's a teacher, my cousins are teachers, right, and I was the black sheep, almost you know. That went into science, but then again, so there was this teaching component, which I like, and then there's this very technical, scientific component that I like. Hmm, I like this. How can I make this work? And so I, during during that year, year and a half of of training, of of doing you know all that I discovered that what I was doing all along was instructional design and, like bingo, that was my aha moment, right, and so I then decided to get certified as an, as an e-learning instructional designer, and then I had had a.

Michelle Bonkosky: 17:55

Then I got a certification from ATD, right, and you know learning, you know learning program management, and now I'm doing a doctorate degree right In in online education. And it's been wonderful to see right Well, to stay within healthcare and life sciences and public health and see how learning and development has been evolving still needs to evolve and still needs to grow, I admit it, but it's been fantastic just to see that right and understand and see the need right for better learning and development and how it translates into not only right, the assay development or the testing development you know in the laboratory, but then also into sales and marketing, because then again I've had also the opportunity of doing some of that. Sales, you know, training for diagnostics and it's I mean, it's always wonderful. I absolutely love. You know our, you know our job.

Jay Johnson: 18:50

So love that. So I'm going to pull out a couple of insights. Here is number one you started with the science background, but I'm also hearing that you have organizational experience in a number of other divisions sales, marketing, research and everything else like that. And one of the things that I have been discovering is the facilitators, trainers, coaches that use the words ROI typically have broad organizational experience. It's not just that they started in L&D and finished in L&D. I think that's almost unnatural for a lot of us that you know we're in training from the very, very onset. How has that experience, that knowledge, that scope of knowledge from all of those different areas contributed to your impact as a trainer?

Michelle Bonkosky: 19:39

Yeah, absolutely, I mean, it's been. I think that it's great if you're able to, right as a trainer, as a coach, right, keep up to date with the technology and within your vertical, but then having that understanding of how the organization operates and more than that, for instance, knowing what change management is, which is incredibly important, especially if you're delving into right learning and development. You know ROI. They have helped me make better decisions for training and also, you know, just make better decisions for my audience as well as understanding them better. So my recommendation to anyone who wants to delve into say, oh, I'm a, you know, I'm a computer engineer, say, and I want to do you know learning and development. My recommendation would be to start learning more of that organizational. You know language and concepts like start out with you know change management. That's incredibly important. Start out with ROI.

Michelle Bonkosky: 20:46

There are tons of great training you know out there that can be extrapolated right to your specific. You know industry. Also, take a look into Lean to Sigma. Take also into a continuous improvement. If you're in, you know, if you're within the manufacturing, you know slash. You know life sciences. You know sector. So I think that that knowledge helps you understand the business well, the organization, the business, the processes and then the people with their roles, right.

Jay Johnson: 21:19

Brilliant. No, you're spot on. I love what you said there and this is so. This is exactly what I'm telling. I do an elite training academy where I'm taking trainers and kind of getting them there, and one of the things that I'm telling them is go to these departments and shadow them, spend a day with them, listen to them, listen to the language they use. When you have questions, ask those questions. Even doing that for a short amount of time is going to make you an asset to your organization. So I love what you said and it's such a brilliant tactic.

Jay Johnson: 21:50

Now, I know that we're running down a couple of different rabbit holes here, but the two things that we're going to dig into number one I want to know what is it like to design for healthcare and what were some of the different courses, learning opportunities, what were some of the challenges? We're going to start there, but then I'm going to transition us into that online space because, obviously, with you studying that, getting your doctorate in it and experience you know I love the ATD. I know that the programs that they have I'm a member as well the programs that they have are top of the line. So the fact that you've already done that and now you're going to get that doctorate. We're going to definitely lean into you for some of your online expertise.

Jay Johnson: 22:31

But let's start with that healthcare question, and you know what is it like to design for health care and when you you know, working with the CDC wow, that's incredible and a number of the other organizations that I know that you've been working with. What are some of the challenges? What are some of the things to think about? Let's hear from Michelle. What do you got?

Michelle Bonkosky: 22:52

Absolutely so. One of the challenges that I see and I absolutely understand it because of the amount of work that goes into research and development many, countless hours of just failed experiments until you find that aha moment I guess delineating the learning solutions is going to be that they want to and I'm going to say it in very layman terms they want to throw in you know everything and the kitchen sink.

