Interpretive Planning

So you want to land a great consulting job. You’ve seen an RFP (request for proposal) that looks like something you’re perfect for, and now you have to convince the potential client of the same thing. There are a few things you can do to improve your chances, although you should always use your best judgement in putting your best foot forward. Here are my top ten tips:

1. Follow directions. If the RFP includes specific instructions on how to prepare and deliver your proposal, follow them, to the letter. Don’t assume you know what the client wants more than the client does, just pay attention to what’s been requested and simply follow directions, especially if the client has asked for you to avoid overly complicated or expensive presentations of your material.

2. Write clearly, concisely, and accurately. Avoid redundancy – most clients do not make selections based on how thick your proposal is. Proofread carefully to avoid errors – no one wants to hire someone who doesn’t care enough to provide a meticulous product even in the proposal stage.

3. Be honest. Represent your work fairly and represent only your work (not the work of employees or subcontractors who may no longer be working with you).

4. Provide accurate contact information. If you’re using old letterhead or boiler plate information that has out of date email addresses or phone numbers, your potential client may not be willing to track you down.

5. Even if the client doesn’t ask for it specifically, identify who will serve on your project team by name and if your team includes subcontractors, include a letter from the subcontractor that indicates his or her interest in the project. This helps clients know that the proposed subcontractors know they’re being included in the team.

6. Provide references that can be contacted and include a few that can speak to your ability to resolve conflicts, not just those with whom you worked seamlessly. Allow your client to get a balanced view of your work style and results.

7. Identify and provide details of the specific tasks that you will do. If there are any limitations to what you can or will do, state that as well. Don’t ever surprise your client after the selection has been made or deliberately mislead your client about your abilities or willingness to perform specific tasks during the selection process.

8. Call attention to the details of your proposal if they are relevant. For example, if you are responding to an RFP from an environmental education center, use recycled products and earth-friendly inks in your proposal and mention that you have done so.

9. Mention any certifications you hold and awards that you or your products have won, including whether your products have helped previous clients receive funding or win awards (here’s a good reason to become certified or to enter NAI’s media awards contest each year).

10. Only reply to RFPs for which you are qualified. Don’t waste your time or the time of your potential client. Call and ask questions if you are unclear about the project requirements. It’s time well spent to find out if you should make the investment in producing a proposal.

As you begin to prepare your proposal, put yourself in the shoes of your potential client. Let your work style and commitment to excellence shine through in the quality of your proposal and your success rate should greatly increase.

If you clicked on this link hoping to find examples of interpretive plans, you’re probably going to be a little disappointed. I’m not actually posting examples of plans, but I am going to explain why I’m always hesitant to provide someone who is learning how to plan with specific document examples.

It’s pretty simple, really. I strongly believe in principle #4 – Every process will be different because every project is unique. What that translates to in plan documents is that the same table of contents probably won’t work for any two (or two hundred) projects. Interpretive planning that follows a template approach isn’t really planning in my way of thinking. Filling in the blanks is just that and doesn’t require much thought. It also doesn’t help you to assess whether your decisions make sense when tested against the filters of management objectives, budget, staffing, maintenance, and other variables. Cutting and pasting whole sections from other plan documents is never a good idea.

The good news is that without a template, you’re free to approach your project in whatever way makes the most sense, as long as you remember to pay attention to all of the 5-m areas (management, message, markets, mechanics, and media). The bad news is that without a template, there’s very little structure to give you guidance if you’re new at this. And therein lies the problem. I’ve watched people look at plan examples and assume that because a particular approach was used in the example, that all interpretive plans should have that same approach. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One interpretive planning class participant recently brought up how confusing and overwhelming the process can be without specific instructions for how to complete a reasonable plan. I wish there were some way to make it really easy and still have it be effective, but I haven’t figured that out yet. The truth is, planning isn’t always easy. It requires a thoughtful process with consideration of a lot of variables and that’s work, any way you slice it.

Having said all of that, I’m now rethinking the sharing of plan samples a bit. I showed a couple of examples of plans I have worked on to the last planning class and was pleased by the response afterwards. I literally walked the class through the process showing what information I was given to start with and how that was applied throughout the process to result in a document. With the explanation that I could offer in person, I was comfortable with this . . . but I still would not have wanted to simply lay the plans on the table or post them on the website without the opportunity to explain why they included the elements they did and didn’t include other elements that some people might have felt compelled to put in.

