**An Introduction to Interpretation**

**Course 8300-07**

**BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**May 21-23, 1997**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors in transcription and omissions.

Telecast for May 21, 1997: Pages 1-46

Telecast for May 22, 1997: Pages 47-99

Telecast for May 23, 1997: Pages 100-150

**Day 1**

**Telecast, May 21, 1997**

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"An
Introduction to Interpretation,\" Course 8300‑07, \"Making it Happen
Interpretively,\" an Interactive Training Course on Communicating with
the Public About Natural and Cultural Resources. And Now the Host of
Your Program, Renee Straub.

Straub: Good Morning. Welcome to the NTC\'s Distance Learning Course, an
Introduction To Interpretation. Making it Happen Interpretively. Joining
Us Today Is Amy Galperin, BLM\'s Lead for Interpretation. Welcome, Amy.

Galperin: Thank You, Renee. It\'s Great to Be Here. I Am Looking Forward
to the Course and I Am Really Looking Forward to Everyone\'s
Participation.

Straub: We Do Have Nice Numbers Turning out for this Class, Don\'t We.
Also Joining Us Is Dr. Sam Ham, Professor of Environmental
Communications and International Conservation at The University of
Idaho. Welcome, Sam. Glad You Could Join Us.

Ham: It\'s Great to Be Here And Be a Part of this First Ever
Interpretive Training Telecast.

Straub: We Would Also like to Welcome Everyone Who Is Participating in
this Course. Joining Us Are Viewers from BLM And Many Other Federal and
State Agencies and a Variety of Other Organizations. All BLM Viewers
Should Have a Copy of the Student Workbook That Was Sent to Your
Downlink Coordinator to Use Throughout This Course. For Our Non‑BLM
Participants, The Workbook Is Available on the NTC Home Page at
www.ntc.blm.gov. If You Downloaded the Workbook From the Home Page, the
Pages May Vary Slightly from the Numbers We Will Give You over The Air.
During this Three‑day Course, You Will Hear from a Number of
Instructors. To Learn More about Your Instructors, See the Biosketches
On Page 6 of Your Workbook. Today Amy and Sam Will Teach Us About the
Principles of Interpretation and Thematic Interpretation. On Thursday
We\'ll Have Three Different Instructors Who Will Cover the Interpretive
Planning Process and How to Write Interpretively. And on Friday, We\'ll
Explore the Variety of Delivery Methods That Are Available, Basic Design
Elements, Contracting and Exhibit Production. During this Course, We
Will Also Use a Case Study Approach, Which Will Help You See How the
Principles of Interpretation Are Applied to a Particular Situation. We
Would like You to Be Involved As Much as Possible. So Throughout this
Course, You Will Be Able to Communicate with Us via Telephone and Fax
Using The Numbers Provided by Your On‑site Coordinator. You Can Send Us
a Fax Any Time. Use the Form in the Front of Your Work Books. Please Be
Sure to Print Your Question Legibly and with a Dark Marker. You Can Also
Give Us a Call Whenever You like. Our Operators Are Standing By.
Generally, Though, We Will Only Be Putting Calls on the Air During the
Interactive Times. But We\'ll Take Calls During the Instructional
Segments If Time Permits. Now Please Take a Look at the Course
Objectives on Page 4 of Your Workbook. As You Can See, We Will
Concentrate on the Basics. You Will Learn What Interpretation Is and How
it Can Be Effectively Used to Accomplish Your Goals and Objectives. If
You\'re Already Doing Interpretation, You Will Gain Ideas on How to Be
More Effective. Entire Courses Are Offered for Each of the Topics We
Will Cover During the next Three Days. You Will Hear about Other Courses
and Materials That Were ‑‑ That Will Provide You More Details for Each
of These Topics. You Also Have a Reference List Beginning on Page 108 of
Your Workbook. During this Training, You Will Be Working on Several
Exercises That Are in the Workbook. You Will Have Time During the Breaks
and Off‑air Periods to Work on Your Exercises. We\'re All Very Excited
about Presenting this Course and We Look Forward to Hearing from You.
Now to Start Things Off, Amy Galperin Will Take Us on a Tour Of Freeman
Tilden\'s Principles. Amy?

Galperin: I Would Again like To Say Welcome to All of You to Our
Broadcast and I\'m Looking Forward to Getting a Lot of Responses and
Sharing with Everyone. What Sam and I Want to Do Today Is We Want to
Look at the Foundation of Interpretation. This Foundation of the
Principles and Theme Development Is Going to Give You the Information
You Need to Partake In Tomorrow\'s Exercises with the Planning and Also
to See about Media Choices on the Third Day. So We\'re Really Looking at
Giving You the Basics That Are Going to Help You Develop Your
Interpretive Plans and Develop Your Interpretive Products. Before We
Even Go into That, We Want to Show You a Video, an 8‑minute Video,
Called \"The Art Of Interpretation.\" This Video You Actually Can Order.
It\'s a 13‑minute Video. We Are Only Showing You Eight Minutes of It.
You Can Order this Video from The National Association for
Interpretation. Nai Is Actually Our Professional Organization in
Interpretation. If You\'re Interested in Interpretation, If You Want
More Information on Interpretation, We Highly Recommend That You Join
Nai. You\'ll Get Magazines, Legacy, Which Is a Magazine Where People
Discuss Issues or Discuss Techniques in Interpretation. There Is the
Journal of Interpretation Where They Discuss the Latest Research in
Interpretation, How to Be More Effective in Interpretation. There Are
News Letters from the National Office, from Regional Offices, and
There\'s Also Regional and National Workshops. So We Highly Recommend
You Look At Joining Nai If You\'re ‑‑ Want To Get More Involved in
Interpretation and Find out More About the Profession. So, with That,
Let\'s Look at the Video, the Art of Interpretation, and Here it Is. \\M
\\M.

the Splendors of Nature, Special Places. They Have Inspired Man since
the Dawn of History.

All Things Are Connected, Whatever Befalls the Earth Befalls the Sons of
the Earth. Even the White Man Cannot Be Exempt from the Common Destiny.
We May Be Brothers after All. We Shall See. This We Know. The Earth Does
Not Belong to Man. Man Belongs to the Earth.

Narrator: Great Events and Inspirational Figures Have Been Memorialized
by Our People, Cherished Symbols, Icons, the Treasures of a Nation.

this Is the Original Bell. It\'s 228 Years Old, So It\'s Actually Older
than Our Country.

Narrator: We Long to Follow In the Footsteps of Those Who Tread Before
Us So We Can Better Understand the Past, to Walk Among Their Shadows.

Good Morning. Welcome to the Frederick Douglas Home.

Narrator: Greek Philosophers Classified the World into Four Elements:
Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Yet They Perceived There must Be Something
Else, a Soul of Things, an Essence, Pure, Eternal and Inclusive. Writer
Freeman Tilden Encountered this Elusive Spirit In Those Special Places
Called National Parks. He Coined the Term \"Interpretation\" to Describe
the Process of Revealing Hidden Meaning, to Touch the Ephemeral Fifth
Essence. As You Come to Know These Places Better, You Attain a Certainty
That They Are but the Setting For Something That Lies Behind It All, the
Mystery of the Natural Forces and Your Own Place in this Bewildering
Scheme Of Things.

since Then, They Have Been Able to Close off Themselves and Keep All the
Water Inside ‑‑

the System Kind of like the Branches of the Trees Held in Reserve down
near the Roots and If Something Happens to the Main Tree Trunk or If
Some Extra Sunlight Comes Through the Forest and Warms up the Burl
Tissue, it Can Sprout up and Form a New Tree.

So, the Rocks at Colorado National Monument Have Been Formed Due to
These Uplifts and They\'ve Either Bent or Cracked. Now, Independence
Monolith Was a Thin Wall Across the Canyon, and Due to Erosion, It\'s
Broken on Either Side.

Narrator:.

Air, Fire, Water and Earth, Yes, but Much More.

Narrator: These National Parks Are Special Places. They Have Been Set
Aside to Preserve the Natural and Cultural Legacy of Our Nation.

There He Is, There He Is, Look!

Just Barely.

Beauty Needs Know Interlocutor, but When the Question Is How, What, or
How Did this Come to Be, Your Park Service People must Have the Answers.

I Would like to Welcome You All to Fort Sumter National Monument. First
I Am Going to Give You About a 10‑minute Introduction To the History of
Fort Sumter And Then We Will Turn You Loose Using\....

Special Places Which Capture The Heart and Spirit of the Nation Require
Special Techniques and Sensitivity in Telling of Their Individual
Stories.

it Is True That Each Preserved Monument Speaks for Itself, but
Unfortunately, it Speaks Partly in a Language That The Average Visitor
Cannot Comprehend.

Interpretation Clarifies the Ideas and Events Represented by Our
National Parks. Illustrations, Maps, Books, Posters. Publications Are
Frequently the Only Means of Interpretation. Historic Furnishings,
Antiques Or Reproductions Recreate Historically Accurate Interiors, Most
Effective in Bringing a Time and Place to Life. Other Media Are Waysides
and Exhibits. How Can You Convey the Magnitude And Horror of Events Such
as the Johnstown Flood of 1889?

We Need a Dramatic Central Experience to Attract Interest Of the
Visitor.

with the Help of Theatrical Stage Designers this Idea Unfolded as a
Dramatic Stage Setting with a Motion Picture We Can Connect Today\'s
Visitor with Those Tragic Events a Century Ago. Woodvale Was Leveled in
Five Minutes. Almost Everything Was Swept Away. The Streetcar Barns, the
Woolen Mill and Hundreds of Houses. When the Wave Hit the Gautier
Wireworks, the Boilers Exploded Into Geysers of Steam. As the Wave
Passed, All That Remained of Woodvale Was a Desolate Plain, Laid Bare to
Bedrock.

Narrator: Each Park Is Unique And Each Interpretive Media Solution Is
Crafted to Take Advantage of the Unique Characteristics of the Site, the
Special Resources and Artifacts Available, and the Particular Needs of
the Visitors and Management. The Familiar Can Be Revealed to Contain
Levels of Hidden Meaning And Significance.

While the Statue Is an Internationally Recognized Image, Few People Have
the Opportunity to Meet Her Face‑to‑face, to Appreciate the Magnitude of
Scale, and the Graceful Design. But Throughout the Planning Process, We
Grappled with Ways To Convey the Scale to Explain The History and
Symbolism in a Tangible and Intimate Fashion.

by Then I Was Feeling Okay, And Everybody Crowded on the Railing. We All
Wanted to See That Wonderful America and the Statue. Yeah, That\'s an
Impressive Sight, Really. Is it Still like That Today?

Narrator: the Challenge of Interpretation Is to Find the Unique Point of
View or Catalyst To Spark Interest and Curiosity. In the Words of
Anatole Franz, We Wish to Awaken People\'s Curiosity, Put There Just a
Spark, If There Is Some Good in Flammable Stuff, it Will Catch Fire.