Jay Johnson: 23:25

Right, I've seen some of those PowerPoint slides that have like a one and a half point font and you know 16 charts and yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Bonkosky: 23:35

I've been a culprit and that was actually my first, uh, my first training I developed. If I look back at it, I still have the slides. I'll be able to start lights, you know, print it out, oh gosh, but anyway. But that's how we all start, don't we?

Jay Johnson: 23:51

so, yeah, we have this knowledge and we have this experience. We want to share it, we want to get that out there, we want to tell everybody everything. Yeah, I empathize with that very, very strongly.

Michelle Bonkosky: 24:02

And so one of one of those things you know is definitely going to be, you know, like OK, so how does the content or how does the learning solution is going to look like for somebody who is in the manufacturing line versus somebody who is in sales, versus somebody who is in you know?

Michelle Bonkosky: 24:16

You know research and development right, and so I think that, as a learning and development professional within healthcare, then again this can be extrapolated to other, to other sectors, but for for for healthcare and life science, this is going to have to be, just as a learning and development professional consistently and I underline, bold, all caps this word consistently right, partner with your SMEs, partner with leadership, right From from other parts of the organization, and and and explain, right I mean, it's not to boast right, okay, okay, or the best you know, like you know, we do learning and development. What what I say, you know, is is gospel, but explaining to them the value right of really well thought out training, and I think that and that is something that I, that I always discuss with my colleagues and I will die on that hill and I talk about it ad nauseum we need to do a better job at communicating that and becoming partners with the organization's leaders. We need to get there.

Michelle Bonkosky: 25:26

It's so important, yeah, so important. And so then, that way, that's where our ROI is going to be easier to determine and easier to show right.

Jay Johnson: 25:36

That leads right back into what you had brought up earlier, that that survey that I'd done to disconnect with leadership, and part of it is is because we're not being strategic partners, and one of my colleagues, jess Almley, talks about this. You know L and D as a function, has been more of an order taker rather than a strategic partner, and she's spot on I love the language that she used on it and it's very consistent with what you're saying. Is that collaboration, that working together to really kind of educate the people that we're serving on hey, this is good design or this is good training or this is why this is important can be so critical? So I really love that, michelle. Yeah, keep going, please.

Michelle Bonkosky: 26:17

Once you have that buy-in right from leadership, then you can start talking about objectives, right, of what your learning solution needs to do. Right, and then with that you then talk about all right, what's the technology that can be used? Right, because one solution can look at first like a simple click. Next, you know e-learning, but who's to say that that's going to convert into something that's a little bit more? You know that conveys more of the. You know more on community learning, or you know center of excellence or community practice, right, that within healthcare, at least from what I've seen, and I'm sure that it's maybe the same you know with other industries is that it's getting that buying more. I guess more, and it's not more importantly, but separately from product training, right, because then you have, you know like you have your product training, you have your compliance training, which is your. You know more.

Jay Johnson: 27:15

UIA security protocols and all of those types of things.

Michelle Bonkosky: 27:19

Yeah, More of that training, but I think that, as learning and development professionals, we need to start positioning ourselves a little bit better when it comes to aligning right with leadership, so that we can have that buy-in and then use really cool tools right, right, great learning experiences.

Jay Johnson: 27:37

So you know, in the healthcare space I can imagine, I can imagine some challenges coming from and I don't want to call it personalities, but you know, whether it's personalities, experience or even differences in generations or anything else like that, when designing programs, I've experienced this a little bit myself where, you know, in working with maybe a slightly older population that has a different set of experiences and a younger population who's literally coming out of medical school or just hired into the organization and seeing a little bit of tension there, have you experienced that?

Michelle Bonkosky: 28:16

Oh yeah, absolutely, and I think that that's again that's where we, as learning and development professionals, need to think about our audience. Maybe some of the solutions that we come up with need to be catered to different types of audiences right, and have different formats. I mean, and that speaks into accessibility, which, then again, I'm a big proponent of as well. When it comes to, you know, to learning solutions, I think that you know, maybe it could be, you know, a podcast, you know for, you know, for a certain, you know, audience, maybe it could be one of you know, an e-learning, a click next, you know, more of that click next, right, learning.

