NAI Blog » Professional Development

30Mar

Brain Rules – Understanding How We Learn and Work

I encourage you to watch the video above. John Medina tells his own story well. He makes some points we need to think about. He points out that our learning and work environments are likely the worst possible choices for learning well and working productively.

John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and consultant, wrote Brain Rules in 2009 to help people understand what we know about the human brain. It all applies to interpretation in a major way.

The rules are fascinating:

#1 Exercise boosts brain power.

#2 The human brain evolved, too.

#3 Every brain is wired differently.

#4 We don’t pay attention to boring things.

#5 Repeat to remember.

#6 Remember to repeat.

#7 Sleep well, think well.

#8 Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.

#9 Stimulate more of the senses.

#10 Vision trumps all other senses.

#11 Male and female brains are different.

#12 We are powerful and natural explorers.

When asked about holding an audience’s attention, Medina answered, This is what you have to do in 10 minutes. You have to pulse what I just said – the meaning before detail – into it. I call it a hook. At nine minutes and 59 seconds, you’ve got to give your audience a break from what it is that you’ve been saying and pulse to them once again the meaning of what you’re saying. This reinforces our approaches to teaching thematic personal interpretation.

Medina’s book is wonderful to read. He interprets research about the brain and the practical applications of that research. Some of what you read in Brain Rules will sound very much like what you have heard or read of Sam Ham’s work at University of Idaho. As a cognitive psychologist, Ham uses much of the same body of knowledge from which Medina draws his rules.

Medina writes quite a lot about how the brain evolved. The symbolic reasoning ability of humans was of key importance in survival. We had to be creative to live in nature with big predators. Our database (left brain) stores key information we need to use over and over again. Our brain components work together to protect us.

He also explains how the brain continually adapts and neurons change. This continuous reinvention of one of our most important body parts affect how we work and learn at all ages. Medina has also written a Brain Rules book just about babies for parents wanting to understand the implications of brain research and how that affects developmental stages.

One of the more common questions I hear in training is whether human attention spans are changing due to social media or television. Our brains do not evolve so quickly and much of how we function has taken millions of years to get the way it is. We adapt and change behaviorally due to external stimulation. TV and social media certainly have evolved over the years. But our brain is still our brain. It changes in predictable ways to the extent we understand it. John Medina provides an interesting look at how it all works based on current research. Check out Brain Rules and see what you think about it.

- Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Professional Development Tags: brain rules, john medina, left-brained, right-brained No Comments
09Mar

Pointe du Hoc – Sharing an Important Story from D-Day

On June 6, 1944, Companies C, D, and F, about 200 men, of the Second Ranger Battalion assaulted the bluffs of Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, a point of land between Omaha and Utah Beaches. Under the command of a native Texan, Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, they achieved their mission but more than 40% of their brave comrades. Their mission was to take this high ground and secure the coastal road while silencing six 8-inch guns in the area. Unbeknownst to the Rangers, there were actually only three big guns and they had already been moved a mile or more inland. Still Rudder and his men secured the area in two and a half days and united with their comrades from the beach landings to move further inland and to secure the port of Cherbourg.

Visitors at Pointe du Hoc look out of the observation ports used by German soldiers when the D-Day landing began.

This important part of the D-Day Landing story is less well known than that of Omaha Beach, but very accessible in some ways because the landscape is still there as evidence of all that occurred. The German gun emplacements, underground bunkers, bomb craters and observation ports are open and available to the public. The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) has the job of telling this story while also managing the 24 American Cemeteries in Europe and North Africa. Only one of the rangers who fought so well at Pointe du Hoc is living and he is in his 90s, so the ABMC’s job at Pointe du Hoc has become even more important.

Members of the planning class work on their visitor experience design for Pointe du Hoc.

We are in Port de Bessin, France, teaching an interpretive planning class this week for eighteen participants from four countries. ABMC is our host at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Most of our participants manage other World War I and II cemeteries and battlefield sites.