Galperin: Well, You Saw from That Video That There\'s Lots of Different
Techniques in Interpretation and in the Video They Also Mentioned
Freeman Tilden and Freeman Tilden Is Actually a Journalist by Training,
and He Was Hired by The Park Service to Go Around And Look at All the
Different Park Service Areas and Look at Interpretives and Look at ‑‑
Try To Figure out What Is it That Makes Somebody Successful, That They
Really Impact the Visitors. What Special Techniques Do They Have? And
after Evaluating Many Interpretives All Around the Area He Came up with
Six Principles of Interpretation, And Actually If You Look at His Six
Principles of Interpretation, You\'ll Find out That They\'re Very
Similar to the Same Principles That Were Set Down by Enis Mills in the
1920s And Even Though the Words May Be Different, the Essence of What
Enis Mills and Freeman Tilden Were Saying Is the Same. And If You Read
‑‑ Nai Literature a Couple Times a Year, You Will See Discussions About
the Principles of Interpretation. Freeman Tilden\'s Principles. So These
Principles Have Gone Under a Lot of Examination, and They Are Really
What Helps Create That Essence in an Interpretive Program. So Let\'s
Look at the Principles, And this Is Just a Summary of The Principles.
Our First One, it Has to Relate To the Visitor. The Second One,
Interpretation Is Revelation Based on Information. The Third One,
Interpretation Is An Art. The Fourth One, Interpretation Provokes. The
Fifth One, Interpretation Presents a Whole. And the Last, Interpretation
Has A Different Approach for Children. We\'re Going to Go Through All
Six of These Principles in Much More Detail and Look at Each Principle,
and as You Look at The Principles, You Start Seeing More and More Depth
to Them, and That There Is More and More Meaning to Them. You\'ll Also
See in Your Workbook On Page 12 to 15 the Principles Laid out with Lots
of Spaces in Between. What We\'d like You to Do Is as We\'re Going
Through Each of the Principles, Think of a Site in Your Own Area, a Site
That You\'d Like to Develop Interpretation For, like an Overlook or
Maybe a Self‑guided Trail or Maybe an Entire Area, and as You Look at
That Site, Reflect Back on the Principles We Are Discussing and Jot down
Some Notes That Relate The Principle to Your Site. In the End, We\'re
Going to Look At this as an Exercise, and I\'ll Talk More about the
Exercise and How to Do the Exercise When We Get Done with the
Presentation. But Let\'s Look at the First Principle. In the Words of
Tilden, Any Interpretation That Does Not Somehow Relate What Is Being
Displayed or Describe to Something Within the Personality Or Experience
of the Visitor Will Be Sterile. Well, Relate to Your Audience. That\'s
Something We Do Every Day. Every Time We Try to Communicate With
Someone, We Are Trying to Relate. We\'re Trying to Communicate. We\'re
Trying to Make Sure We\'re Understood. It\'s Just Basic Common Sense.
But There\'s a Little Different Tilt When You Look at it from
Interpretation Perspective, Because the Visitors Who Come to Our Sites
Are Volunteers, or as Sam Says, They\'re Noncaptive Audiences. They Can
Choose to Read Your Brochure or They Can Choose Not To. They Can Choose
to Look at That Wayside or Choose Not To. They Can Choose to Come to the
Campfire Program or Choose Not To. And One of the Keys in Interpretation
Is Trying to Figure out How Not Only to Get Them to Pick up That
Brochure, How Not Only to Get Them to Look At the Wayside, but to Get
Them To Read It, to Get Them Excited About It, and That\'s One of the
Keys in Interpretation, and One Of the Skills. The Ways to Do That Is
Really When We\'re Talking about Relating to the Visitor, We\'re Talking
about Relating to the Visitor\'s Interest. If You Don\'t Know the
Visitor\'s Interest, You Can\'t Really Pull Them into the Interpretive
Program, and You Have to Find Out, Why Are They There? What Is Their
Interest? Why Are They Coming to That Site? And One of the Things in
Interpretation to Recognize Is That There Is No General Audience. A
Young Boy Who Comes to the Site Has a Very Different Interest than a
Single Parent, Or Teenagers That Are Coming to The Site, and as We\'re
Getting More and More Grandparents Bringing Their Grandchildren to The
Sites, Each One of These Groups Has Very Different Interests, Very
Different Reasons for Being at That Site, And We Need to Address That in
Our Interpretive Program. And Studies Are Showing That What Attracts
People to a Program Is When That Program Does Directly Relate to Their
Interests. And the Studies Are Showing That People Are Coming to Our
Recreational Sites Mainly to Interact with Their Families or Friends.
This Is an Important Reason for Being on Our Lands, Is They Want To
Interact with Family and Friends. It\'s Something We Need to Consider
When We\'re Developing Our Interpretive Program. The Other Thing Is
People Come Often for Specific Events, like Going Rafting down the
River, And They\'ve Spent Months Planning for this Trip, and They Don\'t
Want to Do Anything That\'s Going to Take Them Away from the Experience
and the Time on the River. So They\'ll Probably Not Want to Go to Your
Walk on Wild Flowers Or to Your Interpretive Programs About the Trees in
the Area. But Studies Have Shown That the People on the Rafts Really
Will Rate Their Raft Trip Higher When Interpretation Is Involved in It.
And It\'s the Interpretation That\'s Happening While They\'re On Their
Trip. Sometimes When They Pull off to A Site There Will Be an
Interpretive Program. Often It\'s the Guide Who Is on The Raft Trip Who
Will Present Interpretive Information to Them, and That Increases the
Enjoyment of the Trip to the Visitors, and the Visitors Will Actually
Rate That Trip Higher. There\'s Also People Who Come for Very Specific
Reasons. Birders Are Real Good Examples. They Will Come to Your Area and
They Want to Find the Birds. When They Show up at Your Site, They May
Not Be Interested in an Interpretive Program That Tells Them about the
Different Birds In the Area Because Most Birders Bring Bird Books and
They Also Know about the Birds in a Site But They Do Enjoy Hearing about
The Habitat and They Do Enjoy Hearing about How Certain Birds Are Found
in Different Habitats And this Is What Will Attract Them to Your
Program, Versus Signs on Just Which Birds Can You Find in the Site. But
When You Are Looking at Your Visitors, You Also Are Looking At What
Motivates Them. What Is the Real Motivation for Being There? Here this
Father and this Young Girl Fishing, What Is ‑‑ What Does this Dad Really
Want? What Is His Real Interest in Being There? Well, It\'s to Catch the
Big One. It\'s to Make His Daughter\'s Eyes Shine with the Success of
His Catch, and He\'s Not Interested In Which Species He Caught. He\'s
Interested in Where Are Those Big Ones, Where Can He Find Them, and How
Can He Catch Them? And this Can All Be Part of Your Interpretive Program
Because You\'re Reaching What the Visitor Wants, and You\'re Dealing
with The Visitor\'s Expectations, and It Makes Your Programs Much More
Successful. A Story about How this Was All Brought to Focus for Me Was I
Was One Time Working for the Forest Service up in Bridget Teton National
Forest and There Is a Campground out There at the End of a Long Dirt
11‑mile Road And When You Get to the End of The Campgrounds, It\'s a
Beautiful View and the Campers At That Campground Tend to Come Back All
Through the Summer. So by the Middle of the Summer I Knew Most of the
Campers in the Campground. And I Would Get Ready and Give My Program and
I Had Three Different Types of Programs and I Would Set up the Campfire
Program and Go Around and Invite People to the Programs, and Then I
Would Present it and Notice The Same People Came Each Time, And I
Thought, Why Aren\'t the Other People Coming? What Do I Need to Do to
Get Everyone to Come? So I Went Around and Began Asking People, You
Know, What Are Their Interests? At this Time, this Was in the Late
\'70s. The Forest Service Was Starting Their Wilderness Survey. Most of
These Folks Were from Rock Springs, Wyoming. Rare Two Would Directly
Impact Their Lives. These Were the Miners and Timber People of the Area.
And So I Put Together a Program On What the Wilderness Survey Means, and
it Was an Interpretive Program with Music And All Kinds of Special
Effects, and I Went Around and Told Everyone I Am Going to Have This
Fabulous Program, Got Ready To Present It, and the Same People Were in
the Campground. So I Started the Program, and Then I Noticed People Were
Leaving and I Said, Oh, Wow, I Really Blew It. Not Only Did I Not
Attract New People, but the People Who Have Been Supportive in Coming to
the Programs Are Leaving. The Lights Got Low and I Did My Program and
Then I Turned on the Main Light, and Not Only Was the Campground Full,
but There Were People Lined up All Through the Roads. I Had Pretty Much
100% Attendance at My Program, and What Was Happening Was the People Who
Were Leaving Were Going Back to the Campsites and Bringing Uncle Bob and
Brig Aunt May and Bringing Everyone to the Campfire Program and Saying
\"You Got to Hear this Program.\" Afterwards the Questions and Answers
Followed along with the Flavor of the Program. They Didn\'t Get into
Controversial Issues as Much as Wanting Information about Causes And
Effects, Which Was My Theme Of the Program. A Good Example of That, When
You Really Look at the Visitors\' Interests You Are Going to Attract
Them and Get Them Excited about Your Interpretive Program. A Good Thing
to Look at When You\'re Looking at Visitors\' Interests Is Safety. A
Real Good Hook. A Common One, of Course, Is Snakes. People Really Are
Interested in Hearing about Snakes, Not Necessarily All the Species in
Happy Valley, but They Really Like Hearing about How to Protect Their
Family from the Poisonous Snakes. It\'s a Good Hook, And, Again,
Relating to the Visitors\' Interests. An Animal That I Used Often When I
Was Giving Campfire Programs Was Talking about the Dangerous Animal of
the Forests, And, of Course, Use the Yellow Jacket. A Very Dangerous
Animal That Most People Don\'t Recognize as Being Dangerous. The Other
Thing When You Are Talking about Relating to Your Audience, You Should
Look at Ways to Bring in Metaphors, and I Put this One up Because So
Many of Us Can Identify This, The One about Getting Our Foot In a Door
When We Were Trying to Get Jobs in the Different Agencies We Work In,
and Metaphors Is a Real Great Way For Bringing the Information of
Interpretation to the Visitor And Help Relate It, And, Sam, You Are
Going to Be Talking About Metaphors a Lot, Too in Your Program.

Ham: Yeah, That\'s Right. We\'re Going to Look at the Metaphors along
with Some Other Methods of Building Interest Into Ideas That Otherwise
Wouldn\'t Be So Interesting. And the Case of Metaphors Is Interesting.
Essentially a Metaphor Involves Taking an Idea Normally Used in One
Situation or One Context and Applying it in a Totally Different One. But
Because of the Way It\'s Normally Used There Is a Metaphoric
Relationship Established That Creates Added Interest.

We Are Going to Hear More About That When Sam Does His Program on
Themes. Another Thing You Can Do Besides Metaphors Is Use Comparisons. I
Mean, Most People Know When You Say It\'s as Soft as a Baby\'s Skin or
as Smooth as a Baby Skin, They Have a Sense of What That Means, and That
Comparison Helps Bring the Information More Alive to the Visitor, and
Helps Relate the Information Better to The Visitor. The Other Thing
about Relating To Your Visitors and Your Audience Is to Make Sure You
Don\'t Use Agency Jargon, and This Is One That, You Know, We Take for
Granted. You Don\'t Want to Be Using All The Acronyms in Our Agencies.
But Sometimes We\'re Not Even Really Aware of What\'s Agency Jargon like
the Word Riparian. It\'s a Common Word to Most of Us In Natural
Resources. But When I\'ve Taken That Word \"Riparian\" and Tested it out
on Potential Publics, I Found out Most People Did Not Know What That
Word Means. So Here\'s a Word That\'s Very Common to Us in Natural
Resources Yet It\'s Foreign to Most People Outside of Natural Resources.
How Do You Find out What\'s Agency Jargon? A Good Way Is to Take Your
Text Or Take Your Program and Test it Out on Your Family. Your Family Is
Neutral. If They\'re Not Involved in Natural Resources, They Can Really
Help Give You a Perspective of How That Information Is Coming Across to
Somebody Outside of the Field. Another Great Thing to Do Is to Make
Friends with a Teacher, 6th, 7th, 8th Grade Teacher and Ask Them If You
Would Mind If They Sent Them Samples of Tex or Sent Them Information to
Test Out on the Kids. The Kids Love Doing and it They Really Give You
Good Feedback So That You Know How Your Text Is Going Across and What
Improvements You Need to Make. The Other Thing to Think about Is the
Fact That There Is No ‑‑ That Our Visitors Are Very Diverse. We\'re
Getting More and More Diverse Visitors, and People Who English Is Not
Their First Language, People from Many Different Ethnic Groups, and We
Need to Make Sure That We\'re Trying to Serve All Our Diverse Audience,
Trying to Serve a Universal Audience, and the More You Look at Doing
That, the Better Your Interpretive Program Is Going to Be. For Instance,
Let\'s Say You\'re Trying to Design Programs That Are Really Accessible
to Somebody Who Uses a Wheelchair And You Build Ramps and You Lower Your
Exhibits and Get Everything Where People Who Are Using Wheelchairs Can
Easily Interact with the Exhibits. Well, Who Else Are You Serving? Well,
That Ramp Is Serving the Parent Who Is Pushing the Stroller into the
Visitor Center Or into Your Wayside. You\'re Also Serving the
Four‑year‑old When Those Exhibits Are Lowered, They Have Better Access
to the Exhibits, And You\'re Serving Aunt May Who Just Had an Operation
on Her Knee and Grandma Who Is Starting To Use a Cane, and Brother Billy
Who Just Broke His Leg on a Ski Accident. All These People Are Better
Served by the Ramps and the Adjustments You\'ve Made to Serve Your
Visitor Who Is Using a Wheelchair and this Is Happening More and More.
When You Start Looking at People With Visual Impairments and Start
Saying, Well, Let\'s Get Some More 3‑d in Here and More Touch Exhibits,
Who Else Are You Serving? You\'re Serving the Kids, Especially Young
Kids, Young Children, Who Need to Touch in Order to Learn, Who Need to
Feel In Order to Get That Information In. And They\'re Getting Better
Served with 3‑d Exhibits. You\'re Also Better Serving People with
Learning Disabilities, People Who Have a Lot of Trouble Taking a Flat
Image and Making it a 3‑d Image. So the More We Look at Serving Our
Diverse Audiences and Developing Universal Exhibits And Universal
Interpretation, The Better We\'re Serving All Our Publics. The Other ‑‑
the next Principle To Look at Is the Second Principle, Revolution. And
Revelation, as Stated by Tilden Is: Information as Such Is Not
Interpretation. Interpretation Is Revelation Based upon Information. But
They Are Entirely Different Things. However, All Interpretation Includes
Information. Well, What Does That Mean? Well, When You Really Look at
It, What this Is Really Talking About Is Trying to Bring That, Ah
Feeling into Your Interpreting Program. Trying to Create That \"I
Didn\'t Know That\" from the Visitor and Getting That Extra Spark in
Your Interpretation. A Good Example of That Is When I Used to Do a Lot
of Interpretation with Kids, One of My Favorite Topics Was Talking About
How Everything They Eat, The Energy of All They Eat, Comes from the Sun,
and It\'s Easy to Explain That When You Are Talking about Plants. Gets a
Little More Complicated Whir Talking about a Turkey and Then Gets Real
Complicated When You Are Trying to Relate to That A Cow and Going down a
Food Chain and Showing Visitors How Everything Relates Back to the Sun.
That\'s Where They\'re Getting Their Energy from. But Then You See That
Sparkle Go Off and the Kids Start Understanding and Then They Will Come
over and Challenge You, and \"Well, What about Bubble Gum?\" Well, What
Makes Bubble Gum Sweet? Sugar. You Go Through That Whole Thing With Them
and Start Showing That, Indeed, Everything, All The Energy of the Food
We Eat, Does Come from the Sun. And it Gets That Spark, and it Gets Them
Excited, and They\'re Challenging Each Other Through The Rest of the
Program, and You Know That You Really Got That \"Ah\" Effect, That \"I
Didn\'t Know That,\" and it Gives You a Lot of Inspiration as an
Interpreter as You Go On. Another Example of Bringing in That Revelation
to Your Interpretive Program Is When I Worked at Crater Lake We Had a
Station Where We Would Walk Along the Rim, and People Would Come over to
Us and Ask, Well, How Wide Is the Lake? And You Would Go, Well, from
That Point There to That Point There, That\'s the Widest Part, And
That\'s about Six Miles. And Then from That Point There To That Point
There Is the Narrowest Point, and That\'s About Four Miles, and Actually
These Points I Am Showing You Is On the Rim of the Lake, and It\'s
Really a Caldera. It\'s the Base of a Volcano. There Was Once a Giant
Mountain Here That Exploded its Top and Collapsed in Itself and Created
This Lake. And You Can Go on and Talk about The Volcano, and You Get a
Sense Of the Visitors of Whether They Want to Move on or Want More
Information, but Basically You\'ve Taken Those Facts and Created That
Revelation to Them, Made That \"Ah\" Effect and Usually by the Time You
Have Explained That One Answer, You\'ve Got a Crowd Around You That Is
Looking for More Interpretation and Better Understanding of Your Site.
Sam, You\'ve ‑‑ You Talk a Lot About Revelation and Revelation Is Really
the Key to Developing Themes and Bringing in Themes.

