NAI Blog

You can never tell what kinds of things the public will get excited about.  Take Dua, one of our Asian small-clawed otters in the Wild About Otters exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Our Husbandry staff are always looking for ways to provide enrichment activities for exhibit animals.  Knowing that these otters have a great deal of dexterity and use their paws to help search for prey in the wild, they came upon the idea of putting a keyboard out for Dua to interact with.  Low and behold, Dua took to tickling the ivories!  One of our videographers heard about this and shot a brief clip of Dua in concert.  We put the clip on YouTube and it became an overnight hit!  Now the clip has made several appearances on network TV and has scored tens of thousands of hits on the internet.

What’s even more interesting from an interpreter’s standpoint, are the various comments that accompany the clip on YouTube.  Of course, not everyone reads the background explaining this is an enrichment activity for the animal—they just react to what they see.  So the comments range from cool, cute and creative, to demeaning, unnatural or anthropomorphic.  In all, it’s a good representation of how a large public audience has a variety of perspectives on an one event.

How this clip strikes you as a professional interpreter?  How would you address comments from folks that disapprove of this as “unnatural” behavior?  How would you use this to help educate folks about otters?  I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.  You can post a reply on this blog or e-mail me at jcovel@mbayaq.org.

In the meantime, think about how you might use sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter as powerful new tools to reach audiences in new ways.

I must admit that some movies make me think about our profession more than the movie itself. Yes, I’m talking about movies again, this time one that’s been out a long time. When the movie Groundhog Day came out in 1993, I thought it was cute but it really took me to another place. Interpretive programs remind me of Bill Murray’s problem in the movie. He was stuck in the same day until he got things right. We experience a similar phenomenon over a period of years. Interpretive programs crash in hard times and make a comeback in better times only to crash again in the next recession or reduction in force (RIF).

I remember the RIF in 1972 that ended my faculty environmental educator employment at Southern Illinois University. Everyone without a Ph.D. must go, about 130 of us. I naively took a spreadsheet to the dean to prove that the program I managed made a profit. He explained, “It’s a matter of priorities, not profit.” Bye. It was my first lesson about making my argument on terms that matter to my employer, not to myself.

Then I became a park interpreter with Illinois State Parks. About three years into that another recession landed and the Illinois legislature handed all departments a 10% budget cut. Interpretation was roughly 10% of the budget, so they cut all but four of us (18 full-time and 55 seasonals gone – sorry). Another RIF. So it goes. I survived and had some survivor guilt. I asked an administrator why they wiped out most of interpretation. He said, “We could hand every park a 10% cut and all feel the pain or just eliminate most of interpretation, which accounted for roughly 10% of the overall budget.” Then he made a comment followed by a tough question. “It’s been a year since the RIF. Not one superintendent has asked for their interpreter to be reinstated and no one has complained among the public. What were those interpreters doing that resulted in no one missing them?” Ouch. They were entertaining most likely, but that was not enough.

Someone has to value the work of interpreters or our programs aren’t sustainable. It’s not enough for us to like what we do and say, “the public loves my programs.” If we are simply interpretainment in the park, we’re gone with every budget cut. It’s like the movie, Groundhog Day, our programs and jobs disappear only to come back again in better times. It will go on until we get it right in the eyes and the values of management.

I also asked why my program survived along with three others. He admitted, “We were afraid to cut four of the programs. They have a large local and regional following who would have been upset.” It’s good to be valued and get some protection from that.

When I worked for Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as Research and Innovations Manager at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky, the Operations Manager pointed out to the management team that $2 million dollars annually was being spent on the emergency budget – fighting fires, looking for lost persons and dragging the lakes for people who drowned. He pointed out that the money could have been going into environmental education and interpretation, but those programs would have to help solve the management problems that led to emergencies. And, by the way, a year later TVA RIFed (the verb) over 200 of us. Budget cuts are a fact of life.

The interpretive version of Groundhog Day is more like Groundhog Year or Decade. The cuts come with major economic downturns. How do we not become the cut, the RIF, downsized and unemployed? Here are a few thoughts.