One of the reasons we do a hands-on real project during the planning course is to provide the opportunity for one on one coaching so that you can see how your approach to the project might be tweaked for greater effectiveness. Granted, the class project may be very different than your own project waiting for you back at your office, but at least it will get you thinking about process and where to start with things and what questions to ask along the way.

In short, there is no one right way to “do” an interpretive plan. Every project is unique, so every process will be a little different to accommodate the variables. And consequently, each document will be a little different as well. Understanding where to start, how to proceed, what to sift in or out, what and when to test, and how to put all the pieces together takes experience and lots of it. But the only way to get that experience is to start . . . and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s the only way to get better. In my role here at NAI, I’m available as a resource to help answer questions to the best of my ability. I’m hoping to experiment with some other ways to share examples with explanations – webinars or other on-line tools – as ways to augment what we do in the class and provide some help for those who can’t make it to a class. In the meantime, please feel free to pick up the phone . . . I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Very often, a planner is called upon to take an existing plan or background material to the next stage. Maybe the client, or group of coworkers, has developed a preliminary approach and the planner (whether hired or part of the staff) must review that approach and move forward. So what happens if the approach is off-base, either a little or a lot?

I like the idea of “tweaking” rather than throwing someone’s work effort out wholesale. This activity can require some delicate footwork, depending on whose work is being tweaked. Let’s face it, you don’t want to be the one to tell your boss straight out that he or she doesn’t know anything. And the good news is, you rarely have to. Usually, it’s a matter of making a few minor adjustments before forging on. Let’s take an example:

You’re handed a document entitled “exhibit content” and have been asked to populate an exhibit gallery with interactive exhibits. The document consists of six pages (single-spaced, double-sided) with sentences and sentence fragments related to things that might be included in your new exhibit hall. Some are stories, some are design ideas, some might even be called things you want to accomplish or objectives. It looks like someone took the results of a brainstorming session and simply recorded notes without any filtering, but you’re new here, don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, and you really can’t make any sense out of the document because it gives no real direction about what to do next.

Rather than starting from scratch entirely, take the time to review the document in detail and perhaps color-code the individual items (red dot in the margin for stories; blue for actual design ideas; green for objectives; etc.). Now reorganize the document according to your color coding system. Where are the holes? Starting with what you have, begin plugging those holes.

Is it clear what you’re trying to accomplish in support of the mission? Take the suggested objectives and tweak them into a logic model that makes sense with measurable factors for impacts and outcomes that also help define your audience. Once everyone agrees on what you’re trying to accomplish, see if you can tweak the miscellaneous facts and stories into a theme-subtheme-storyline construct to land on a strong, central message that everyone can support.

Test the design ideas to ensure that the suggested concepts communicate the desired message to the targeted audience so that the objectives can be accomplished. Are there objectives, audience segments, or messages that haven’t been addressed by the ideas in hand? If so, let your creativity take over to fill in those gaps. Round out the effort by preparing a budget and an action plan for next steps.

The people who participated in developing the preliminary document will feel that their efforts have been honored, but you will feel better having a more usable plan that is well-organized and gives clear direction for what needs to happen next. Along the way, trim away the ideas that don’t seem to fit, but retain and build on the ones that do. Salvage what you can and praise the efforts of those who provided the starting point. Sometimes the nuggets you will uncover will be pure gold and sometimes they will require a little polishing to make them worthwhile but learning to tweak rather than toss can save time and effort, build stronger working relationships, and capture the valuable ideas that may otherwise fall by the wayside.

Your boss has just walked in the door and said, “we need an interpretive plan and you’re going to write it.” Because you’re a good employee, you nod and smile and agree to get it done as efficiently as possible. But you’ve never done it before – maybe you know something about interpretation and maybe you don’t, but you’ve never had to actually write an interpretive plan. Where do you start?

Even experienced planners find themselves asking this question with every project. And the logical starting point is not always the same (remember principle #4 – Every process will be different, because every project is unique). But there are some simple questions you can ask to get the ball rolling.