Ham: I Think It\'s the Absolute Centerpiece of Effective Interpretation.
One of the Ways I like to Describe Tight People Is to Remember That the
Word \"Revelation\" Comes from the Root Verb to Reveal, and That Helps
To Remind Us of What You Call The \"Aha\" or \"Ah\" Experience. Also I
Have Heard it Said the Job of the Interpreter as Well In the Case of
Good Teachers, Good Communicators of Any Kind, Is Not to Cover the
Topic, but To Uncover It. Again, the Idea of Revelation. Of Course, the
Verb to Discover Also Dis‑cover, Conjures this Idea up Things Are Being
Revealed. This Is What Freeman Tilden Meant When He Said Interpretation
Should Be Aimed At Revelation.

Galperin: I Love the Way You Can Take Words and Really Look At the Real
Meanings Behind Words. It\'s Just So Much Fun. The Other Thing, and Sam
Is Going to Go a Little More in Showing Us How to Get That Revelation
When We\'re Looking at Themes and How Themes Can Bring That Revelation
Out, Another Thing to Think about When You Are Looking at Revelation Is
That You Should Be Focusing on The Unique Characteristic of Your Site.
One Thing That Gets Really Tiring to the Visitors and to Other
Interpreters Is Seeing the Generic Interpretive Sign, You Know That Sign
That Talks about The Ducks of the Lake That You Can Put to Any Lake in
the United States? Or the Sign about Succession and It Doesn\'t Really
Bring in That Unique Characteristic of the Site. But When You Bring in
That Special Characteristic of the Site, You Really Are Bringing in Your
Revelation. You Are Really Making That Interpretation Come Alive for
Your Visitor. A Great Example of That Was One Time When I Was Working
with the Staff at the King Range in California, We Had in a Room Our
Wildlife Biologists, Our Geologists, Our Rec. Planner, All the Resource
Experts and We Were Looking at What Are Some of The Stories Here and
What Are Some of the Themes? And What Makes this Site Special? And the
Wildlife Biologist Said, You Know, What Really Makes the King Range
Special to Me Is That On Each One of the Peaks in the King Range Has its
Own Special Salamander Population N Fact the Populations of Salamander
Are Older than the Mountain Range Itself. From That We Were Able to Take
Off and Develop the Theme Which Basically Says That the Dynamic Geology
of the King Range Has Created this Unique Area. And We\'re Able to
Develop a Whole Interpretive Program for The King Range Based on That.
But it Was the Wildlife Biologist Who Understood the Resources That Was
Able to Find That Wild Fact We Were Able to Build on Throughout Our
Interpretive Program. When We Deal with Revelation, Another Great Way to
Look at Bringing Revelation into Your Program Is to Share with the
Visitors Some of the Challenges Of Implementing Management Goals And
Developing the Programs. The Management Programs. The Resource Programs.
Visitors Love Hearing That Kind Of Stuff. And They Love Feeling That
They\'re Getting the Inside Information, and They Really Like Hearing
about a Lot of the Conflicts of the re Soars. As Long as You Present
That Information with Sounding like You Are Trying to Sell the Agency\'s
Program, but Basically Showing Cause and Effect, and Some of the Issues
That the Agency Has to Deal With, the Visitors Are Very Responsive and
Really Feel That They\'re Getting The Essence of the Site and a Special
‑‑ the Special Characteristics of the Site. The Third Principle Is That
Interpretation Is an Art Which Combines Many Arts. Whether the Materials
Presented Are Scientific, Historical or Architectural. Any Art in Some
Degree Is Teachable. Well, Actually It\'s this Principle That Made Me
Start Looking at Getting ‑‑ I Had a Staff Where Two People on the Staff
Really Wanted to Be Interpreters, but You Put Them In Front of a Group
and They Totally Froze and So I Began to Look, How Do I Get That Dynamic
Energy into Them? How Do I Make Them Come Alive? How Did I Make Them
Develop That Art in Interpreting and Come up With Creative Ways to Bring
out The Information? Because the True Art of Interpretation Is How You
Get That Information Out, Whether You Use Puppets, Whether You Use
Special Demonstrations Whether You Use Special Techniques like Living
History. All of These Techniques Is the Art of Interpretation. It Helps
Bring That Information Alive for the Visitor and Helps Stimulate Their
Interests, and Some of That Is Teachable. Some of That Is Not. But
That\'s What Makes Interp Exciting Because Visitors Are on Vacation and
They Really Appreciate Dynamic Creative Art To Getting the Information
out. The Fourth Principle, Provocation, as Stated by Tilden Is: the
Chief Aim of Interpretation Is Not Instruction, but Provocation. Well,
What Does That Mean? Well, Basically What That Is Saying Is That to
Really Be Successful in Your Interp Program You Need to Stimulate That
Desire to Action for Visitors. That Stimulation Can Simply Mean They Go
into the Visitor Center And Buy a Book or Go into the Library and Look
up More Information, or Make an Extra Special Point of Going to a
Special Site to See the Woodcocks You Were Talking about And Watch Them
in the Mating Dance up in the Sky. It Stimulates the Visitor to Action.
Just Because of the Increased Appreciation That the Interpretive Program
Gave Them. This Can Also Help Get Them to Do Action to Help You with
Some Of Your Management Problems, Like Fire Rings That Need to Be
Cleaned up Where People Need to Learn about Leave No Trace and Tread
Lightly. Or Garbage That\'s Around That People Need to Pick up or Take
Care of the Litter Problems and Clean up the Site So the Site Looks
Presentable and the Visitors Show Their Appreciation For the Site. Or
the Common Management Program Is of Protecting Our Archaeological Sites.
How Do We Get Visitors to Come Up with That Intrinsic Desire Not to
Damage These Sites? How Do We Get Them to Appreciate The Sites? So We
Don\'t Have to Put Ropes Around Areas and Say \"Don\'t Walk On These
Walls,\" and Put up All This Law Enforcement Stuff or Put up All These
Information Signs That Are Really Not Being Paid Attention to by the
Visitor Because it Doesn\'t Have That Stimulation of Appreciation. And,
Sam, That\'s Something That You Really Have a Lot of Experience About,
How to Get Visitors to Act Through Interpretation.

Ham: Well, We\'re Finding, Amy, That People Come to Our Sites for
Recreation Experiences, Not Interpretive Ones, but the Vast Majority of
Them Are Looking for a Recreation Experience That Will Be Enhanced by
Some Type of Intellectual Dimension, by Some Type of Informative
Dimension Which Adds Meaning to What They Are Seeing Around Them and
Certainly Adds to the Meaning That They Take Home with Them.
Interpretive Services Are the Way That We Enhance Those Experiences and
I Would like to Think Actually Enhance People\'s Lives.

