What’s the Difference?
Can any interpreter be an interpretive planner? Are the two terms synonymous? Does being a good interpreter mean you’ll also be a good planner or vice versa? Two events happened this week that caused me to think about this again. And the answer, for me, anyway is still the same. No, the two words are not synonymous, nor are the job skills the same for the two very different jobs.
I’ve been both in my career – I’ve done front-line programs as an interpreter on a variety of topics including both history and nature. The bulk of my career has been spent as an interpretive planner. And while I can say that I certainly benefitted as a planner from having good interpretive skills and understanding what it takes to be an interpreter from a programmatic standpoint, I can also say that those skills do not necessarily provide all the needed basics for sound interpretive planning.
Interpreters should have excellent communication skills to convey an interpretive theme, whether in writing or in personal presentations. They should also be extremely well-versed in the resource information needed to support their theme. Although some interpreters do their best work behind the scenes as writers, most tend to want to be in front of people. Interestingly, many would classify themselves as introverts on a personal level, but on a professional level they usually enjoy that daily interaction with the public that occurs when they’re providing personal interpretation services (programs).
Interpretive planners, on the other hand, may or may not have a great deal of public interaction as they perform their duties. If public input is one of those tools that is required for a particular project, then learning good facilitation skills (different than interpretive communication) is a real plus for a planner. Certainly, an interpretive planner must not only understand what interpretation is and how to craft a theme on a much broader scale than a single program (requiring an entirely different process), but they must also have a basic understanding of the many related disciplines that will be involved with the process – marketing, architecture, landscape architecture, business management, exhibit design, strategic planning, and more.
Any interpreter who has attempted to write a site-wide or region-wide interpretive plan quickly learns that knowing how to put together a single program does not prepare you for the intricacies of successful interpretive planning. Conversely, many, if not most, interpretive planners, would be at a loss if asked to present an interpretive program to a group of people visiting the beach on the weekend. And that’s okay. They are different jobs, with different skill sets required. Some people can do both, and that’s okay too. In fact, it’s a real bonus in my view.
There are many, many different jobs and job titles related to the interpretive field. Interpretive planner is just one of them (and it’s also different from exhibit designer, or architect, or landscape architect, or marketing specialist, or strategic planner, or any number of other jobs), but it is most definitely not the same thing as “interpreter.”
For more information, visit NAI’s Certification Handbook and Study Guide to see the knowledge, skills and abilities listed for Certified Heritage Interpreters and Certified Interpretive Planners.