• Justify our importance to the organization with facts, not feelings, that matter to management. (i.e. Drownings at the lake have declined by three per year since our programming on safe boating began, we’ve had five fewer lost person searches since our orienteering and GPS programs began, etc.) Look back at my blog, On the Road to Kentucky, and read about Michael Kirschman’s work to establish the economic value of open space in his county.

• Employ thoughtful interpretive planning to develop output, outcome and impact objectives ( a logic model – great PDF file on this available from the Kellogg Foundation at http://www.wkkf.org/Pubs/Tools/Evaluation/Pub3669.pdf) that align with management goals. I’ll write about logic models in my next blog in a week or so.

• Ask to be involved in management meetings and work to become a valued member of the management team in addressing management goals and issues. If not invited to management meetings – buy donuts and show up. Listen and get involved.

There are no silver bullets in downsizing, RIFs and reengineering moves at organizations, but we can do our best to be of value if we remember that interpretation is management.

Imagine this movie trailer about your place of work and your life. The boss comes in to a meeting to announce budget cuts. He relates with regret what must go, but your program never comes up. Later he confides, “You guys make a real difference here and we can’t get along without you.” I love a movie with a happy ending.

- Tim Merriman

My life is not in ruins, actually, it’s going quite well, but we just saw the movie, My Life in Ruins.  I’ve never written a movie review and this may not exactly be a review, but then again, maybe it is. An interpretive movie review is more likely the category for this.

Nia Vardalos, star and writer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, wrote and stars in this movie with Richard Dreyfuss of Jaws fame, and hunky Alexis Georgoulis. Nia, as Georgia, a tour guide in Greece, has lost her “kefi,” Greek for mojo. (I’m not sure what mojo means either but I’m pretending I know when I talk about it.) Alexis plays Poupi, the tour bus driver, and Richard Dreyfuss is Irv, a wise-cracking American tourist and widower in search of humor at every turn.

Georgia is single, has a doctorate in Greek history and has lost her university position. As a guide she’s the classic “interpretorture” role model who buries her audience in the deep story with all the details at every stop. Her guide company owner points out that her guests always give her “average” as a post-tour evaluation. The owner gives Georgia the worst guests (mostly Americans, wouldn’t you know), the bus with a broken air conditioner, and fleabag hotels. The other guide is a prototypical “interpretainment” guide who turns every tour into shopping and bar hopping. His guests love him.

For the real story you’ll have to go to the movie. It’s supposedly about Georgia finding the right guy and “la dolce vita” (yes, I know it’s a different movie and Italian, not Greek) through the wisdom of wiseguy Irv (Richard Dreyfuss) standing in for the Oracle at Delphi by giving everyone some good advice about their lives. But there was another SUB-THEME about heritage interpretation – WOW!

Irv tells Georgia to lighten up and enjoy life. Carpe diem (Seize the day in Latin – not ten carp as I once thought). Georgia shifts mental gears on the bus tour and starts using intangible UNIVERSALS that connect her guests emotionally to the classical stories of the Agora and the Parthenon. Her guests start paying attention, bond with each other, facilitate Georgia’s budding romance with driver Poupi and Irv really has become the ORACLE of My Life in Ruins. This could be in a Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) course – tangibles, intangibles, universals, it’s all there.

We (NAI staff and members from 20 countries) were just in Greece for the 4th Annual International Conference and this movie took us around to the same places we visited – Santorini, Delphi, the Acropolis and Poseiden’s Temple. That was fun to see it all again. But the best part was the interpretive message. Don’t forget to help people connect with the bigger meanings at any cultural or natural site – use UNIVERSALS.

The movie was fun – not Lawrence of Arabia, not Dr. Zhivago, not The Secret Life of Bees, but it was fun, much like Nia’s earlier movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Maybe it’s tax deductible as a training film on making emotional connections in heritage interpretation and guiding. I’m not your tax advisor. Please consult a CPA before deducting the movie tickets. In the end Georgia finds her KEFI or MOJO and I had fun. You might also.