Galperin: Right. Right. And When You Are Successful in Getting Your
Provocation, and When You Are Successful in Getting That Appreciation,
You Can Get Visitors to Take Actions Even If They\'re on Their Own.
There\'s Not Going to Be a Ranger Or Interpreter Following this Group
Going out for the Ride for The Day, but If That Appreciation Is
Stimulated, They\'re Going to Have More Desire to Protect the Resources.
We Used to Say, and Some People Still Do, That Knowledge Leads To
Understanding, Which Leads to Appreciation, and Actually the Studies Are
Finding That It\'s Appreciation That Leads to the Desire for Knowledge
That Leads To the Understanding That Can Change Visitors\' and Influence
Visitors\' Behavior. So When a Visitor Is out in the Resources Totally
Alone with Nobody Watching Him, They\'ll Do The Right Thing Because They
Appreciate and Understand Why It\'s the Right Thing to Do, and The Real
Impact That Interpretation Can Make Is Interpretation Is One of the Best
Tools to Accomplish This, And When Interpreters Are Successful in
Accomplishing This, You Can Get a Lot of Support from Management. In
Fact, If You Set up Goals and Objectives and Then Look at Trying to
Accomplish Management Goals and Objectives Through Interpretation, You
Can Actually Use this Principle as a Way to Evaluate Your Interpretive
Program, to See If it Really Is Successful, If it Really Is
Accomplishing a Goal. Something as Simple as Are Visitors Dropping More
Litter? Are Visitors Causing Erosion by Cutting Across the Trails?
Interpretation Can Be Very Effective in Accomplishing Those Goals, and
Helping Influence Visitors\' Behavior. The next Principle, Presenting
The Whole: Interpretation Should Aim to Present a Whole, Rather than a
Part. What We\'re Really Talking about In this One Is the Story,
Bringing out That Story of Interpretation and Answering the Question:
\"So What? What\'s the Big Deal?\" But When You Start Looking at Your
Sites and Start Looking at The Stories and Talking about The Stories,
Instead of Identifying Each of the Parts, Identifying Each of the
Plants, Or Identifying Each of the Trees, or Identifying the Ducks, But
Start Looking at the Story That Brought Those Ducks There, Or Started
Looking at How the Interactions Between the Resources Are, That\'s When
You\'ve Created Your Interpretive Program. A Good Example That I like
Showing about That Is That You Can Use Graphics Often to Create Your
Interpretive Story. I Mean this Graphic Is One a Loft Cuss Identify. How
Many Times Have We Seen Somebody over the Xerox Machine Getting Irate
Because the Machine Broke down. This One Graphic Is Something That Can
Really Tell a Story and That\'s Something We Need to Think about When
We\'re Developing Our Interpretive Programs, and as You\'re Looking At
Your Sheets and Looking at The Workbook, Think about the Stories That at
Your Site. What Are Those Stories at Your Site? A Good Example of How to
Show The Difference Between Interpretation and a Nature Guide or
Naturalist or Interpretation and a Tour Guide, Is Let\'s Pretend We Are
Going on A Walk with a Nature Guide, and So We Come to a Site, and It\'s
a Rocky Mountain and It\'s a Beautiful Ponderosa Pine Forest And the
Tour Guide Is Saying \"Well, Let Me Show You this Beautiful Forest,\"
and They Start Identifying All the Plants And They Start Identifying the
Ponderosa Tree and Even Start Talking about the Tree and Bringing the
Visitors up to the Tree and Have You Scrape the Bark and Smell the
Vanilla Flavor in the Bark, and Give You Some More Information about the
Tree, and Then You Walk down the Trail, and They Pick out a Plant, like
Indian Paintbrush And Start Identifying the Indian Paintbrush and Maybe
Give You Some Facts about It, and by the Time the Visitor Gets Back to
Their Car, They Have All this Disjointed Pieces of Information That by
the Time They Pull out Of the Parking Lot, They Don\'t Remember a Thing,
Unless They\'re Already a Botanist Because There Was No Story, There Was
Nothing That Connected These Facts to Them. Let\'s Do the Same Walk, but
this Time with an Interpreter, and Let\'s Say Our Story Is about How
Ponderosa Pine Got There in the First Place, like How Did this Young
Tree Get Started Here? And Talk about the Ponderosa Pine, and When You
Start Talking About a Tree like Ponderosa Pine, You Start Talking about
Fire, Because That Thick Bark That All the Visitors Were up Smelling Is
Actually Thick That It Protects the Tree from Fire, And a Pond Roast You
a Pine Forest Is Usually a Forest Related to Fire, and So Are Many Of
the Plants There, like Fireweed, a Plant That\'s Adapted To the Low
Nitrogen of an Area That Burns Often. All this Brings in a Story, the
Story of the Area, the Story of Fire, and Creates Your Interpretive
Program. A Key Point in Having Interpretation. Well, Let\'s Look at Our
Last Principle, the Principle Related To Children and Interpretation.
And this Principle Says: Interpretation Addressed to Children Should Not
Be a Dilution of the Presentation to Adults. Well, What this Really
Means Is That Children Are Capable of Learning Quite Complicated
Information, but They Learn it Differently than Adults. So an
Interpretive Program Should Follow a Fundamental Different Approach to
Be at its Best it Would Require a Separate Program. A Good Example of
That Is When You\'re Trying to Interpret to Young Children, for
Instance, Young Children, Children under Eight, Really Learn Through
Rhythm. They Learn Through Poetry. They Learn Through Songs. They Learn
Through Dance and Movement. Most of You Are Familiar with
Three‑year‑olds That Can Come Over to You and Recite All of Mother
Goose\'s Nursery Rhymes. In Fact When My Friend\'s Children Were
Younger, I Used to Send Them Tapes, Musical Tapes, About Natural
Resources, and One Tape That I Sent out One Time to A Little
Four‑year‑old Was on Skunks and She Called Me up All Excited Because She
Can Now Tell Me All about Skunks and She Would Start Singing the Song
and Say \"Skunks Would Wiggle Their Butt and Then Go Peuwwww!\" She Knew
All about Skunks but Learned it Through Music. When You Start Dealing
with Older Children, They Really like Learning Through Getting into The
Resources and Exploring the Resources by Themselves and Being Given the
Opportunity to Talk to an Interpreter and Ask The Interpreter All Kinds
of Questions. This Is What Stimulates Their Learning Process. The More
They Can Interact, the More They Can Ask Questions. When You Start
Dealing with Teenagers, Teenagers Really like Learning Information on
Their Own. The Best Technique for Teaching Teenagers Is to Set Them out
a Problem, Give Them the Materials, and Let Them Try to Find out the
Answers with Each Other. A Very Effective Technique That\'s Being Used
Often in Environmental Ed with Teenagers Is Assimilation Games Where You
Go Through an Activity like \"Should We Build the Stand or Not?\" You
Give Each Kid an Assignment. You Are the Environmentalist, You\'re the
House Builder. You\'re the House Owner. Give Them Information So They
Can Debate it with Each Other. That\'s What Stimulates the Education in
the Teenager, Is When They Can Explore it on Their Own. So When You\'re
Dealing with Kids, It\'s Really Important to Realize That the More You
Get Them Involved in the Resources, The More You Let Them See the
Resources by Themselves, the More You Stimulate That Education and Get
That Information out to Them. And, Sam, That\'s Something You\'ve Worked
Quite a Bit with.

Ham: You Are Saying Some Really Important Things, Amy. First, You Are
Saying That When You Read Tilden\'s Last Principle, It\'s Important to
Remember That Although He Referred to Children as Sort of One Large
Audience, What You\'ve Said Has Made it Clear That Really There Is So
Much Variation Within That Category Of Children That Each of Them Really
Constitutes a Different Audience Because Third Graders And Fifth Graders
Are Not Alike, Right, Any More than Second Graders and Ninth Graders Are
Alike and Taking That Point a Little Bit Further, It\'s Important for
Interpreters and Interpretive Planners to Remember That They May Think
of Their Audiences as One Big Group, But, Really, There\'s a Lot of
Variation, And, I Mean, Not Only Can You Categorize Them As on Site and
off Site but Within Each of Those Two Categories, There Are Probably
Special Audiences That Deserve Special Attention in the Interpretive
Planning Process And I Know That Rich and Pat Tomorrow in Their Exercise
on Interpretive Planning Are Going To Look at Different Audiences And
How It\'s Important to Consider Them in Interpretive Planning.

Galperin: That\'s a Very Good Point. A Lot of What We Are Talking About
Today Is Going to Prepare You for What Rich and Pat Are Going to Do
Tomorrow. Well, Basically That\'s the Six Principles in Interpretation,
And I Hope as We\'ve Been Going Along You Have Been Thinking About Your
Own Site and Jotting Down Little Messages to Yourself About Your Site.
Before We Go on to the Exercise, I Want to Introduce One More Concept to
You, and That\'s the Interpretive Triangle. Basically an Interpreter
When Developing Their Program Are Looking at Trying to Serve the Needs
of the Visitor, the Needs Of the Resources, and the Needs Of Management.
And They\'re Trying to Balance All These Needs. But Something That
Interpreters Have to Be Real Careful about Is That They Don\'t Give One
Point Of the Triangle More Emphasis Than the Other Because That Kind Of
Tilts the Whole Interpretive Program. For Example, If You Look at Really
Coming up with the Management Message and Really Start Talking about the
Agency And the Mission of the Agency And All the Wonderful Programs Of
the Agency, to the Visitor it Sounds like Propaganda. And Sometimes the
Resource Gets Sacrificed. When You Look at it from the Resource
Perspective You and Start Talking about the Birds And the Bees and
Really Start Focusing on Resources but Never Looked at What the
Visitors\' Interests Really, Then You Are Not Getting the Visitors That
Are Not Interested in Resources. You Are Not Reaching All Your Visitors,
and You May Have a Very Small Finite Group That Already Is Convinced of
All the Information You Are Trying to Bring out. And Management May Look
upon it As Expendable Because It\'s Not Really Supporting Management
Mission. So You Need to Bring All of That Together, and You Need to
Start Looking at this Triangle and Trying to Balance All the Points.
Because Even If You Start Looking at Just the Visitors, You May, for
Instance, in a Riparian Habitat, Bring Visitors Into Areas Where You
Shouldn\'t Be Doing Interpretation. You Need to Be Constantly Balancing
That. That\'s What Rich and Pat Are Going to Be Talking about in a Lot
More Detail Tomorrow. But, an Example How Far to Do And Accomplish this
Interpretively Is, for Instance, Is, for Instance, If You Have a
Fisherman out There and What\'s His Interest? His Interest Is in Really
Trying To Catch That Big One! And He Wants to Know Where That Fish Is
and How to Catch It. So How Do You Get this Interpretively and Bring in
the Management Issue If They Don\'t Want People Driving Through the
Riparian Habitat, and Brig in The Resource Issues of the Diversity of
Resources in this Riparian Area? A Good Way to Do That Is to Have A
Wayside Exhibit That May Say How to Catch the Big One. And in That
Wayside You Can Talk About the Fact That Most of the Fish in this Air
Area Are Trout And Trout like Cooler Water. So to Find the Trout You
Find Them Underneath Vegetation or You Find Them in the Deep Water Where
There Is a Deep Hole and That Water Doesn\'t Heat up as Fast, and When
You\'re Looking at That, You Can Talk about the Fact That the BLM Is
Doing a Lot Of Things to Help Maintain this Area for Trout, a Lot of the
Vegetation Around the Shore Has Been Planted, Measurements Are
Constantly Being Taken on the Water Quality and the Depth of The Water,
and Structures Are Being Put in to Help Creating The Habitat for Trout,
and That\'s Why We Really Appreciate That You Don\'t Drive Through This
Area, Because this Vegetation Is Critical in Maintaining Our Area for
Trout. So That\'s a Simple Example of How You Can Bring in All Those
Different Points of the Triangle To Create Your Interpretive Program. So
the Real Summary and the Point of All this Is Interpretation Has Many
Purposes. It Can Bring in All the Different Publics. If You Want to Have
More Interaction Between Your Communities, You Can Bring in Your Native
American Publics to Help Do Your Interpretation, Whether They\'re a
Member of Your Community, Whether They\'re a Member of Your Staff, but
Just Bring in a Diversity of Your Audience into Your Interpretation. And
the Key to Interpretation Is To Remember: You Cannot Serve Management\'s
Needs Without Serving the Visitors\' Needs. So with That Let\'s Look at
Our Exercise a Little More. And So You What We Want for the Exercise.
You See in Your Book, Your Workbook, under Each of the Principles We
Have Some Space Set Aside Where We\'re Asking You To Fill in for Each of
Your Sites, and You Can Look under \"Relate\" ‑‑ Why Do People Come
Here? What Are People\'s Interests? What Makes Them Want to Be at Your
Site? Or, for Instance, under Relate, Where Are They Mainly Coming From?
How Can You Relate That Information? Are They Mainly Urban People?
Mainly Rural People? What Kind of Metaphors Can You Come up with in Your
Site? When You Send in Your Responses To this Activity, We Ask That You
Look at One or Two of the Principles, Look at One or Two Of the
Principles, and Fill in How You Can Use That Principle To Help Develop
the Information For Your Site. Another Example Is on Revelation, How Can
You Bring in That \"Ah\"? What Is That \"Ah\" Factor in Your Site? What
Is Special about Your Site That Would Make the Visitors Want to Gain
Information about It? Or What Kind of Management Issues in That Site
That Can Bring out That Revelation Information? And What Is the Story?
You Don\'t Need to ‑‑ When You Send in Your Fax, You Don\'t Need To Send
in Something for Each One of the Principles, but We Encourage You to
Look at a Couple of the Principles, Look At Your Site, and Come up with
Ideas That Relate the Principle To Your Site and Bring in Tilden ‑‑
Freeman Tilden\'s Principles Into Your Interpretive Program. With That
I\'ll Turn it Back to Renee.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. You Have Gotten Us off to a Great Start Today. Now
We\'ll Take a 25‑minute Break To Give You Time to Work on Your Exercise.
Don\'t Forget to Fax in Your Responses to Us. After the Break, Amy and
Sam Will Go over Your Responses, and Then We\'ll Take Phone Calls.
Following the Interactive Segment, Sam Ham Will Begin His Instruction on
Thematic Interpretation. We\'ll See You after the Break!

Straub: Welcome Back. After We Review the Exercises With Amy and Sam, We
Will Go to The Phones. Before We Continue, I\'d like to Mention to Avoid
an Echo Effect, When You Call In, Please Stand Away from Your Television
Sets Or Turn down the Sound. Don\'t Get Frustrated If You End Up on Hold
for a While. Your Calls Are Important to Us, And We Will Get to You as
Fast As We Can. Let\'s Go to Sam and Amy to Review the Exercises. Amy,
You Want to Start?

Galperin: Thank You, Renee. We Have Gotten Some Wonderful Responses and
Really Very Creative Identifies Ideas on How People Are Looking at the
Principles and Relating Them to Specific Sites They Were Interested In.
We Have One from Larry Mercer in Bakersfield and Larry Thanks for
Sending this In. Larry Was Looking and Relating To the Visitors\'
Interests, and He Was ‑‑ One of the Things That He Was Thinking of Is
That You Can Show the Location of an Earthquake Fault in Southern
California and the Location of And Sensors Feeding of Information into
Size Ma Graphs And Showing the History of Earthquake Activity in the
Area. That Would Certainly Relate to People in California. Showing Them
How All the Earthquakes Are Measured and Where the Faults Are, Something
That Many People in California Have Very High Interest In. And Then in
Meaning for the Visitors, Again, this Is from Larry, and He Talked about
Show Where an ‑‑ Earthquakes Are Likely to Happen and How to Prepare for
Them. Now, That Really Gets the Meaning out and Relates Directly To the
Visitors\' Interests.

