What happens when you have more ideas than you can handle? I just completed a really productive ideation (brainstorming) session with a client. It’s for a new major exhibit we’re planning. It was a ton of fun—we opened the workshop with a presentation of all the different kinds of interpretive media that could possibly go …
Virtually all arguments against repatriating Indigenous objects are rooted in white supremacy. Hey reader, did you ever have your bike stolen? I have more than once, and while I have never been successful in getting my bike back (thousands of them are stolen weekly in most cities, apparently), I’d like to take you through a …
Those of you who have followed my writing for a while know that as an interpretive planner, I’m a strong believer in evidence-based decision making. One of my challenges has always been in trying to communicate the importance of data—visitation patterns, visitor demographic information, analyses of program evaluations, and the like—in such a way that …
As an interpretive planner, part of my job is helping parks, heritage sites, zoos, and aquariums identify the people around them whose lives or work will be affected by what they’re doing. So, early on in the interpretive planning process, I ask if we can sit down and identify their stakeholders. And more and more, …
Nonprofit memberships aren’t what they used to be. Is your organization struggling with its nonprofit membership program? Are you having a tough time keeping your membership numbers up? You’re not alone. Membership has always been a cornerstone of the nonprofit model: any society or association is by definition a group of like-minded people—members, official or …
As an interpretive planner and visitor experience advisor, I’m a big believer in evidence-based decision making. When I start a new project, the first thing I ask for is data: visitor surveys, gate revenue statistics, comment cards… anything I can get my hands on. Recently I started an exhibit planning project where my client knows …
In the last two years, virtually all of my projects have taken on a consultation component. At some point in an interpretive plan, an exhibit project, or a visitor experience strategy, the client needs to involve the community. These include Indigenous groups, naturalist organizations, historical societies, neighbourhood associations, and the like. Not all of these …
If you’re going to dive into TikTok, you might as well try to do some good in the world. Addressing the settler-colonist that lives inside us can be difficult, emotional work. And the more I dive into the steep learning curves of decolonization, the more I realize that it is unfair to expect affected communities—Black, …
What is the way to your visitors’ hearts? Understanding their problem spaces—and imaging solutions—is a first step.
Those who fail to learn from the 1970s are doomed to repeat them… …and I’m old enough to tell you it won’t be as much fun as pop culture would have you believe, ABBA soundtracks notwithstanding. I was recently transported back to that era against my will, in the form of an interpretive walk. It …