First, ask if you can have help. Is there any money to hire this done or do you have coworkers who can serve on a planning team? If you can hire it done, it doesn’t mean you can abandon the project once your contractor is hired – you’re still going to need to know how to do this so that you can work with your contractor to get what you want and need. If you can put together a coworker planning team, be sure to assign someone (maybe you) as the project leader to make sure that the project continues to move forward. If you have time, consider taking an interpretive planning class or reading a book to get some familiarity with process and products.

Next, determine the scope of the project and what purpose you want the plan to serve. Is it long-range, short-term, for a single location or multiple units? What is the planning “bubble” that your work will encompass? Perhaps the most important question to ask is what are you really trying to accomplish? Once you know that, then you can begin to look at background material that might be relevant to the challenge you’re trying to resolve.

Certainly, reviewing (or creating) the mission of the organization is critical at this stage because it can help you determine whether the project you’re attempting is even appropriate to the agency. Some plans get, or should get, stopped in their tracks at this point because a quick review of organizational mission and goals reveals that the project isn’t a good fit and shouldn’t be pursued.

Next, you might want to create the impact and outcome levels of your logic model (see previous blogs on logic models). These will help inform what you’re going to do next and what background resources you will need to create the most effective plan.

From there, you’re going to have to start making choices about what to do next. Certainly, gathering information about your resources (not just the natural or cultural artifacts and features, but also operational resources like staffing, facilities, and budget), and your audiences is critical. The analysis of the information you gather and matching that analysis against your objectives will begin to reveal what options you might want to pursue next.

Simply put, the interpretive planning process can be fairly simple and straightforward or it can be extremely complex, depending on the individual project situation. But you have to start somewhere. Pick your starting place and get going – it’s the only way it’s going to get done.

In any planning process, or operations of an interpretive site or organization, there are people we call key players: those with authority, those with power, and those with influence. Usually these are not the same people. Understanding who they are in relation to your project and how to work with (or sometimes around) these people can make a significant difference in the success or failure of your process and the final product.

The person (or people) with authority are the ones who actually sign off on the project. Generally speaking, this person will be the designated project manager (hence the term, “authorized signature” on most contracts). You might think that the person who signs off is also the person who is making decisions, but very often that’s not the case. What you may learn, hopefully sooner rather than later, is that there is a higher power that drives the signature. In other words, some project managers may still be responsible to a supervisor somewhere who is making them approve things or disapprove things that they don’t necessarily want to approve or disapprove.

Unfortunately, when this is the case, last week’s blog on bad ideas may come into play. The influencers are the ones who may look like ordinary people on the outside, but are really what we call “stakeholders.” Maybe they hold the pursestrings on the financial support for implementation of the project. Maybe they simply have the ear of the authority or power figures and like to manipulate people or processes for their own reasons. Maybe they talk the loudest or complain the most bitterly and so are listened to over more reasoned individuals in a simple attempt to quiet the maelstrom. They may influence the process in many ways, not all of which will be constructive.

So how do you identify who fits what bubble and use the strength of that knowledge to help the process be productive? The authority figure is usually easy to identify, just look for the signature. He or she should be identified in a contract if there is one, or if your project is taking place totally in-house, this person is usually going to be your immediate supervisor. Keep this person happy with great communication – document conversations and keep him or her informed of what’s happening with the project. Involve him or her in the process at each step to foster a strong connection and feeling of ownership with the project.

Should the power figure come into play, again, communication is key. By providing your authority figure with all the information needed, the power figure often becomes a supportive, positive power for good instead of an obstruction to overcome. Keep this person in the loop at key points along the way in the process, to whatever extent he or she requests. Recognize that there may be times when you will not sway a power person from his or her position, and that there may be good reasons for that which you may not fully understand – perhaps there are other factors at play in the big picture scheme of things that are causing the power person to play that card as necessary.

The influencers are perhaps the trickiest to deal with, but taking the time to assess what motivates these people is definitely in your best interest. Once you understand their motivations, you may find ways to influence the influencers so that their input supports the project instead of derails it. Asking what motivates them is rarely successful, so get to know them. Take the time to ask questions and listen (first principle of interpretive planning) to their responses and to what they’re not saying out loud. Help them understand how to be helpful and they may just become your project’s biggest fan. Once in that position, influencers can help you overcome power people problems or authority issues.

