town crier, london

Quantifying Sparkle, Part 2

Defining standards for personal interpretive programs This is part two . You should probably start with Part One, here.  A few years ago, I was approached by one of the premier interpretive facilities in western Canada. The director of visitor experience had just hired a new manager of interpretation who was young and brilliant. With the change …

cyclists

Understanding Our Markets: Ways of Segmenting

This is the third piece in a series of instalments about social science for interpreters, and interpretive planners, and visitor experience professionals. Find the first instalment here.  There are many ways of understanding our audiences and segmenting them into groups. Do these look familiar to you? Demography: What life stage are your visitors (age, family and …

panel with bad comma

Of Commas and Wurlies

Here’s an interpretive panel on the outskirts of Adelaide, Australia: Let’s address the obvious, first. What on EARTH is a wurly? Let’s ask Wictionary. wurly (plural wurlies) An Australian indigenous shelter made from small branches with leaves still attached. Phew, I’m glad that’s out of the way. Now, before we get all shirty about the use of jargon in interpretive panels, we should look at …

Segmentation, Profiling and the Role of Free Will

Editor’s note: This is part two of a series, Understanding Our Audiences, intended for anyone who does planning in the interpretive or visitor experience sectors. You can find the first instalment here.  It all sounds like marketing-speak. In fact, it’s pure old-school interpretation. Market segmentation is based on the idea that your behaviour and your tastes …

crowd at pyramids

Quantifying Sparkle: Standards in Personal Programs

Defining Standards for Personal Interpretive Programs I’ve had the opportunity, over the last few years, to do a great deal of traveling. I’m up to 54 countries and counting now, though my time in each has been tantalizingly brief. And as I travel, I manage to attend quite a few interpretive programs. I think it’s …

Proofread twice, print once…

Bit of an interpretive whoopsie at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney. I really sympathize: if you draft or design interpretive panels for a living, sooner or later you’ll send something to the print shop with a big old mistake in it. Always, always, always have somebody else proofread your work. sentence (ˈsɛnt(ə)ns) a set of words …