- Tim Merriman

Over 50 years ago, a group of interpreters gathered for the first time in Bradford Woods, Indiana. They saw the promise in this fledgling field of interpretation and formed the Association of Interpretive Naturalists (AIN) to nurture the development of this new profession. While this Bradford Woods event was a bit before my time, I did have the opportunity to witness the development of the Western Interpreters Association (WIA) a few years later, as well as the founding of NAI in 1988.

The growth of our professional associations has been one of the most important series of milestones in the development of interpretation. Gathering regularly to share new methods, establish best practices, and learn about new research findings has propelled our profession to higher and higher levels of quality and effectiveness. But there’s more to it than that. There’s something about gathering with kindred spirits, enjoying the fellowship of peers—perhaps commiserating a bit at times—that is every bit as valuable as the technical training we receive.

Similar efforts have been going on in many other countries—Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK, and more. The World Heritage Interpretation Congresses were some of the first attempts to create a global gathering of interpreters. The NAI International Conferences have now filled that role and are helping to build momentum toward more international exchanges among interpreters.

Pictured: Participants from around the world (pictured here on Cape Sounion near Athens) discuss exciting times in the profession at the NAI International Conference.

At this year’s international conference, we ended four days of very productive sessions and field trips with a roundtable discussion about the organization of Interpret Europe, an effort to unify interpreters across the European Union. As our European peers formed an organizing committee to develop the next steps in this process, I realized that we were seeing the “Bradford Woods” phenomenon yet again. There’s something about gathering our collective energy that consistently moves the profession forward—and here it is happening again.

I realize that attending an NAI International Conference may be a distant dream for many U.S. members. However, every member can be proud of the role that NAI is playing in advancing interpretation in other parts of the world as well as in the United States. And when you do attend an international conference, you’ll find that same gathering of kindred spirits, that same collective energy that our founders first discovered at Bradford Woods. The cultures and languages may be more diverse today as interpretation encompasses the globe, but we all share that common spark that denotes a great interpreter anywhere in the world.

NAI’s president Jim Covel is the senior manager of guest experience at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.

On April 22nd, Earth Day, I was back in Pueblo, Colorado, with the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo to make an Earth Day speech for the 30th anniversary dinner of the organization. I was their second Executive Director from 1980 until 1993, so this was a return to a place and family of members I like very much. It felt great to look out and see so many old friends among the three hundred in the audience and to know they are still involved in this important community organization. 

I was asked to specifically talk about the “No child left inside” movement that has grown from Richard Louv’s thoughtful book, Last Child in the Woods. So, I started by asking the assembled nature center members several questions. First I asked, “How many of you made your personal connection to nature through a school classroom experience and how many through a non-formal setting?” Only one person of the 300 in the audience responded that a classroom activity helped her connect. Then I asked them whether their connection happened on a school field trip, a club outing (girl scouts, boy scouts, 4-H, etc.) or through play in the outdoors. Again the answer was overwhelming. Play was the situation that brought 90% to a love of nature. Clubs were very important to them but often not the first introduction to nature. 

Some of our neighborhoods still have streams nearby or water features but often the normal allure of nature is identified as “risky.” We are willing to have the accidents and dangers of jungle gyms, teeter totters and convention play structures, even if more dangerous than the forest or stream nearby. 

Nature centers play a very important role in communities in providing space for people to learn and play. We recently held an interpretive planning course at Cincinnati Nature Center with their talented staff and others from around the country. They plan to build a 2 acre playscape that encourages unstructured free play by children. This recognizes that important value of having a place outdoors where the play is limited only by the imagination of the child. 

I hope we keep finding ways to build nature centers in more neighborhoods during these tough economic times. Environmental education money from Congress has increased 44% already with the new administration and other initiatives in the planning stages are likely to add more. As more people live in high-rise apartment buildings, townhouses and condominiums, a place to play has to be part of our urban design. If we believe that children learn more and develop critical thinking skills in the outdoors, they need many places to play.