The American Cemetery Superintendents are responsible not only for the physical management of these significant sites, but also the interpretation of the thousands of stories that come with them for millions of visitors every year.

Our planning class at Normandy American Cemetery.

There was a time when the role of ABMC guides was more one of helping people find deceased family members and loved ones in the cemeteries. But WWII was over in 1945, 67 years ago. Those who remember first-hand the battles, challenges and outcomes are elderly and fewer in number each year. The stories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice are now in the hands of ABMC as interpreters and planning is an important part of the process to keep those stories alive.

The Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach gets more than 1.5 million visitors each year. About 15% are Americans and about 60% of the guests are French. The other 25% come from every other nation in the world. The new Visitor Center at Omaha Beach provides a very emotional experience with the individual stories of many of the soldiers. In one corridor you can hear the reading of the names of all those buried at the cemetery. It takes 15 hours or more to read more than 9,300 names.

Though many young people in America may not know what events turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies, many French people remember and teach their children by adopting the graves and stories of individual soldiers. They pass on their knowledge of the individuals who gave their lives in defense of freedom to the next generation.

As ABMC identified their needs to become better at interpretation as keepers of these sites and stories over the past decade, they have invested in training and partnerships. National Park Service staff have provided training and ABMC staff have spent time at U.S. parks and historic sites to gain insights into strategies used in high visitation battlefield settings. They have sent many of their staff to NAI courses in the U.S. and attended NAI’s international conferences. This is the first interpretive planning course with ABMC in Europe and it includes the hands-on work of planning the visitor experience at Pointe du Hoc.

ABMC wins the hearts and minds of thousands of visitors each week with their interpretation of America’s soldiers and their roles in WWI and WWII. Pointe du Hoc will soon get many improvements to better tell its important and powerful story to all who visit there. As we stood out on the point in extraordinarily high winds and looked left to Utah Beach and right to Omaha Beach, we listened to the ABMC staff recount the stories of the men who scaled the cliffs. As a class project, the Pointe du Hoc offers the challenge of conveying the competency, courage and sacrifice of the soldiers who gave all of us a chance to live in freedom. As an American, I am proud to play even a small part in telling that story and prouder still of the good work that the ABMC does on the behalf of the brave men and women whose histories are now in their hands.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Interpretive Planning, NAI blog, Professional Development Tags: American Battle Monuments Commission, D-Day, Normandy, Pointe du Hoc 2 Comments
10Feb

Interpretive Opportunities – Tyrene’s Story

NAI’s Interpretive Training Courses include segments on creating interpretive opportunities. We shared that lesson yesterday in a course in progress at Grand Canyon National Park and Tyrene, a trainer and guide with Xanterra shared her personal story this morning about creating interpretive opportunities.

After a visit to the marketplace, she caught the shuttle bus to Hermit Trail to watch the sunset and was sitting next to a gentleman from England. He was chatting with another Xanterra employee on the bus. He asked why Tyrene was here and she mentioned interpretation training. He asked what language she interprets. She explained it was not about languages. In trying to explain what it was about she asked him to look out the window at the trees and then asked, “What do trees mean to you?” He said, “Peace.” “Yes,” she followed up, “but what does that mean to you?” He thought and answered, “They relax me and make me feel safe, and they remind me of my home because it’s made of wood.”

Tyrene had been a fishing guide before getting involved with Xanterra as a guide and trainer at Yellowstone National Park. She has had lots of experience in the outdoors. As she and her acquaintance from England chatted further about trees and their value in our lives, she mentioned that trees are unique and that one can learn more about them by taking a multisensory approach – touching, listening, smelling, the various qualities of various trees. She threw out an interesting tidbit, that ponderosa pine bark smells like butterscotch. They parted ways as she reached her stop. Later, when she saw the man again, he was leaning over to a Ponderosa pine to smell the bark. Though she didn’t have the chance to talk to him, she was excited to see that the interpretive techniques employed in the conversation had provided an opportunity for him to connect with the resource in a way that had become meaningful for him.