Ham: That\'s What I Call Personal Communication. When You Make the
Content of Your Programs Relate to Things People Already Know Something
About, I Call That Being Meaningful. But the Real Power in Communication
Is When You Go a Step Beyond That and You Connect What You\'re Saying to
Something They Not Only Already Know about But Care about. Now You Have
Entered into the Realm of Personal Communication. For People in
California, Particularly in the Fault Regions, That\'s as Personal as It
Gets. Nice Job, Larry.

Galperin: Let\'s Look at Another One from Salmon, Idaho And Also We Will
Look at Relate First, and Why Stop at the Bison Jump. They must Have a
Hill with a Bison Jump There. Interesting Archaeology. Native Americans.
Many Native American Remains Are There. And Wildlife in the Area, and
How Did the Indians Herd the Bison Jump? That\'s the Information by the
‑‑ They Feel Was Going to Spark the Visitors\' Interests and I Think
That\'s Great. Visitors Are Going to Love to Hear about That. How Do
They Relate Information To the Visitors? They Were Talking About, Well,
Relating the Searching for Food With the Visitors\' Lives and How The
Buffalo Search for Food out There And, Let\'s See ‑‑ Having Trouble
Reading a Bit of this ‑‑ And Native American Aspect and Importance of
Bison Today and Yesterday. Excellent, Excellent.

Ham: One of the Things and I Don\'t Know Who this Is from My Home State
of Idaho in Salmon, But a Suggestion I Would Have to You Is to Consider
Not Only Interpreting this Story from the Top of the Jump, Where it
Normally Is Done, but I Think One of the Most Interesting Perspectives
for Visitors at a Buffalo Jump Is from below Looking Up, and So I Hope
You Will Consider Also Doing Something at the Lower End.

Galperin: You Can Get a Sense Of the Site and Imagine a Buffalo Coming
over.

Ham: We Sense Gravity Better From the Bottom Looking up than The Top
Looking down.

Galperin: Great. Let\'s Look at Some of the Examples of the \"Ah\"
Factor. We Have Something from Blaine Newman.

Ham: Blaine Is a Former Student of Mine. We Have Another University of
Idaho Alum out There Somewhere.

Galperin: We Were Just Talking about That Because Some Of the Camera
People Here Also Went to the University of Idaho. Okay, the \"Ah\"
Factor and Blaine Was Saying Using Interpretation To Set the Mood for
Visitors So That They Feel They Can Have Experiences Similar to What the
Immigrants Experienced as They Were Passing Through Miller Historic
Recreation Area. Great, Great Example! Just Trying to Make Them Part of
The Scene. A Good Example of That That We Have in the BLM Is the
Flagstaff Hill Visitor Center Where Visitors Actually Feel like They\'re
Experiencing the Walk Along the Oregon Trail. A Real Great Way to Create
That \"Ah\" Factor, That Revelation and Take the Information and Turn it
Into an Experience. Wonderful Approach.

Ham: I Call That the ‑‑ the Principle Blaine Is Invoking, I Call That
Empathy. Human Beings Have an Amazing Ability to Empathize with the
Experiences of Other Human Beings and We Can Project Ourselves Forward
in Time, Backward in Time or Even in the Present Time into the Place of
Other People and Imagine How Things Were, Will Be or Are, and
Interpretation That Does That Is Usually Pretty Powerful.

Galperin: Right. Real Impact. Here Is Something Else on the \"Ah\"
Effect and Back to Larry, And Larry Says in the \"Ah\" Effect, How Does
the Seismograph Work? What\'s the Mystery? How Do They Do Those
Measurements? And Show What an Earthquake Fault Looks like with a ‑‑
with Sag Ponds and Stream Offsets. Great. Showing How the Horizon and
Geography That People Are Looking at Are Actually Showing Them the
Effects of the Earthquake. Wonderful Approach.

Ham: Just about Two or Three Days Ago the New Johnston Ridge Observatory
at Mount St. Helen\'s On the Gifford‑pinchot Area Opened. One of the
Exhibits That Fabulous Is a Make Your Own Earthquake Exhibit Where You
Stand on a Platform and You Wiggle and Move and Watch a Seismometer
Record the Vibrations You Are Sending into The Platform, and It\'s Quite
‑‑ It\'s Quite a Unique, I Think, Way of Allowing Visitors Not Only to
Understand How Seismometers Record Tremors in The Earth\'s Surface but
How Themselves Can Make Those Tremors and It\'s Real Interesting and Fun
Exhibit.

Galperin: Here Are Some More That Just Came In. We Have a Wonderful
Response. This Is from Frank Rupe and Frank Talked about under the
\"Ah\" Factor and Revelation That People Want to Know More about Other
People, How Did They Live, What Hardships Did They Endure.

Ham: There Is That Empathy Factor.

Galperin: Right. This Is Great. What Did They Eat? At His Site, and this
Is at a Pit House That He Is Talking About, How Did We Manage Without
Degrading the Resources? And Bringing in Those Management Issues at the
Pit House That Is The Site That He\'s Thinking About. And Here Is
Something from El Centro near an Area Where Renee One Time Worked and
this Is in Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area. The Visitors, They\'re
Trying to Relate To, Are Mainly Off‑highway Vehicle Recreation Visitors
That Are Interested in A Socialized Experience, What We Talked about of
the Family Relationship and Interacting With Their Friends, and Some of
The Uniqueness of the Site, the ‑‑ Many of the Plants in the Area Are
Very Unique to the Area, Special to the Site. The Number of Visitors on
Holiday Weekends, They Get over 40,000 Visitors on a Holiday Weekend and
How That Impacts the Resources, and That Actually Can Be a Very Unique
Factor That They Talk about and Can Encourage Management Influence When
They\'re Talking about a Factor like That. Let\'s Look at Another
Approach, And That\'s the Approach to the Art of Interpretation, and
Here Is ‑‑ Again in El Centro They Were Talking about That Art of
Creating Their Interpretive Message Be Something like Interacting with
the Visitors While They\'re Also on an Ohv Vehicle. A Great, Great
Approach.

Ham: Terrific Idea!

Galperin: a Great Approach.

Straub: Those Were Some Great Exercises, Weren\'t They? Now We\'ll Shift
Our Focus to Thematic Interpretation. Dr. Sam Ham Will Show Us Some of
The Basics of Thematic Interpretation. Sam?

Ham: Thanks, Renee. This Is a Fun Topic for Me and I Think That Probably
It\'s Fair to Say That If You Buy of the Research That\'s Been Done on
Human Communication in the Last Century or So, I Think Most of Us Would
Have to Agree That this Idea of Theme or Thematic Communication Is
Probably the Most Important Concept That Those of Us, Especially in a
Field like Interpretation, Deal With, and That We Should Consider,
Because the Idea of Being a Thematic Communicator or Of Having a Theme
Really Focuses On the Meaning That Visitors or Audiences Attach to What
We Share with Them Through Our Interpretive Services of the. It Also, as
We Are Going to See Briefly a Little Bit Later, Has A Lot to Do with the
Building Blocks That Create Attitudes and Behaviors That Are So Clear
from Research Done on Social Psychology and How it Is That We Develop
Patterns of Behaving. We\'re Going to See a Little Bit Later That Themes
and Thematic Communication Is Nothing More Than Belief‑based
Communication, That Is to Say, That Themes Are Beliefs and That Beliefs
Are the Building Blocks of Attitudes and Behaviors. So Now That I\'ve
Said Thematic Communication Is Probable Eat Most Important Concept in
the Interpretive Field, Let Me Add It\'s Probably the Most Miss
Construed Concept in the Interpretive Field. What I Would like to Do
with You In the next Few Minutes Is Essentially Consider What a Theme Is
Not and What it Is and Why Don\'t We Simply Start with Relatively Easy
Idea That a Theme and Topic Aren\'t the Same Thing. A Topic, as the Word
Implies, Is Simply the Subject Matter of a Presentation. It\'s What a
Presentation, Whether It\'s a Personal Conducted Activity like a Talk Or
a Walk, or a Nonpersonal Device Such as a Self‑‑guided Trail or Wayside
Exhibit or Multi‑media Program Is about. A Theme, on the Other Hand, Is
a Message Relative to That Topic That You Want to Get Across to An
Audience. You Can Develop Many Themes Around Any Topic. In Fact, I Think
It\'s Fair to Say That Probably Any Topic Lends Itself to an Infinite
Number of Themes, and Those of You Who Aren\'t Yet Clear on this Idea,
When You Have Some Time After this Telecast, You Might Want to Check
Pages 16‑20 in Your Workbooks to See Some Explanations of Why this Is,
Why A Topic Lends Itself to Innumerable Themes and to Get Some Examples
of Those Themes. Again, That\'s Pages 16‑20 in Your Workbook. I Would
Also Add in Distinguishing Between Themes And Topics That It\'s Really
Important ‑‑ of Course, Any Presentation Is Going to Have a Topic, It\'s
but It\'s Very Important That All Presentations Be Designed and Prepared
to Communicate a Theme, a Theme or Message That You Have Carefully
Selected and That Becomes a Centerpiece or Focal Point for Everything Do
You in the Creative and Conceptual Planning In That Presentation.
Another Way Is to Say Is That All Presentations Should Have a Central
Message You Are Trying To Get Across to Your Audience. In Communication
We Call That Central Message or That Central Idea a Theme, or You Might
Have Been Taught Somewhere to Call Ate Thesis and as Far as I\'m
Concerned, the Term Theme, the Term Thesis, Can Be Used Interchangeably
with the Word \"Message.\" Approaching the Creative and Conceptual
Planning and Development of an Interpretive Presentation, Activity or
Device With the Single Goal of Getting Across this Main Idea or Theme To
Your Audience Is Called Thematic Thinking or I Call it Thematic
Thinking, and I Am Convinced Now That Thematic Thinking Is the Key to
Successful Interpretation, Indeed Successful Communication Of Any Kind,
If One Measures Success as Capturing and Maintaining the Attention of an
Audience and Secondly Making a Point and I Would Guess That Those Are
Two Relatively Fair Criteria Against Which to Judge The Success or
Effectiveness of Communication.

Galperin: Yes, a Key Factor.

Ham: Another Point I Would Like to Make this Morning Right At the Start
Here Is That Communicating Thematically Is Not Some ‑‑ Thematically Is
Not An Idea That\'s Is Being Imposed On. The Idea Is as Old as Time
Itself. The Word \"Theme\" Is a Little Newer in the Interpreter\'s
Vernacular. But the Idea Communication Is Geared to Message Send
Something Very Old and Established Idea. Communicating Thematically
Indeed Has Purposes. For One, People Remember Themes. Research Clearly
Demonstrates This. Whereas They Tend to Forget Isolated Facts. Even
Fascinating, Interesting, Mind‑boggling, Fascinating Interesting Facts
That Don\'t Somehow Support a Major Idea or A Central Message That\'s
Being Communicated Are Forgotten. Now, If You, on the Other Hand, Have
Selected Those Facts and Figures Very Carefully in Order To Not Only Add
Interest to a Program but to Support the Theme Or Message That You\'re
Trying to Get Across, Research Shows That The Theme Will Be Remembered,
But They\'re Still Going to Forget All Those Little Facts. But, of
Course, That Was Okay, Because Your Main Goal in Thematic Communication
Is to Get The Theme Across, and You\'ll Do Whatever it Takes to Get
Their Attention in the Process of Doing That, Even Though We Know
They\'re Going to Forget a Lot of What I Call the Color, You Know, Those
Little Things, the Analogies, Metaphors, the \"Wow.\" But its Purpose
Was to Keep Attention Because as You Pointed Out, That\'s a Noncaptive
Audience and They Don\'t Have to Stick Around Because They Know There
Won\'t Be an Exam Later, Right?

Galperin: Right.

Ham: So What I Would Also Suggest to You Is That Communicating
Thematically Not Only Has the Advantage of Giving Your Audience
Something it Can Remember but Also it Helps You In this Important Way:
Once You Have a Theme in Mind, Once You\'ve Developed That Idea, How You
Have Essentially Established Boundaries Around Your Presentation Your
Device. Your Workload Is Very Narrow Now. It\'s Much Reduced Because All
of A Sudden If I Know What Message I Want to Get Across about a Theme,
What I Am Looking For, I Go to the Research, to the Library to Do My
Research, or as I Talk to Other People Who Know More than Me about That
Topic or As I Begin to Keep My Eyes Open For Bits of Information,
Analogies, Metaphors, Comparisons and the Rest That Will Help Me Get
That Idea Across, I Know What I\'m Looking For, but by Definition I Also
Know What I\'m Not Looking For, And, Therefore, While I Can Focus My
Attention on What I Need in Order to Develop That Idea, I Also Can
Exclude the Universe of Knowledge That Lies Outside of That Set of
Parameters, and So That by Having a Theme in Mind I Have Narrowed My
Focus and Focused My Attention on a Narrower Set of Tasks, and Therefore
I Have Reduced My Workload. And the Really Great Thing about That, Amy
and What I Really like To Remind Interpreters of Is That If You Have
Only a Topic in Mind, and Don\'t Know What Message it Is That You Would
Like to Get Across about That Topic, You Really Don\'t Know Where to
Start. Could You Walk into the Library Of Congress and Not Even ‑‑ I
Mean, If My Topic Were Birds, I Guess I Would Go to the Ornithological
Section. But If the Idea Is to Get Across How Studying How Birds Fly Led
To the Early Invention of Airplanes, Now Look How Focused My Work Is.
Not Only Do I Know Where to Start, but I Also Know When I\'m Done. A Lot
of Interpreters Need to Learn That.