The main thing to remember is that it takes a lot of folks to work through any process and all of them are important. Keep that fifth principle in mind – everybody has to win, but the big winner has to be the mission of the organization. Ultimately, that’s what everyone must be after to be truly successful.

The interpretive planning process usually yields the opportunity to produce great ideas. Almost always, at some point during the process, someone will come up with an idea that isn’t so great. Maybe it doesn’t match the media with the targeted market segment so well (serious archaeologists are likely to be offended by an exhibit that uses Indiana Jones as a “host”). Or maybe it costs twelve times as much as the budget allows. Perhaps it requires parts or maintenance that will be impossible because of the location . . . any number of things can go wrong with that “great” idea someone came up with, which would, in fact, make it, well, a bad idea.

If your project team is good-natured and open to suggestions, bad ideas can easily be discussed and discarded in favor of better ideas. But let’s say the bad idea comes from someone who is unwilling to let it go and may have the authority to insist on going ahead with it. What are your options? Generally speaking, you have three choices, whether you are an employee of Bad Idea Person or a contractor.

1) You can always quit rather than doing something you think is dangerous or morally reprehensible. This drastic action would obviously be reserved for those ideas that are seriously bad in ways that may compromise your personal or professional integrity.

2) You can nod, smile, pretend to like the idea and talk about Bad Idea Person behind his or her back later. I’m not a big fan of this option. It usually comes back to haunt you later and tends not to be productive for a lot of reasons. Not only is it dishonest and petty, but it may be downright dangerous and expensive if Bad Idea Person later tries to blame the bad idea on you (well, you should have told me it was a bad idea, so this is clearly your fault, not mine).

3) You can register and document your concern, but stick with the project to attempt to mitigate the problems the bad idea might create. This action may require some delicate handling of the interpersonal relationships on your project team. Understanding group dynamics and the psychology of facilitation is a huge plus if this option is going to be your approach. Sometimes simply asking Bad Idea Person to help you understand the idea better allows him or her come to grips with its true level of badness. If not, I will sometimes propose documenting the advantages and disadvantages of all options in the final plan. I have even gone so far as to put in the draft document “against the advice of consultants, option BI has been selected for further development.” This puts your concerns on record. I’ve found that more often not, Bad Idea Person will back down once they see the disadvantages or the phrase “against the advice” in writing. If the idea still goes forward, making minor modifications that Bad Idea Person will find acceptable can usually help it be not quite so bad (spoofing Indiana Jones so that the archeologists can roll their eyes and get a laugh; phasing so the budget hit is more workable; finding a lower maintenance technology).

Finally, learn to get over it and get over yourself. The world is filled with bad ideas and you cannot control the process perfectly every time. Move on and hope for better days and better ideas to come.

One of the most valuable tips I can share about getting through the interpretive planning process painlessly is simply to document every conversation. Sounds easy, so why don’t more people do it? If you don’t currently have a system for documenting conversation, experiment with a few simple ways to do this. First, make sure the right people are having conversations.

Every project should have an assigned project manager. Given that the project usually involves both client and contractor, that means the client team needs a project manager and the contractor team needs a project manager. The project managers should be the only ones who are cleared to make decisions that might affect the outcome of the process. Project managers should talk directly to each other, not to each other’s staff or subcontractors. Team members (staff or resource specialists on the client side, and staff or subcontractors on the contractor side) should be talking directly to their own project manager. Occasionally, project teams may share information directly with each other, but at no time, should any information sharing be considered a decision to move in any specific direction without project manager approval.

During the course of the project, conversations will take place in a variety of ways: as review comments, face to face during planning sessions or review meetings, over the phone, or by email. For any conversation that is not already in writing, make a habit of following up the conversation with a written note (email is fine) that captures the content of the conversation and details any decisions that have been made. The note should say something like “this is what we talked about . . . if you have anything to add or edit, please do so within the next 24 hours and let me know what those changes are. If you’re ok with everything here, just send me a quick reply that lets me know you got this message.” Either party can take the initiative to do this – just makes sure it gets done.

Now you have documentation to support your next moves. If you run into problems later, you can go back to your documentation and figure out the solution much easier than relying on your or someone else’s memory or interpretation of the conversation.

