Build a Better Brainstorm
Are your creative workshops not producing the kind of brilliance you need? Try imposing tighter creative constraints.
When to do Consultation in Heritage Tourism
When in doubt, consult. Trust me on this one.
We don’t need to endorse in order to interpret.
We need to stop making excuses for the historical figures we interpret. You’re an interpreter, not an apologist.
Understanding Audiences: The Downside of “Falk Types”
About twenty years ago, Dr. John Falk and Dr. Lynn Dierking did a body of research on why people visit museums and other informal learning institutions. It’s fascinating and valuable stuff, and if you get a chance to read their work, you really should. They discovered that, broadly speaking, people have a handful of different …
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Bang for the Interpretive Buck
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 …
It’s time to give the objects back.
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 …
Let Your Data Tell A Story
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 …
Stakeholder is not a dirty word.
(Editor’s note, April 2023. Since I wrote this article last year, the topic has heated up a bit. Please read through the comments as well as the article to get a better sense of my point of view on the subject. Thanks.) (TL:DR: we are now using “titleholders and stakeholders”. Boom.) As an interpretive planner, …
Mining Online Reviews for Fun and Profit
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 …
Consultation: Some Lessons Learned
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 …