We spend a lot of time on this idea of interpretive conversations in the Interpretive Host course. Any employee in any role at an interpretive site may create a very special experience for a guest through a thoughtful conversation or act of assistance. Xanterra has the concession contracts at Grand Canyon but Tyrene does not work here. Her decision to explain interpretation was not so much about impressing him with her knowledge as asking him to think about the importance of parks, forests and protected areas like Grand Canyon. She invited him to think more deeply about trees and the protection of them in these sorts of settings.

We all hope to create interpretive opportunities in our programming, facilities design and creation of interpretive media. But informal contacts with people also offer great opportunities to do this. We can ask questions and learn what interests them. We can adapt and suggest just the right thing to enrich their experiences. Tyrene did just that and helped a foreign guest become even more enthused about a very interesting place, Grand Canyon National Park, all while serving as a thoughtful interpreter of “interpretation.”

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation, Professional Development Tags: informal interpretation, interpretive host course No Comments
30Dec

Investing in Planning

Interpretive Planning class at Cleveland Metroparks.

Administrators and managers of interpretive sites are sometimes faced with decisions about investing in new programs and facilities. Is there an exhibit needed, a visitor center, more seasonal staff, or something not yet considered? Too often the manager decides on his or her own or with the help of a few staff in a single meeting. The manager likes kiosks or exhibits so that is what gets done. Almost always, the manager would be ahead to invest first in a plan before making a decision.

I confess that I once espoused the value of the READY-FIRE-AIM approach. That is the approach where you try something (or a variety of somethings) and you hold your breath until you see whether it works or not. That can be a useful approach if you are testing a sign or other media item in a temporary format, but it is a poor way to approach investments in new interpretive media.

The main problem with unplanned media or program development is that it simply may not achieve your objectives. If you have no objectives, perhaps you think anything you try will work. And to some extent, you may be right. However, if you really want to build revenue, improve attendance, better protect a resource, increase membership or solve a real problem, a plan is likely to save you much more than it costs.

We see visitor centers being closed in parks, forests or communities in which they should never have been built. It was not the right investment to achieve the objectives. Matching media to audiences to achieve identified objectives is part of the planning process. NAI’s interpretive planning courses use the 5-M approach to planning outlined in Lisa Brochu’s Interpretive Planning (2003) book. The 5-M approach emphasizes that Management, Markets (audiences), Mechanics and Message (themes, storylines, etc.) should be considered before selecting media. And yet, many people in the interpretive profession start with media.

The old saying, When you only own a hammer, everything looks like a nail, comes to mind. We put up signs sometimes because we own a sign-making machine or have a shop in our agency that makes signs. We first need to determine that a sign is needed by analyzing what we need to accomplish, what we want to communicate to whom, and how we will support the media with operations.

Many “template” approaches to planning assume that the same facilities are needed in every building of a certain type. So a theater and introductory video becomes an “essential” item whether needed or not. Often visitors to a major park or recreational site are not willing to sit through a video when a beautiful day awaits them. This is a very expensive component in a center and a huge waste of money if it does not deliver what you need.

A good interpretive plan by a competent planner and skilled planning team will save much more than the costs of the plan because you do not invest in useless media and programs. You invest in what has a good chance of achieving your management objectives.

NAI certifies interpretive planners and interpnet.com includes a directory of those who have proven their qualifications through peer-review of their work. The interpretive planning courses offered by NAI can help your staff become competent planners and/or learn how to select a consulting planner and work with them. Investing in staff so that they understand planning is a great start.

You can bring a planning course to your site to do a plan while your staff learns how to plan by participating in the course. If you want more information contact us at 888-900-8283. Check out NAI’s Interpretive Plans Blog to learn more.

-Tim Merriman

P.S. Upcoming interpretive planning courses may be found HERE.