Michelle Bonkosky: 28:56

But I think that when it comes to combining the two, you know, or the three, you know, different types of audience. When you're talking about, you know, age, age gap, I think that mentorship is such a great way to integrate, right, those, those couple of you know generations, if you will, right, and I think that tapping into you know tools that allow for, for that type of environment, now that we're, you know, working remotely, but then we're also, you know, returning back, you know, to the office, I think that that's going to lend itself very well to to, you know, to sort of integrate. You know, those, those, those generations.

Jay Johnson: 29:32

Yeah, I just did an episode on mentorship it was. You know, it was really eye opening hearing like how impactful mentorship as a training and talent development tool can be. So it's definitely one that helped me better understand, like, what mentorship really is, because I've been a part of organizations where they said they had mentorship and it wasn't really mentorship. It was like I don't want to call it mentorship, but basically that's what it was. So, you know, that was that definitely reframed my thinking around that topic. You know you'd mentioned a couple and, and, with some of your expertise in that online space, I'd love to hear from you, and I'm sure our audience would too. What are some of the trends for us to be thinking about in that online learning space or the tech space.

Michelle Bonkosky: 30:20

Many, many. So the first and foremost and that is something that we've been, I guess, talking about with the advent of AI more of that personalized learning.

Michelle Bonkosky: 30:29

I think that you know that. You know personalized, you know pathing when it comes to learning. I think it's going to be key. I think that organizations also are going to start looking into well, of course you know upscaling, but then looking into what else can they offer to, you know, to the learner, aside from you know the required, you know training any. You know any outside, you know certification. So, for instance, I worked with an organization that they were interested in also providing CE or continuing education credits, right for nurses. So converting some of their existing content I mean, this is, again, you know, a nonprofit so converting some of their public facing content into something that school nurses can use right.

Michelle Bonkosky: 31:15

So I feel that you know, from an organizational standpoint, I think that organizations are going to start looking at into that Not everyone, I'm sure that it's going to be more on the. You know more of the organizations that either sell training or that have, you know, public facing training. Now, in terms of trends, ai it's going to definitely be a big one again for that, not only for productivity. But then you know helping us. You know in some, you know some tasks when it comes to creating content. But I think that also another thing that's going to be really key for us is going to be accessibility, like true accessibility, right For that, for that training and development, for for folks.

Michelle Bonkosky: 32:00

Another thing that I that I feel that's that's going to come across is, you know, again, you know just that, that upscaling and what else, what else? So it's upscaling, yeah, and then again, you know just connecting that audience to leadership and to the organization's. You know, mission and vision. I'm seeing a lot of how do I say that? A lot of discontent, almost, you know, within the workforce. You know, returning back to office. I mean, let's not sugarcoat this right, this Right, and I think that the organizations are going to have to do a better job at connecting with with their employees now, especially with the, with the layoffs that have been, you know, happening, and then again, you know let's, let's be, you know let's have a, you know a little bit of a real conversation about this. I think that organizations will need to do a better job at at connecting right with their, with their employees, so that they can, in turn, be advocates right for for the brand or for the organization.

Jay Johnson: 32:59

No, and I think that's so true. And and you know, you bring up AI and you know, in in my conversations with trainers, I, I see this. There's some that have that sort of curiosity and like, ooh, this is interesting and I'd like to get there. There are some that are just like, absolutely not, this is going to steal my job in the next 10 years. And then there are some that are, you know, somewhere of like I really would like to, but I'm just, you know, I, I don't know how to use it, or I don't know how to engage with it, or I don't know the value of it. And I will say this in having conversations, I've learned so many different applications of it. Could you maybe share one or two things that you've seen from the AI space that maybe, maybe that our audience would be able to say all right, I could dip my toe into that or I could take a shot with that.

Michelle Bonkosky: 33:49

Yeah, I mean. Then again, you know, if you want to start, you know very simple. You know chat GPT is a great tool to to you know, chat GPT is a great tool to you know to develop or to help you know with productivity. In fact, I have been dabbling on it a little bit and I have created a GPT where teachers from kindergarten to 12th grade, from either the United States or Puerto Rico, because of their curriculum, they can enter some information in regards to what they're teaching, what their objectives are, what could be another audience. And so what the GPT does is that it creates a game for you as a teacher that you can play with your students that pertains to the curriculum specific to either Puerto Rico or the United States, right, and it's pertaining to whatever you're teaching, say, if it's science, or if it's I don't know, spanish or English, or I don't know social studies, literature, you name it right. And so the cool thing about this GPT is that it can either create the game for it to be classroom based, meaning you know using I don't know crayons or scissors, or safely, right, you know, any materials that are available in the classroom.