Galperin: Also in Helping Define a Theme, You Can Also Be Able to Not
Only Filter All the Information That You Need to Filter out of It, but
You Can Check on Whether You\'re Being Successful or Not, Because If The
Visitors Leave with an \"Ah\" And Understand the Theme and Say, \"Gee,
Now That I Understand This,\" You Know You\'ve Been Successful. But If
You Don\'t Have a Theme, There Is Nothing to Measure. And You Can\'t
Really Measure \"Did I Get My Point Across?\" Because You Don\'t Really
Have a Defined Point to Check On.

Ham: a Bunch of Interesting Stuff about a Topic. Speaking of Interesting
Stuff, Let\'s Talk about Interesting Themes. Here Is an Idea That I
Really Hope You\'ll Consider and Walk Away with and That Is That, and If
You Talk to Experienced Interpreters or Good Communicator S of Any Kind,
Whether Teachers or Lawyers or Shoe Salespeople, They Are Going To Tell
You That Spending the Time Ahead of Time Long Before You Ever Begin to
Develop and Put Any Creative Energy into Actually Preparing and Planning
A Presentation or Interpretive Device, If You Will Take the Time
Necessary, Whatever it Takes, to Prepare the Most Interesting Theme
Statement You Can. Get it into as Interesting a Form as You Can for Your
Audience. Then You Have Almost Guaranteed An Interesting Presentation.
I\'ll Guarantee You at Least this Much, It\'s Much Easier to Develop an
Interesting Presentation Around an Idea That\'s Already Interesting than
It Is to Develop an Interesting Presentation Around an Idea That\'s Dull
or Lifeless. I Would Also Remind You Here That Themes Are Beliefs.
Beliefs of the Are the Building Blocks of Attitudes and Behaviors, and I
Am Going to Resist the Temptation to Go into A Long Explanation of
Social Psychology Here but Let Me Say The Research Particularly in the
Last 25 Years or So Is Very Clear on This, and Beliefs Give Rise to
Attitudes. Attitudes Give Rise to Intended And Actual Ways of Behaving.
Research Clearly Shows If We Want to Influence Intended and Actual
Behaviors of People, Then We Should Not Target Their Attitudes. We Will
Create Actually Resistance to Persuasive Attempt With Most Audiences,
but Rather If We Focus on the Beliefs That Give Rise to the Attitudes
Which In Turn Give Rise to the Behaviors, Now We Are Doing Something and
Research Shows That\'s the Way to Influence Human Behavior.

Galperin: and Get That Appreciation in There and When That Appreciation
Comes, Then They\'re More Acceptable into Looking at the Beliefs and
Looking at Their Attitude.

Ham: in Some Cases. In Some Cases You\'re Right. But I Would Just Add
this Little Bit to That, Amy and That Is That Human Behavior Is a Very
Complex Thing and the Reason There Is a Field of Social Psychology Is
That it Is Highly Complicated Research and of Course, It\'s Complicated
by the Fact That Here We Are, Human Beings Trying to Do Research on
Ourselves and We Don\'t Have the Benefit of Physical Instruments And
That Sort of Thing to Do It. So These Ideas, These Truisms About Human
Behavior, Come Very Slowly over Time. My Tendency Has Been to Be Rather
‑‑ I Embrace a Body of Evidence as It\'s Beginning to Sort of Manifest
Itself. I Also Have a Healthy Skepticism About What We Might Think about
That Body of Evidence in Even Five or Ten Years Because of Changes. But
It\'s a Very Interesting Idea. Interpretation Definitely Should Be
Squarely Placed in the Behavior‑influencing Business, However, and We
All Know If That We Manage Natural Resources. Let Me Talk Just for a
Second About the Idea of What a Theme Is, and We Have Been Talking About
What it Is Not. It Is Not a Topic. But What Is It? Well, You Know, I
Really Sometimes Wish That the Word \"Theme\" Hadn\'t Been Bestowed Upon
Us Because It\'s Created So Much Confusion. But Theme Is Really Just a
Message. You Might Want to Call it the Moral to the Story. You Might
Want to Call it the Big Picture. You Might Want to Call it an Answer to
the Question So What. You Might Want to Call it an Answer to the
Question \"Big Deal.\" Frankly, I Don\'t Care What You Call It, as Long
as You Have One, and That Is Only Because People Are a Lot Smarter than
Me Have Shown Really over Almost a Century of Research That Having A
Theme, Having a Message from The Departure ‑‑ from the Point Of
Departure in Any Communication Activity Is a Distinct Advantage. I\'d
Also like You to Think of Themes as Being Whole Ideas. Amy, a Little
While Ago She Mentioned Freeman Tilden\'s Advice We Should Be Addressing
a Whole, Getting Across a Whole Idea, and Not Just Part an Idea And
While the Theme Wasn\'t Yet Used, Wasn\'t a Part of Our Vocabulary in
the 1950s When Freeman Tilden Was Writing \"Interpreting Our Heritage,\"
I Really Believe If He Were Sitting Here with Us Right Now And Heard Us
Talking about this Idea That We Call Themes and Thematic Communication
in the Way We Are Describing it Would Jump up and Say, \"Yes, Yes,
That\'s What I Had in Mind,\" or Something Close Tight. Themes Are Whole
Ideas and Whole Ideas Are Expressed in Complete Declarative Sentences.
They Have a Subject and Verb. And Complete Declarative Sentences End in
a Period, Not With a Question Mark. Now, Take a Moment to Check the List
of Themes on Page 19 of Your Workbook, and You\'re Going To Notice That
Each of Those Themes Is a Complete Sentence. Each of Those Themes Has a
Subject and a Verb and Each One Ends with a Period, Not a Question Mark.
Here I Would like to You Put on Your Thinking Caps. I Am Not Going to
till the Answer, but Those of You So Inclined, When You Call or Fax In
Your Responses to an Exercise We Will Be Doing in a Minute Might Want to
Add on Your Best Guess or Your Hunch of this One, But: Why Is it I Am
Stressing So Much it must Be a Period and Not a Question Mark for a
Theme? We Will See What You Come up With. Also, as You Are Looking at
Those Themes, Notice Each of the Eight Themes I List There All
Correspond to the Same Topic, Birds. Again, this Idea That Any Topic Can
Have Any Number of Themes. So Having Only a Topic in Mind As You Go into
Development of a Presentation or Device Isn\'t Enough. It Gives You Very
Little. I Would Say Almost No Insight. But Having a Theme Gives You Very
Clear Vision and Insight, And That\'s 81 of the Main Advantages of
Thematic Communication. Let\'s Look at Some Examples of Topics and Some
Themes That Might Go with Them. Let\'s Take the Topic Floods. One Theme
for the Topic Floods Might Be Floods Are Nature\'s Way Of Reminding Us
Who Is Really in Control Here. But an Alternative Theme for the Topic
Floods Might Be, You Know, Floods Kill Unnecessarily since They Can Be
Avoided. Now, Both of These Are Messages About Floods, but Notice How
Each Would Require Fundamentally Different Approach. The Content
Certainly Would Be Different. The Ways for Us to Use Revelation,
Provocation, et Cetera, Would Be Very Different Depending on Which of
These Themes We Were Trying to Develop, As, of Course, Would Be The
Facts and Figures and Anecdotes and Comparisons and Metaphors, et
Cetera. And the Thing That\'s Important To Remember Here Is That All
Thematic Communication Is like This. Having a Topic Isn\'t Enough. No
Matter How Specifically You Can State That Topic. Having a Message or a
Theme to Communicate about That Topic, That\'s When You\'re on Solid
Ground. Another Example a Lot of Us Interpret Our Agencies or the
Agency\'s Mission and in this Case We Will Use the BLM as a Topic. One
Theme Might Be the Bureau of Land Management Works to Honor Its Prom Us
to Future Americans. A Very Legitimate Theme and a Legitimate Theme for
Whatever Agency You Work for as Well. Of Course, Would You Substitute
Your Agency\'s Name for the BLM In this One. Another One Might Be
Completely Different. The History of the Bureau of Land Management
Involves Disasters, Suspense, Heroes and You. All Right? This Is One of
the Types of Themes I Really like Because Look at the Kinds of Human
Interest Areas That a Theme like This Focuses On.

Galperin: and Bringing the Agency and Relating it to the General Public
or Visitors That Are Coming to Your Site, I Mean, What Happens Really
Makes That Connection and Gets the Support For the Agency.

Ham: Yes, Absolutely True. Here\'s One Amy Will like Because It Uses One
of Those Esoteric Words, Riparian Strips ‑‑ Esoteric Words, Riparian
Strips. He Is Probably Jargon We Have Invented Because it Saves Us Time.
I Could Add to That the Word Succession, Niche, Ecosystem, Competition,
a Number of Other Things We Say Because They Save Us Time. Of Course Our
Visitors Don\'t Know What That Means. So That\'s Why You\'ll Notice
Although Our Top Sick Riparian Strip You Won\'t Find That Word Riparian
Strip in Any of the Theme Statements. Here Is One Theme for this Topic.
Water‑loving Plants Create Irreplaceable Habitats in the Desert. Another
One Might Be, Where There\'s Water, There\'s Food for Deer. I Hope You
Are Following this Logic. In Each Case We Have a Topic and Now We\'re
Stating a Whole Idea In the Form of a Theme about That, and You Can See
That While I\'m Only Giving Two Examples for Each One, There Actually
Could Be Many, Many, and in Fact Fact Probably an Infinite Number. I
Find That People Often Understand What I Have Said That Topics Are
Different from Themes And Topics Are Subject Matters And Themes Are
Messages or Main Ideas Related to That Topic Area, When I Actually Ask
Them To Sit down and to Write a Theme Statement, They Have a Little
Trouble Doing It. They Remember That a Theme Statement Is a Complete
Sentence And It\'s Got a Subject and a Verb, but Sometimes I Have to
Give a Little Refresher Course On What a Subject and a Verb Are, but
That\'s Okay. That\'s Okay. But Here Is a Way, If You Don\'t Want to
Preoccupy Yourself with The Grammar of it All, Here Is a Way to Force
Yourself into Writing a Theme And, Therefore, Into Thinking
Thematically. It Come in the Form of an Easy Three‑step Exercise You Are
Going to Find on Page 20 of Your Workbook. It Simply Asks You in Three
Different Steps to First State Your Topic as Generally as You Can, And,
Secondly, to State Your Topic as Specifically as You Can, and Then,
Finally, in The Third Step, We Are Going to Get into Thematic Thinking.
Notice in the Thirst Two Steps The Word \"About\" Is Highlighted. See,
Topics Are about Stuff. You Won\'t Find That Word in the Second ‑‑ in
the Last Step. The Reason and Why I Have Chosen This Title for this
Particular Three‑step Process, Writing Themes Is as Easy as That, Is
That That Word \"That\" Becomes Useful in Forcing You to Express A Theme
and You Will See How That Works in a Minute. Let\'s Take an Example.
Let\'s Say Our Topic, Generally, Are Bats. Bats. Let\'s Say That Our
Specific Topic in Step Two ‑‑ Here I Want To State it Specifically as
Possible, Because I Found, Amy, If I Make People Say it as Specifically
as Possible, They Will Discover That No Matter How Many Words You Use to
Really Narrow down That Topic, it Doesn\'t Become a Theme at Some Point.
A Lot of People Think Does It. You Do it in a Lot of Words, You Have a
Theme. We Will Find out That\'s Not the Case.

Galperin: That\'s a Problem as People Try to Come up with All The Things
They Can Think of About the Topic and Then Have Problems Trying to
Filter it All Out.

Ham: Good Point. Let\'s Say Our Specific Topic Is A Particular Species
of Bats That Lives in a Particular Part Of Texas That Breeds Only in
March. All Right? That\'s Pretty Specific. All Right? But Is That a
Theme?

Galperin: No, No, Not a Theme In My Book.