Permalink Filed under: From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Professional Development Tags: interpretive plan, interpretive planning No Comments
02Dec

Maslow and the Culture of the Workplace

Most of us have studied and taught Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs over the years. Abraham Maslow published his famous paper on motivations in 1954 and others have added to it through the years, but his basic premises have stood the test of time. It is interesting to consider how it applies to the culture at the places we work.

Basic needs according to Maslow are food, shelter, safety and security. Food and shelter may or may not come into play at most workplaces. Some big corporations and work settings these days have gourmet food services so that their employees can get food without traveling far from work. But most interpretive settings are small and lots of us carry our own lunch to work. But safety and security do come into play. If we supervise with a top down approach by scolding, threatening and using negative motivations, we are threatening the employee’s “survival” in the workplace.

It usually works better to use a coaching approach that tells people what they do well and how you would suggest they could improve performance. You can ask for improvements without making it seem that the Sword of Damocles is hanging over the person. Provisional language like, “you might consider,” or “have you thought about” are ways to suggest useful approaches without demanding things be done your way.

Jobs can be eliminated if we do not perform as expected so in fairness we need to keep people informed if there are threats to their future employment. Continual threats usually are not a successful means of motivating employees.

Intermediate needs on Maslow’s triangle are about a sense of belonging, community, and relationships – the social aspects in any workplace. A healthy workplace community can be encouraged through regular staff meetings where good work is acknowledged in front of all staff. Retreats or outings with staff can be done occasionally to encourage teamwork. These can be work oriented planning retreats or simply a fun meal out or a sporting event enjoyed as a group. Some work groups take their staff to a “ropes” course or other group challenge course to build teamwork. It helps if you get some consensus about what you choose. A retreat or social event can be negative motivation if it is simply what the boss wants to do and no one else enjoys it.

Cognitive needs are also important. Employees need access to professional development to help them grow and learn in their work roles. This kind of support should be there at all levels, not just for managers and upper level staff.

We think of Maslow’s higher needs as aesthetics and self-actualization. Employees who feel empowered to do creative work along with the requisite paperwork or routine activities feel a sense of ownership. Telling each employee how to do the details of his or her job can have a chilling effect. Usually there are multiple ways to do a job responsibly and letting the individual choose how to do it is supportive and helpful. Hopefully we have hired talented people and will trust them to do their best.

Professionals put in extra time, put out extra effort and give their best when they feel their expertise is acknowledged, supported and recognized. Rewarding great efforts with praise, giving raises when possible and awards when reasonable can keep them working near the top of the pyramid.

Some psychologists describe a step beyond self-actualization as transcendence or helping someone else reach her or his full potential. As supervisors and employers, it can be very rewarding to find that the culture we have created is so supportive and collaborative that we have low turnover and employees who pitch in and help others when they need it without concern over turf or credit. A culture of kindness, support, encouragement and empowerment has benefits beyond longevity and low turnover. Our employees pass on that same feeling to our customers, visitors and audiences. The Customer Comes Second by Hal Rosenbluth and Diane McFerrin Peters is a great resource that describes this philosophy in detail.

Money is only one of many motivations we have for working in interpretation. We joke about being paid in sunsets, but in truth many of us have stayed in jobs for the wonderful aesthetics of where we work. We simply enjoy what we do. But frustration in the workplace can derail even the most passionate of workers. A culture of empowerment makes it likely that your employees will not only stay for many years but will also share your supportive behavior with others. Such a positive workplace culture can make all the difference to your employees’ sense of self-worth and ultimately your organization’s long-term sustainability.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, From the Executive Director, Leadership, Management, NAI blog, Professional Development Tags: the customer comes second, transcendence 1 Comment
18Nov

Reading my Personal Classics – Leopold and . . .

I will confess up front that I do not read a lot of non-fiction (7 or 8 per year compared to 50 to 60 fiction titles) and I do not read many books over and over again, but there are exceptions. I think of some of these as my personal “classics.” For each of us the list may be different.