Michelle Bonkosky: 35:07

But if you also have a classroom where it's, you know, online, then it suggests to you say, hey, let's's use Mentimeter for this or let's use this other online tool for the cloud-based tool. So the sky is the limit, right, Pretty cool when it comes. Yeah, yeah, no, it's pretty cool. And again, you know, I can give you the information so that you can share it right with colleagues. And the more you marry her, I mean, the more that it learns you know, the better. And again, you know, it's free. So so you don't, so teachers don't have to to pay for it, so they need, you know, some sort of gamification right within the classroom. Then that's, that's, that's an opportunity for them.

Michelle Bonkosky: 35:43

You know, to do so. So yeah, so I definitely advise right for anybody to sort of start, you know, delving, delving in that and I mean it's the sky's the limit.

Jay Johnson: 35:51

It really is. And you know, it's one of those things where, even from simple tasks, right like it and and I saw, I saw the look on your face when I said you know some of the people that are like in the background or at least reduces the work that we do in the background, giving us more time to do the things that we love to do in the foreground or to really be helping. You know, I think it's one of those, as people get more and more comfortable. Like you said that you're creating this GPT, I've also created a GPT that's more towards my research side of things, so it tells me when I'm doing something stupid or when I'm actually, like, really on point. So there's so many different pieces that we really can.

Jay Johnson: 36:48

This guy is the limit. So, michelle, I know we're running near the end of our time here for the episode, but there's so much knowledge in there. You know what? Let me just ask this you had made this transition from science. I'm going back to our beginning here. You'd made this transition from science. You've had some incredible experiences in health care and, I'm sure, outside of health care, you've delved into the technology. You've got these bilingual experiences, which is so incredible. If you could go back and tell your younger L&D self something that would be meaningful and impactful to your future career, what might that be Hear about?

Michelle Bonkosky: 37:35

your audience Right from the get-go huh career. What might that be?

Jay Johnson: 37:37

Care about your audience Right from the get-go huh.

Michelle Bonkosky: 37:40

Right from the get-go, care about them. It's the only way. I mean that's if, when you start and this is very emotional to me when you really start understanding, caring about your audience, understanding their pain points, the content becomes secondary, right, because then you look into the content for it to help your audience and it's not about delivering all of the content. So that's what I mean by it. When you care about your audience, the rest falls into place, even the business objectives.

Michelle Bonkosky: 38:19

Going back to ROI, trust me, I've been in instances and I've seen learning solutions that only cater to the business and they have been a complete fail for the organization, right, and for employees. Employees, then, you know, end up being resentful to the organization, resentful to learning and development. You know, five years ago, when I well, no, no, I want to say more than five, maybe seven, seven years ago, when I used to say I work in, in learning and development, do you know what they, what people used to tell me, oh, you're one of those that creates like all the compliance and blood borer pathogens, whatever training, and I'm like, oh, it's way more than that, but sure you know. And so now it's 2024 and I'm having a conversation with you about learning roi, and all of this has been because we have been able to understand, or start to understand, the audience Right.

Jay Johnson: 39:20

Yep.

Michelle Bonkosky: 39:20

So, then again, what I would tell myself, and anyone else for that matter, is care about your audience.

Jay Johnson: 39:26

Such a powerful message, Michelle. If our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do so?

Michelle Bonkosky: 39:37

you? How would they do so? Sure, yeah, so you can reach out to me on LinkedIn and you can look for me as Michelle Bonkoski B-O-N-K-O-S-K-Y. You can also reach out to me via email at michelleatmbonkoskicom if you're interested in having that chat. So yeah, so those are pretty much the two ways that you can reach out to me.

Jay Johnson: 39:57

And we'll make sure those are in the show notes. Michelle, this has been an incredible conversation. I just want to say thank you for what you're doing and for all of the knowledge that you brought here to this episode today. Thank you so much for being here.

Michelle Bonkosky: 40:11

Thank you so, so very much, Jay. This is a great conversation and I hope that we get to chat again.

Jay Johnson: 40:17

I'm sure we will so and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.