Ham: Let\'s Now Go to the Third Step, Then. The Third Step Is Simply a
Sentence Which We Complete That Forces Us into Thinking Thematically. It
Starts like this. After Hearing My Presentation, Or If You Like, Viewing
My Exhibit or Wayside or Walking My Trail or Using My Multi‑media
Program, Whatever the Medium Might Be, I Want My Audience to Know That
‑‑ There Is That Word \"That\" ‑‑ You Will Find You must Complete the
Sentence Now with a Complete Sentence. You Have an Independent Clause
With a Subject and Verb, and it Will End in a Period. Therefore, We
Might Reason after Hearing Our Presentation on this Particular Species
of Bats That Lives in a Particular Part of Texas That Only Breeds in
March That We Want Our Audience to Know That this Particular Species of
Bat Is in Danger Because of All the Misconceptions That People Have
About it Probably Because It\'s a Nocturnal Animal and Rarely Seen And
Understood. Did You Hear That Theme in That Last Part? I Couldn\'t
Complete That Sentence with a Topic. I Couldn\'t Say after Our
Presentation We Want Our Audience to Know That Bats, or I Couldn\'t Say
We Want Our Audience to Know Appear Particular Species of Bats That
Lives in Texas, et Cetera, et Cetera. All Right? But I Could Say, We
Want Our Audience to Know That ‑‑.

Galperin: That Bats That Live In Texas in March Are Nocturnal And
Therefore People Misunderstand Them.

Ham: Perfect. That\'s Thematic Thinking. Knowing That, Now as Amy and I
Began to Do Our Program Research And Development, Everything We Do Is
Focused Around That Goal Of Getting That Idea Across. An Alternative Way
to Do this That You Will Find We\'ll Be Doing Our Exercise in this
Particular Format, Is to Simply Complete this Sentence as Many Ways as
You Can. \"When it Comes to My Topic, I Think It\'s Really Important for
My Audience to Understand That ‑‑ There\'s That Word Again, and Complete
That Sentence as Many Ways as You K I like this Format A Lot Because it
Forces Us to Think about What Is Really Important to Get Across to Them.
What\'s the Big Deal. I Only Have this One Chance with Them. I Don\'t
Want to Squander it on Something That\'s Not Really Important. That\'s
the Idea of this Sentence Why I like to Have People Complete the
Sentence as Many Ways as They Can. For Example, Let\'s Say My Topic Is
Creativity. I Might Say, You Know, When it Comes to Creativity, I Think
It\'s Really Important for People To Understand That\... All of Us Were
Born with it and the Really Lucky Ones Recognize That for Life. All
Right? Now, That\'s Probably a True Statement, I Think, but Also It\'s
Different than Another Theme about Creativity, Another Topic of
Creativity.

Galperin: this Also Helps Develop What We Were Talking About of the
Story, Bringing in A Story and Talking about the Whole, and When You
Start Thinking That Way, Your Theme Really Helps You Accomplish That
Mission.

Ham: That\'s Exactly Right. Let\'s Look at Page 21 of Your Workbook, and
You Are Going to Find an Exercise That Looks a Lot like the One That
Will Appear on Your Screen Now in Which We\'re Going to Ask You to Write
a Theme Statement, and We\'re Going to Use this Sentence That I Just
Talked About, Which Asked You to Consider the Big Deal. So in Your
Exercise, I Would Like to You Complete the Following Sentence in Two or
Three Different Ways, or If You Like, More. \"When it Comes to Your
Topic, And You Write in Your Topic There, I Think It\'s Really Important
for Our Audience to Know That\...\" Now, Feel Free to Substitute Other
Verbs for That Verb to Know. I Am Using it Because it Does Express
Generally a Learning Type of Activity, but Could You Substitute a Verb
Such as \"Appreciate.\" I Want Them to Appreciate That. To Feel That. To
Understand That. So it Doesn\'t Have to Be Know. Feel Free to Do That.
We Will Look Forward to Seeing What You Come up with. These
Thematically. Not Just about Those Topics. Renee?

Straub: Thanks. That Presentation on Themes Was Great. I Learned How
Important Themes Are in Developing a Lot of the Projects I Have Had to
Do. We Look Forward to Seeing What Viewers, the Themes the Viewers Come
up with. This Concludes the First Broadcast Segment of Introduction to
Interpretation Course. During this 90‑minute Break You Should Have
Lunch, Work on the Exercises Sam Has Just Gone Over. When We Come Back
We Will Still Be Here on Galaxy 3, Transponder 21. We Will Give You a
Short Two‑minute Test Signal Before We Start the Second Half of Today\'s
Training. Good Luck with Your Exercise and Don\'t Forget to Phone or Fax
in Your Responses and Have a Nice Lunch!

Straub: Welcome Back. The BLM National Training Center\'s Introduction
to Interpretation. Once Again We Have with Us Amy Galperin. Hi, Amy.
Georgia Gal Hi, Renee. I Hope Odd Great Lunch. I Know We Certainly Did.
They Were Nice Enough to Go out And Get Us Food. It Was a Great Treat.

Straub: and Sam Ham Is Back To Continue His Discussion on Interpretive
Theme. Welcome Back, Sam.

Ham: Thank You, Renee. Good to Be Back. Hope Everybody Had Fun Doing the
Exercise. We Have Gotten Tremendous Response.

Straub: That\'s Good. We Have Some Answers to the Exercises You Worked
on over the Lunch Break. We Are Anxious to See What Everyone Came up
with. If You Have a Question or Comment, Give Us a Call. We\'ll Try to
Get Your Calls as Fast as We Can. We Look Forward to Hearing from You.
Sam and Amy, We Did Get Quite a Lot of Faxes. Let Me Give You a Short
List of Some of the Places That Faxed Things In. We Got Things from
Bakersfield, California; Winnemucca, Nevada; Needle, California; Palm
Springs, California; Caliente, California; Salmon, Idaho; Tucson,
Arizona; Kremlin, Colorado; El Centro, California; Elko, Nevada; Denver,
Colorado; Henry Mountain, Utah; Irvine, California; Glasgow, Montana;
And Alaska. Let\'s Look at Those.

Ham: We\'re Surrounded.

Galperin: It\'s Wonderful. It\'s Exciting to See All the Responses We
Got. Thank You All for Doing That With Us.

Ham: Remember That Your Exercise Was to Complete That Sentence When it
Comes to My Topic. I Think It\'s Really Important For My Audience to
Understand That. Now What We Are Going to See Is That Some of These
People Wrote Terrific, Creative, Very Well Thought out Completions to
That Sentence Following That Word \"That.\" Following That Word \"That\"
You Must Write a Theme. But We Found a Couple People That Are Resisting
and Crossed Off \"That\" and Got Back into Topics. The Only Way You Can
Do Is That To Eliminate \"That.\" I Hope the Person out There Is Not
Offended but That Chuckle With Us Because That You Will Realize You Have
Resisted Thematic Thinking. First, Let\'s Turn One That I Selected Mere
More or less as an Example. Let\'s Look at the Second Theme Here. This
Is from Lynn in Winnemucca, Nevada. Lynn Wants Her Audience to
Understand That When Native Americans Lived at Lovelock Cave And Saw the
Wagons Go by on the California Trail, They Had No Idea What the Impact
of These People Would Be on Their Lives. Now, I like That a Lot.

Galperin: It\'s Filled with a Story. You Can Just See it Take off.

Ham: and There Is Suspense, Isn\'t There? Suspense and Mystery and the
Unknown. This Is One Area That Sometimes Really Strong Theme Statements
Resolve Around the Uncertain, That Said That Humans Are on This
Never‑ending Quest for Uncertainty and Psychologists Call it Optimal
Arousal, Believe It or Not. There Is a Branch of Psychology ‑‑.

Galperin: We Will Have to Come One an Easier Term.

Ham: That\'s a Terrific Theme Statement, Lynn. Here Is Another Lynn.
This One Is Coming from Utah. This Lynn Doesn\'t Say Exactly Where in
Utah. Lynn Says When it Comes to the Tabernacle Hill Volcano She Wants
Her Audience to Know That The Name of the Tabernacle Hill Comes from the
Shape of the One Remaining Side of the Turr Ring Which Resembles the
Roof of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. She Has an Analogy, a
Comparison. We Will Talk Specifically about Using Analogies and Theme
Statements as a Way to Strengthen Them Later. Thanks a Lot, Lynn, for
Sort of Foreshadowing That Principle. Here Is One from Larry Mercer in
Southern California and I Am Going to Cheat a Little and Put That Right
There. Larry Says That Southern California Is Crisscrossed with Many
Earthquakes, Faults, Some We Know about and Some We Don\'t. There\'s
That Idea Again.

Galperin: Am I Walking on That Fault or Not?

Ham: That\'s Right. In Addition, Larry Is Capitalizing on the Idea of
Being Personal, Which We\'ll Also Talk about in Few Minutes Because
People in Southern California Really Care about Where the Fault Might
Be, Particularly the Ones They Don\'t Know about and That Would Make Me
Sit up and Take Notice. What Happens a Good Theme Statement Does, Amy.
Larry, I Want to Congratulate With, Oh, Heavens, I Can\'t Remember Who
the Second Person Was Who Accepted My Challenge to Explain Why We End
Theme Statements with a Period and Not A Question Mark and Both of You
Were Absolutely Correct. Larry Says Themes End in a Period Because We
Are Answering Questions, Not Asking Them. We\'ll See That in a Title
That\'s Not Necessarily the Case. But Don\'t Confuse a Theme and a
Title. Of Course, We Are Also Going to Talk about Theme Titles. We\'ll
Come Back to That.

Galperin: Do You Want this One?

Ham: Sure. Let\'s Do this One next. This Is from El Centro, California.
I Am Sorry That the Name of the Person Is Not Here. Let Me Just Come
down on this a Little Bit. This Person Says That: When it Comes to
Off‑highway Vehicle Safety It\'s Important for the Audience to Know That
Driving Under the Influence of Drugs or Alcohol Is Illegal While off
Road, and I Know You Are Not Implying That it Would Be Legal While on
the Road, but What You\'re Doing Here Is Giving Us a Good Example of a
Theme That Actually Interprets a Regulation Or a Law. Now, Some People
That Regulatory Information and Thematic Interpretation Are Somehow
Different Realms. No. They Are Not. Regulatory Interpretation Done Well
Is Thematic Just like Any Other ‑‑.

Galperin: in Fact, the Cultural People Are Really Find Field Goal They
Start Interpreting a Lot of Their Regs And Why Their Regs Exist and How
It Impacts the Resources, They Get Much Better Visitor Compliance.

Ham: Absolutely True. Absolutely True. This Comes from a Bilingual Group
Working out of Palm Springs, California, and by Bilingual, I Presume We
Are Talking English and Spanish, and Their Topic Is Dumping, and When It
Comes to Their Topic Dumping, They Feel That It\'s Important For the
Audience to Know That Trash Is Ugly, or Aesthetically Unpleasing,
Illegal, Unhealthy, It Affects Their Recreational Experience. If You
Will Pardon My Attempt to Do it for the Other Half of Your Bilingual
Group\... \[ Speaking in Spanish \] Does That Do it for You? In Either
Language I Think It\'s A Pretty Good Theme. And They Do Add, by the Way,
It\'s Rude Behavior, Self‑perpetuating, Expensive to Clean up and Not
Fun. Those Are All Great Theme Statements. Make Sure When You Pitch this
Type of Message to an Audience That Is Responsible for the Undesirable
Behavior That You Do It in a Way That Doesn\'t Offend Them or Attack
Them. That\'s Critical. There\'s Another One ‑‑ I Want to ‑‑ this Is Not
the One. Is this the One? What Do You Have Right There, Amy?

Galperin: I Have One from Glasgow.

Ham: Oh, Here Is a Person Who Is Obviously ‑‑ this Is from Glasgow,
Montana, a Person Who Obviously Is Interested in Roadless Areas as a
Topic, and There Are Several Terrific Themes Here. I Want to Come down
to this Last One, Though, Because I Can ‑‑ I Can Well Imagine it Would
Touch The Hearts of Some of Us. Actually this Is Not the One That Would
Touch Our Hearts, but It May Touch Our Minds. Ecological Values
Associated With Roadless Areas Include Recreational Benefits, Refuge For
Wildlife, Soil Stability and Reduction of the Spread of Noxious Plants
and What this Person Is Doing, Obviously, Is Showing the Benefits of
Roadless Areas. Good Themes Often Emphasize Benefits to Human Beings,
Especially Benefits to the Audience, as Good Marketing and Advertising
Do. Oh, Here Is One I like a Lot Because of the Metaphor That\'s In It.
We Are Going to Talk about Using Metaphors in a Second. This Person from
Tucson Wants The Audience to Know That Restoring Habitat Is like Putting
the Pieces of the Puzzle Together ‑‑ but a Few Pieces Are Missing.
Notice the Metaphor of a Jigsaw Puzzle or of a Puzzle in There, And
It\'s a Beautifully Done Metaphor.