Sand County Almanac lit me up when I read it in the early 1970s. Aldo Leopold’s classic book was published by his children after his death. I read the chapter about watching a woodcock and immediately went out my back door in southern Illinois and could hear a woodcock calling. I did what Leopold described and was soon sitting four feet from a woodcock giving its plaintive peeping call, a first for me, a memorable first. Every chapter spoke to me personally and I have been back to reread the book a time or two. Leopold wrote, “Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”

Desert Solitaire was another book that I could not put down and still like to read. Ed Abbey was irreverent and outrageous at times, but respectful of the natural world. His views of the desert southwest were unique and revealing. It helped me see the area to which I had moved differently. I was in Pueblo, Colorado, in the early 1980s when I read the book. Limestone river bluffs covered with cholla, one-seeded juniper and piñon pine with a few bunch grasses were the landscape near my home, not the lush oak forests Leopold described. It was good to have a guide who saw more deeply into desert landscapes.

I did not dig into Enos Mills’ Adventures of a Nature Guide until the early 1990s and I keep rereading portions of it. Almost everything we teach in heritage interpretation today is in some ways suggested by Mills. He foreshadowed our understanding of how tangibles like mountains, trees and streams connect to the intangibles (universals) like beauty, wilderness and survival.

Mills wrote, A nature guide is not a guide in the ordinary sense of the word, and is not a teacher. At all times, however, he has been rightfully associated with information and some form of education. But nature guiding, as we see it is more inspirational than informational. He added, The nature guide arouses interest by dealing in big principles-not with detached and colorless information.

He also wrote, Last summer she was a nature guide-an interpreter of nature. That was in a chapter on “The Development of a Woman Guide.” About two-thirds of the heritage interpretation professionals these days are women and most were men in much of early half of the Twentieth Century. He foresaw the attraction this field would have for women and the extraordinary sensitivity and intelligence they would bring to the field.

Interpreting Our Heritage will be a classic for a long time. I often heard from students I taught and still hear from some interpreters that Tilden is dull, not so interesting to read. They even say he is TOO CLASSICAL, a bad rap for writing well some might say. I get more out of it now than when I first read it three decades ago. I finally have the patience to slow down in some books and hear the voice of the author more clearly than I did the first time or second time.

As a young naturalist-interpreter in Illinois State Parks I read May Theilgaard Watts, Reading the Landscape of America. Her words became my companion as I led hikes. She helped me see and share cultural stories on the natural landscape I had missed with a knowledge only of what I was seeing and not why I was seeing it there. I began to find the old homesites and schools she knew would be there if I knew how to look.

Classic books hang around and they are a great place for us to look back through the eyes of an author working in another time and place. My new library is in my iPad, but I still have books on the shelf that matter to me. These are a few of them. What do you go back to because it has more to share with you a second or third time?

- Tim Merriman

Knowing the place and the hour, you seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watching against the sunset for the woodcock’s arrival. He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart . . .

from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation, Professional Development Tags: adventures of a nature guide, Aldo Leopold, Enos Mills, Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, may watts, reading the landscape of america, sand county almanac 1 Comment
30Sep

Four Interpretive Books – New and New Editions

Several great books are either new to the interpretive marketplace or soon to be available. Some are from familiar authors and some may be new to you.

Interpretation for the Twenty-first Century by Larry Beck and Ted Cable has been a valued training and text resource since 1998. Their third revision of the book was just released by Sagamore Publishing, Inc. with a new name, The Gifts of Interpretation: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture. It maintains the original intent of keeping interpretive principles updated while providing additional material the authors think you will find valuable. This new edition will replace the 2nd Edition in the Certification Library at NAI and it is already available at the NAI Association Store. The Retail price to non-members is $25.00 for the paperbound copy or $21.00 for NAI members and an E-book version is also available through Sagamore’s website.