This simple act can save hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars, as well as keeping the project on track and all project partners well-informed and happy. Without the documentation trail, assumptions get made, mistakes get blamed on others, and disagreements can derail the project, sometimes with disastrous results. Good communication is the key to success in any project process, but to keep everyone on the same page, get it in writing.

The interpretive planning process is a fluid thing. It would be much easier if there were a simple fill-in-the-blanks template and all you had to do was literally fill in the blanks for your site. But I’ve never thought that made much sense because of the number of variables that influence each project’s success or failure. That fluidity can give you freedom to explore a variety of planning techniques and options if you’re disciplined enough to still get the job done or it can simply make you crazy if you don’t know where to start and find yourself unable to make decisions and move forward through the process.

So which comes first in the process – theme or objectives? You’re right . . . it depends. For the most part, I will always want to know the mission, goals, and objectives of a project before proceeding any further down the path. My theme or message might entirely depend on what I’m trying to accomplish if I’m taking a management-based or market-based approach to the plan. If I’m taking a resource-based approach, then maybe my theme is what tells me what I must accomplish, and in that case, I may develop my theme first and then write objectives that support it.

Which approach is better? If by better, you mean has a better chance of success (defined as meeting your objectives) overall, then I would have to go with writing objectives first, then crafting a theme statement that will help communicate whatever needs to be communicated to targeted audiences so that they can help in accomplishing those objectives.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t need to know the important stories of the place before starting to write objectives. If I don’t know why a place or collection has value to somebody or what its significance is, then why am I even trying to interpret it? But let’s look at a concrete example.

The topic is diamonds. We could probably all agree that diamonds are a valued resource. If my objective is get people to buy more diamonds, then my theme might be “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” But if my objective is to reveal the sordid side of the conflict diamond industry and therefore discourage people from buying conflict diamonds, then my theme might be “diamonds cost more than dollars.” Two very different approaches to the same topic (diamonds) for two very different reasons.

Message matters – very often, an interpretive site or agency’s marketing department will put forth a message that may be in direct conflict with the site’s actual objectives if the marketing department is not brought into the interpretive planning process. Because message matters so much in making your interpretive efforts successful, you would do well to be clear about your objectives before crafting that message. Then check it against the objectives to be sure that objectives and theme are consistent. As you continue through the process, you may find yourself tweaking either objectives or theme or both . . . that’s the fluid part of the process. But you have to start somewhere and in my view, asking what you’re trying to accomplish is the place to start almost every time.

One of the simplest ways to gather information from a large constituency would seem to be surveying the group. However, survey results can easily be misinterpreted and may not be the most accurate approach to gathering information. Still, any information is better than no information, and surveys can be relatively inexpensive in today’s world of internet survey programs, so I’ve suggested a few tips for using surveys as an information-gathering tool in your planning process. Not surprisingly, this blog is brought on by my activities over the last few days of looking at a bundle of surveys we conducted for National Association for Interpretation and some of the positive things and the pitfalls that we encountered.

Surveys, whether you send them out to every member of your constituency (the people from whom you want information) or a random sample are only as good as the people who send them back. Depending on who you’re surveying, a 20% return may be a great response. That means if you want a fairly representative survey of what people are thinking, you need to include enough people in your sample that will give you some realistic picture of the whole group. If you have a group of 10 people, getting 2 or 3 responses may not help you much. If you have a group of 1000 people, 200 to 300 responses might be a pretty good indicator. You’ll have to decide what significance the results will have for your particular situation and how you intend to use them.

In 1954, Darrell Huff wrote a book called “How to Lie with Statistics”. What he was suggesting was that the interpretation of data can greatly influence what that data represents. In any good survey, one question alone will usually not tell a complete tale. It may be that two or three questions have to be looked at simultaneously or cross-tabulated in order to build a more relevant interpretation of the data.

Having said that, the way that questions are worded is critical to the success of the survey. Be sure to have several people review your survey instrument before it is distributed to catch any inadvertent bias to your questions. Bias can creep in based on who wrote the questions, preconceived ideas of what the responses should be, or sometimes a simple error in typing the survey (leaving out one potential response, for example). If you don’t recognize the bias when you develop the survey, you may or may not recognize it when you see the responses. If you do see any bias show up in the results, be sure to include that observation in your interpretation of the data.