Since 1992 many of us have used Sam Ham’s great book, Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets. He has taught several generations of interpreters about thematic interpretation and more through this very readable, accessible resource. As Director of the Center for International Training and Outreach, he stays very busy working at his academic home at University of Idaho while training and consulting all over the world. A few months ago his original book went out of print with Fulcrum Press and it will stay out of print until a new version is available. Writing an updated version of his book has been Sam’s desire for years and he is getting close to completing the new book with hopes of release early in 2012. It will include the most current social science research that support the value of thematic interpretation and Sam’s thoughtful methods in teaching the material. We look forward to offering the book once again through the Association Store when it is available and we will include it in the Certification Library. If you want the original as a collector’s item in your library, you just may have to buy it on EBAY.

Meaningful Interpretation: How to Connect Hearts, Minds to Places, Objects and Other Resources was written by several National Park Service trainers and writers and was edited by David L. Larsen of the National Park Service in 2003 and published by Eastern National. It has gone out of print recently and Eastern National was kind in allowing NAI to co-publish the book for sale exclusively through NAI’s Association Store in 2011. It will be available for sale at the NAI National Workshop in St. Paul November 7-11, 2011. It will sell for $24 to non-members and $20 to members. David’s untimely death earlier this year stunned those of us who knew him. This edition will be dedicated to David and includes the original Foreword by Corky Mayo and a thoughtful new Foreword by Julia Washburn, NPS’ Associate Director for Interpretation and Education. David’s ideas and passion for the profession shine through and his ideas will be with us forever.

NAI’s publishing imprint, InterpPress, will soon release a new E-book and Print on Demand title, Establishing a Nature-based Preschool, by Rachel Larimore, Director of Education at Chippewa Nature Center. This will help anyone wanting to create a nature-based preschool with great advice from someone who has established and operated a very successful program in Michigan after taking a very close look at the good work of many other programs with preschool programming. The book delves into every aspect of this unique opportunity to introduce children to nature at a very early age. Watch NAInow if you are a member of NAI for the release date or check the NAI website, interpet.com from time to time. We expect it to be available for download before the National Workshop November 7-11, 2011, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

It is always good to stay up with literature and research in our profession. Take a look at these great new and renewed resources.

- Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation, Professional Development Tags: David Larsen, Larry Beck, Rachel Larimore, Sam Ham, Ted Cable 1 Comment
09Sep

Stewardship – A Measure of Success

As I talk to colleagues, I am really aware that some of us simply view stewardship in a vague positive way. It is seen as worthy, important and mandated by our mission statements. We used conservation for many decades in this way and then sustainability in more recent years. When required to describe what are the results of stewardship, conservation and sustainability, we are often vague.

When economic downturns land on us such as this current one with a threat of a double dip recession, programs with vague measures of success are usually the first cut. Stewardship can be translated into RESULTS. Logic models are the modern measuring tools being suggested or in some sectors, mandated. Many foundations now require a logic model with the application to even be considered. The Kellogg Foundation has been a leader in teaching nonprofits how to write logic models. Some government agencies that give out grants money are now requiring them as well. Deluged with requests, these giving programs want to know what RESULTS they may expect for their investments.

I find logic models comforting. They identify the RESULTs we want in definite terms. They take big ideas about the impact desired and translate them into specific measures of success or RESULTS aligned with a goal. For example if we have operated a community nature center in a water-stressed community, we might have a goal like:

GOAL: Encourage stewardship of water resources in the community.

We have to ask the question – What would be a measurable result of that goal? We have to write objectives that reflect change and that reasonably can be measured on a regular basis. An IMPACT OBJECTIVE for this goal might be:

IMPACT:

• Reduce per capita consumption of water in this district by 5% over the next five years.

That can reasonably be measured by the water district. The next question becomes, what changes in citizen behavior will achieve that? It’s best to work backwards in logic models from IMPACT to OUTCOMES (desired human behavior). Some OUTCOMES or behaviors that could be measured might be:

• 500 People a year will attend Home Savings Workshops.

• Sale of Xeriscape plants in our local nurseries will increase by 12% per year

• Sale of low water demand sod will increase by 15% per year in the community

• Sale of low water usage plumbing fixtures will increase by 10% at area plumbing outlets

These outcomes all reflect the desired behavior changes that might lead to the desired IMPACT of lessened per capita water usage. Then the question becomes, what will we do to get these OUTCOMES. What will be our OUTPUTS.

Historically most of us have been taught to work the other direction. What programs do we want to do? What services will we provide? What will we sell in our nature center shops? We usually develop programs and services without knowing what we want as RESULTS.

In a logic model, the desired IMPACT and OUTCOMES drive the programming. In this example, the OUTPUTS might be:

• Offer a weekly Home Savings Workshop to teach homeowners about saving money by converting suburban/urban yards and bathrooms to water saving options.

• Offer a free outreach workshop to cooperating landscape contractors, nurseries and plumbing businesses that will promote water stewardship and track sale of related items.

• Host an annual tour of xeriscaped yards that show off the best examples with interpretive materials that relate the cost savings and positive benefits.

• Develop partnership agreements with the water department, sewage department and parks department to share data on water usage per capita in the community.

This may seem contrived but it is very similar to a specific Logic Model developed for a new Stewardship Center in Cleveland, Ohio, several years ago. Also, Logic Models can be a great tool for partnerships and collaborative effort because they identify specific results to build agreement among collaborators.

In this process you must monitor the data developed to see how you are doing and change OUTPUTS as necessary to keep working toward desired OUTCOMES. The Logic Model is a roadmap to success in measurable terms.

Some organizations still operate on the vague notion of stewardship but the pressure is on most of us to show RESULTS. NAI interpretive planning courses focus on teaching how to write logic models. The first time you write a Logic Model it is challenging but it gets easier each year and the payoff is considerable. You know what you are trying to accomplish, not just hoping for better circumstances.

- Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation, Professional Development Tags: logic model, water conservation, xeriscape 3 Comments
12Aug

Who Is the Face of Your Organization or Agency?

We like to think that our organization or agency is well represented by any staff member? How prepared is each worker to be the “face” of our organization? Did we train them for that?

I once heard a Disney trainer talk about the incredible number of people a guest meets in one day at a Disney theme park. I don’t recall the exact number but it was dozens. He asked the audience, “How many have to mess up to ruin the Disney experience.” Everyone in the audience of hundreds murmured “ONE.” We all know how our experience has been ruined by one act of mistreatment or misjudgment.

Sometimes maintenance workers, drivers, security guards, cashiers, receptionists, campground hosts, volunteers, docents, and interns have more direct “face” time with the public at interpretive institutions than the interpreters, public relation specialists, educators and rangers do.

I was in Yellowstone National Park in May of 1988. I kept track for the day of the number of park employees I encountered. It came to 37, but only three wore the familiar Arrowhead insignia of the National Park Service (NPS). Most were concessionaires and volunteers. The public views them as park employees if they work in the park and insignias go unnoticed. The Yellowstone experience is holistic from the visitor’s view and can be enhanced or ruined by any of the NPS employees, contractors, partners or volunteers.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) was an early adopter of National Association for Interpretation’s (NAI) Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) program. Their administrators asked us what interpretive training was available for those who do not guide, give presentations and handle formal programming. We admitted we had no such training package. They kindly offered to pay for some of the costs of generating such a program and wanted to be the test case for how it would work.

To make a long story shorter, we developed the Certified Interpretive Host (CIH) course and tested it with TPWD employees at Bastrop State Park in 2004. The two-day course is one-third customer service. The other two-thirds is informal interpretation. The course has two major objectives:

• Every conversation is a chance to connect our audience with the resource

• The mission is everyone’s JOB ONE at our site along with specific job descriptions

One maintenance worker in the test course said at the start, “I’m just happy to not clean toilets for a couple of days.” At the end he said, “This is the first time in my 25 years here that I have felt like a member of the professional staff.” We all learned through the role playing of his fascination with the history of Caddo Indians and his skill at flint napping. His job was important to him and that came out clearly in the activities. The course gave him explicit guidance on how he can do his primary job but still be empowered to talk to visitors in ways that encourage stewardship and support for the TPWD mission.