Be prepared for people to misunderstand the instructions or the questions. No matter how structured you attempt to be, people are going to make mistakes, either intentionally or unintentionally. You may be a “lumper” in giving response options, when your respondents would prefer to be “splitters” and will invariably add a level of detail you didn’t want or need to the “other” category if you allow them to write in. Does that mean you shouldn’t allow them to write in? No, absolutely not. Write-in answers (“other”) should be encouraged whenever you think you might have inadvertently left off a potential response or want to see if there are other views out there. Keep your instructions simple – people tend to skip over instructions and so may skew your results by not fully understanding the intent of the survey instrument.

The final suggestion I would make is don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to. If you’re not willing to listen, you will simply aggravate the respondents who took the time to tell you what they think. Having said that, it may be impossible to provide everything that is desired due to budget, staff, or other limitations, or the comments may not be useful (i.e., NAI should do more . . .  without defining what “more” means, or suggesting things that are already in place).

Surveys can be a great tool, just remember to interpret the results with a grain of salt. They will never be perfect instruments, but they can give you a sense of what’s happening, especially if you have hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people you’d like to talk to. When it’s not realistic to have a conversation with each of those individuals, a survey may be the answer. You may never be able to please everyone, but surveys just may help you get closer.

The fifth principle of interpretive planning may be one of the hardest to manage. The principle states that everybody at the table must be a winner, but the ultimate winner must be the resource. Part of the unique challenge of interpretive planning is that it is a creative process. Even though there is research to support various aspects of why you should do certain things a certain way, there is still a considerable amount of latitude in coming up with ideas that will help accomplish specific objectives by communicating specific message. In fact, the possibilities are almost endless, limited only by budget and your own creative abilities. And of course, everyone feels that his or her own idea is the best one.

Having said that, it’s important to recognize that the interpretive planning process isn’t really about “winning.” I recently had a conversation with someone who wanted me to back up her ideas over her boss’s approach related to the writing of a theme and subthemes for a site. And while I could certainly see the situation from her perspective, I could also see the boss’s perspective. In my view, without knowing more about the whole situation, I have to say I could have gone either way on this one. Consequently, one of the things I found myself asking this person was “how badly do you need to win?” Sometimes we hang onto a specific way of thinking not because it’s really the most appropriate approach, but because we just can’t stand the thought of having to give in.

When interpretive planning becomes a power struggle between staff members, between departments, between supervisor and supervised, or between partners, the process inevitably breaks down and the product, if you manage to get to one, will likely be ineffective in one or more ways (costs too much, doesn’t communicate well, isn’t right for the audience, etc.).

How can you avoid this situation? It’s simple – let everyone be a winner. The only way to do that is to have the “what do you hope to accomplish” discussion before you do anything else. How will this project support each person’s specific needs and the needs of the agency overall? How does it support the mission of the site? What benefits (impacts) are you looking for? If the resource (whatever the organization exists to protect/conserve/interpret/educate about) isn’t benefitting somehow from this project, why are you doing it in the first place? Ultimately, the resource needs to be the big winner, and you, as the planner, must be the constant reminder that the project must support stated objectives, not personal agendas of the folks on the planning team. Learning to say that diplomatically is one of those skills that can take some time to develop, but it’s a must-have in the planner’s toolbox.

I’ve seen a variety of awkward situations develop in a variety of projects over the years – the supervisor who let everyone talk and then made complete reversals of their decisions just because he could; the assistant director who refused to approve anything because he wanted to drive his supervisor crazy (and managed to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process); the “devil’s advocate” who didn’t realize that his negativity wasn’t productive, especially when he really believed in a completely different position; the consultant who was afraid to allow the client to have any original thoughts because he might no longer be needed.

In each of these cases, the process and the product suffered, but sadly, the big loser was the resource itself. If interpretation isn’t effective, for whatever reason, it cannot help achieve impact objectives (benefits to the resource or agency).

Next time you’re involved in a planning process of any kind, think about what you can do to help everyone be a winner. Find out what people want and be a positive contributor to a process that honors those desires to the greatest extent possible. Practice a little self-examination and be honest about what you want also. Although it’s part of the planner’s role to point out pitfalls that could occur, it’s also important to encourage positive interactions that lead to mutually acceptable solutions.

Everyone can be a winner or at least feel like they’ve won. You’ll know it’s really happened when the resource comes out ahead.