Disney Corporation trains staff for two weeks before putting any of them in front of their guests. Many of us have worked at interpretive sites where orientation amounted to being handed office keys, vehicle keys and told where we could work. We had to learn the mission, management objectives and motivations of our agency by on the job training. Sometimes that does not work very well.

NAI’s Certified Interpretive Trainers (CIT) are allowed to teach the CIH or “Host” course to their constituents. They learn the two-day curriculum for CIH after completing the CIT credential, a five-day course with follow up materials to be submitted for peer review. Trainers do not have to certify those trained. The training is valuable whether the credentials are conferred. Many organizations who use the CIH training have commented that it improved the culture of their organization around their mission. We hope it does that while improving the experience of every visitor or guest. If you want to know more, call us at 888-900-8283 (toll-free). Everyone who represents your organization is the “FACE” and deserves training that makes their time with your customers, guests and visitors more effective.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Professional Development, Volunteers Tags: connecting, customer service, host, stewardship, training 1 Comment
05Aug

Train the Trainers – A Decade of Growth

The first CIG class in LaPaz, Mexico, in December, 2000.

In December of 2000 NAI tested a new curriculum in LaPaz, Mexico, the Certified Interpretive Guide course. It was a course and credential suggested by Dominic Canale of Denali Doyon/Aramark of Alaska, after he sat in on training we provided for Cruise West and Alaska Sightseeing in Seattle. He suggested that such a course would be appealing for guides in all sorts of settings including his driver-guides in Denali National Park. In the past decade more than 10,000 have earned the CIG or Certified Interpretive Guide Credential. Who trained them? Many of you did.

In 2001 we began offering the Train the Trainers Course which helps interpreters earn the Certified Interpretive Trainer credential along with the right to teach the CIG course and certify guides. About 95 interpreters took the course in that first year offered in four different courses. Since then we have trained more than 1,000 trainers and about 400 of them have completed the CIT credential and become CIG trainers.

The five-day course alone does not get you the credential. You take it to learn the CIG curriculum and then you must submit pass the required literature review, the presentation requirement, as well as submit essay questions and training outlines to undergo peer reviews with three others who hold the CIT credential. You must have a college degree or four years of full-time experience or combination of the two to take the course. The requirements are described in the Certification Program Handbook and Study Guide. A CIT who has had the Train the Trainers Course may train CIGS anywhere in the world she or he wishes. Our surveys show that CIGs are working in about 40 countries though the training has only been conducted in eight or nine countries. Jane Pauley of TODAY show fame recently interviewed Barbara O’Grady, a CIG, working in Yellowstone National Park on NBC.

The CIG course is now taught in about 40 colleges and universities within an undergraduate course so many young people leave college with the credential. Some programs use it as basic training with their seasonal staff. Some require it for all front-line presenters.

The Trainers Course is being taught August 22 to 26 in St. Louis and is almost sold out. From September 12 to 16 it will be taught for the first time ever in Canada with Toronto Zoo as the setting. The first four days of the course is the CIG curriculum and day five is a chance for each participant to make a 20-minute training presentation of a small component of the CIG course. Another course will be in Chicago from Dec. 12 to 16, the last for 2011.

If 400 CITs have come from more than 1,000 being trained, it is clear that some who take the course will not finish. For the most part they do not turn in the additional work to earn the credential. In some cases they simply wanted the training skills and had no intention of becoming a trainer of CIGs. Some earn the CIT and let it lapse four or eight years later at renewal time because their job changed and they no longer wish to be an active trainer. Staying active as a trainer of CIGs has some other requirements that not all will be able to maintain.

If you have an interest in becoming a Certified Interpretive Trainer who trains CIGs, you can sign up at interpnet.com. Just call us at 888-900-8283 if you have questions.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Leadership, NAI Administration, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation, Professional Development Tags: Certified Interpretive Guide, CIG, CIT No Comments

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