Galperin: this One Relates to Our Wild Horse Program.

Ham: Oh, Yes. Okay. Wild Horses Is the Topic. We\'re Going to Look at
Number One Here. Person Wants the Audience to Know That ‑‑ this Is from
Elko, Nevada, That Horses Were Native In North America. I Didn\'t Know
That. Now, There\'s a Revelation. Most People Think That Horses Are Not
Native, That They Were Introduced by the Spaniards, and So Horses Were
Native. Is He Talking about Eohippus? I Am Not Sure. Which Is the Little
Three‑inch Horse. Whoever this Is in Elko, Congratulations. That Native
Horses Became Extinct. Again, I Did Not Know That. And That Horses Were
Introduce ‑‑ Reintroduced to North America By Man. Again, These Are
Three Ideas, Excellent Theme Statements, All Of Which for Me Constitute
a Revelation. Because I Didn\'t Know. Excellent, Whoever this Is.

Galperin: So You Will Attend The Program or Read the Brochure.

Ham: I Will Definitely Attend The Program. I Will Start To. Now, Whether
He Keeps My Attention for the Duration Will Depend on Other Things, of
Course, but I Will Definitely Show Up. Okay, Then There Was Just One
More That I Wanted to Look at Because ‑‑.

Galperin: this One Is Missing ‑‑.

Ham: Here We Go. This Comes from a Person in Bakersfield, and I Am Going
to See If I Can Carefully Frame This. Yes. Okay. The Topic Is the San
Andreas Fault. Now, What this Person in Bakersfield Has Done Is
Forgotten the Word \"That.\" When it Comes to the San Andreas Fault ‑‑
We\'re Okay So Far ‑‑ She Wants Her Audience to Understand, but Notice
the Person Has Taken the Word \"That\" Out and You Can\'t Say That the
Magnitude of the Destruction Is Capable of Inflicting. What the Person
Has Done Is Eliminated the Word \"That\" and Got Back into Topic
Thinking. So the Topic More Specifically Is the Magnitude of the
Destruction the San Andreas Fault Is Capable of Inflicting. But It\'s
Not a Theme Yet. Another Example Is the Topic Might Be That She Wants ‑‑
Well, The Topic Might Be to Know the Historical Activity of the San
Andreas Fault in Order to Prepare for Future Generations, But it
Doesn\'t Tell Us Anything About the Historical Activity. So the Word
\"That\" Was Missing From Each of These. I Just Wanted to Suggest ‑‑.

Galperin: it Was Missing Basically That Action Verb.

Ham: Exactly, the Verb. I Want to Suggest to this Person In Bakersfield,
Go Back to That Sentence and Underline That Word \"That\" and Then
Complete the Sentence in a Grammatically Sensible Way from That Point on
And You Will Be Writing Themes And I Would in Still Encourage You If You
Can Do That, Quick, Fax it in and Maybe We Can Get To it Yet Before We
Finish up Here. Do We Have One or Two More There?

Galperin: We\'ve Got a Couple.

Ham: Here Are a Couple That Are Really, Really Worth Looking At More
Closely. We\'ll Do One More Here and Then Bring Closure to this
Exercise. This Person Is from Imperial Sand Dunes, Obviously. The Theme
Is ‑‑ this Is from Jeff. Jeff Says the Imperial Sand Dunes Are a Unique
Place and Need to Be Protected. A Terrific Theme. That\'s a Good Theme
for Almost Any Area. Careful with That Word Unique Because the Word
Unique Has Gotten to the Point ‑‑.

Galperin: That It\'s No Longer Unique.

Ham: I Hear People Say ‑‑ Something Else Is More Unique And They Say,
No, No, the Most Unique. Obviously, If It\'s Unique, It\'s
One‑of‑a‑kind. The Word Unique Has Gotten like The Word Very. We Don\'t
Listen to it as an Important Adjective Any Longer. I Think the Word
Unique Is Slipping into That Sort of Cliche\' Mode. But If It\'s Highly
Unusual, Extraordinary, Now, Those Are Words That Conjure up That ‑‑
It\'s Very Different, and They Might Be More Useful in a Theme Statement
than the Word \"Unique.\" I Want to Congratulate Everyone On a Job Well
Done and We Have a Mountain of These That We Haven\'t Been Able to Get
to and They Are Equally as the Ones We Have Looked at and It\'s Been a
Really Good Exercise.

Galperin: One Thing We Want To Point out to You Is That What You\'ve
Been Doing in Looking at The Six Principles and Looking At These Themes
Is Actually Getting Ready to Go into Interpretive Planning, and You\'ve
Taken Some of the First Steps That Are Going to Help You Develop Your
Interpretive Plans And Go on to Day Two. With That, Let Me Pass it onto
Renee. Thank You.

Straub: Those Are Some Great Exercises. Thanks for Faxing Them All In.
Now That You Have Learned How to Think Thematically, Sam Will Show You
Some of the Ways to Make Your Themes as Interesting As They Can Be. Sam?

Ham: Thanks, Renee. This Is Really Easy to Do after Looking at All Those
Theme Statements Because Many of Them Illustrated Some of the Things We
Are Going to Talk about. We Are Going to Talk about Five Different
Things You Can Do and These Are Five of a Longer List That We Could Talk
About, but Five Different Things Could You Do, Methods You Can Use to
Make Your Theme Statements Even More Interesting. Remember, Starting
with an Interesting Idea Is Important Because It\'s Much Easier to
Develop an Interesting Presentation or Device from an ‑‑ Around an Idea
That Is Already Interesting than to Have To Work Harder to Do it
Starting From an Idea That Is, You Know, Duller or Even Boring or
Lifeless. So We\'ll Talk about Those Five. We\'ll Then Quickly Switch
Our Attention to Looking at at the Sort of Strategy of Developing
Thematic Presentations Depending On Whether We\'re Looking at What
We\'re Going to Call Sequential Communication Media or Nonsequential
Communication Media, for Example, a Talk Versus an Exhibit, Because the
Strategy Is a Little Different. Then We\'ll Come Back, Time Permitting,
and We\'ll Do Another Quick Exercise and Wrap it Up. Well, Let\'s Look
‑‑ at These Five Ways of Looking at Themes And Writing Them in a More
Interesting Way. The First Thing You Can Do and One of These Themes Did
a Good Job of It, Is to Make Them Personal. A Personal Theme Is One That
Gets at Something That Our Audience Not Only Understands Something about
but That Our Audience Cares about like the Fellow from California Who
Was Writing about the Location of Unknown Fault Lines. That\'s a Very
Personal Type of Theme for People Who Live in Seismically Active Area
like Southern California. Another Thing You Can Do Is to Utilize the
Word \"You.\" The Word \"You\" Is the Most Personal Word in Any
Language. Here Are a Couple Examples. First I Will Give You a Theme
Statement and Then Look at a Way It\'s Been Improved Capitalizing On
this Principle of Being Personal. The First One Is That Six Different
Kinds of Snakes Live Around Here. The Second One, Trying to Make Ate
Little More Personal, Is That \"Six Different Kinds of Snakes Live
Around Here, and Knowing Which Is Which Could Be Very Useful, Especially
When You\'re Walking.\" Again, Amy, Getting at That Idea That the Theme
That Focuses Something People Care about Is a Theme That They\'re Going
to Be Interested in and it Reminds Me Of a Fellow in Costa Rica I Worked
with in a Biological Reserve Who Was Developing a Guided Walk on a Trail
Through Beautiful Jungle, and His Theme Was That Three Main Kinds of
Frogs Lived in That Forest and I Said, Well, That\'s a Great Theme, Big
Deal. I Mean, Big ‑‑ Where\'s the \"Wow\"? He Said, No, No, It\'s Really
Important, Because One of Those Frogs Can Kill You. And I Said, So You
Mean There Are Three Kinds of Frogs Living In this Forest and Knowing
Which Is Which Could Save Your Life? He Goes, Yeah, Yeah, That\'s Idea.
That\'s the Example of a Personal Theme. Another Thing You Can Do with
Theme Statements Is to Incorporate an Analogy into Them. We Saw an
Analogy Earlier with The Jigsaw Puzzle Reference in The Theme Had That
to Do with Restoring an Ecosystem or Habitat. Don\'t Be Corny with
These. Don\'t Force an Analogy, but Look For Opportunities to Use an
Analogy to Make a Theme More Meaningful to People. For Example, I Have
Always Said Having a Lot of Biodiversity Is About like Having a Life
Insurance Policy Because You Never When You Are Going to Need It. I Am
Also Showing a Couple More Examples Now That Refer to a Theme Related to
What Goes on Inside of an Active Volcano\'s Plumbing System, and One
Thing Might Be That the Plumbing System of an Active Volcano Contains
Both Heat and Gas Pressure. Another Theme, Though, this Time
Incorporating an Analogy Might Be, to Understand What Goes on In an
Active Volcano\'s Plumbing System, You Need Only to Think Of a Pressure
Cooker and an Agitated Bottle of Champagne. Again, Amy, That\'s the Idea
That You Had Mentioned Earlier of Connecting, or What I Call Bridging, a
New Thing, an Unknown Thing or Lesser Known Thing with ‑‑ by Comparison
with Something the Audience Knows Very Well, in this Case the Agitated
Bottle of Champagne and The Pressure Cooker.

Galperin: Which They All Understand.

Ham: We Understand. I Understand ‑‑ Some of the Younger People No Longer
Know What Pressure Cookers Are. We May Be Get to Go a Generational Thing
Here.

Galperin: Then You Need Test It out.

Ham: at Mount St. Helens, There Are Programs Developing This Very Theme
That Are Going O They Have Done a Good Job with This One. A Third Thing
You Can Do Is to Use a Metaphor. We Talked about Metaphors Earlier.
Again, Don\'t Be Corny with These. Don\'t Focus on Something That Causes
the Audience to Stretch Its Imagination Too Far. A Metaphor Involves
Using a Word Or Phrase to Describe a Thing or Person or an Event That Is
Normally Used in a Different Way, but Because We\'re Able to See the
Connection, There\'s a New Insight There and It\'s a New And Interesting
Insight. For Example, I Might Say That He Plowed Through the Rapids. The
Words Plow Usually Used in a Different Context. Or When I Listened to a
Song That Was Particularly Meaningful To Me, I Might Say That Song Was
Pregnant with Feeling, Again, a Metaphor. An Example of a Metaphor for
the Themes We Are Using as an Example Here Might Be That Chuck Berry Did
a Lot to Advance Rock‑\'N‑roll. Thinking Metaphorically, I Turn Around
and Say, That Means That Chuck Berry Was the Architect of Rock‑\'N‑roll,
Again, the Idea of An Architect Being Used Differently.

Galperin: and it Made it Come Alive More. It Took it from a Simple
Statement and Gave it Life.

Ham: That\'s Right. You Have Got to Be Careful Both With Analogies and
Metaphors That You Don\'t Ask Too Much of Your Audience. Don\'t Be Too
Symbolic and We Will See this in Writing When Ron Talks Tomorrow about
Writing Headings. A Catchy Title Is Good, but If It\'s So Wild That it
Makes You Take Notice but There\'s No Really Obvious Link to Your
Message, Your Theme, Then You\'ve Probably Gotten into the Realm Of
Entertainment for Entertainment Sake. I Remember One Fellow Once
Referred to the Blast Area at Mount St. Helen\'s, about 16, 17 Years
Ago, and He Had a Beautiful Theme but it Didn\'t Make Sense. He Says,
You Know, Looking at The Blast Zone, He Said, Is a Lot like Looking at
the Ocean. Well, You Know, it Sounded Poetic, but ‑‑.

Galperin: it Didn\'t Make It.

Ham: it Didn\'t Look like the Ocean, Amy. There Was Very Little Water.
And the Ocean Was ‑‑ at Any Rate. Here Is Another Thing You Can Do.
Remember That Theme Statements Involve a Subject and a Verb, And Verbs,
Any Good Writer Will Tell You and Any Knowledgeable Speaker Will Tell
You, Are the Important Part of Any Language. Verbs Are the Power in the
Language. Why? Because They\'re Action Words, Right? They Describe
Motion. They Put Little Videos and Moving Pictures in Our Heads. We like
Movement. We Are Innately, Inherently Attracted to It. The More Visual
Verbs, in Any Good Writer or Speaker Knows, Are the Good Ones to Use.
They Are More Interesting to People. One of the Things Those of Trained
in Science and Technical Fields Have Learned Too Much Is To Do ‑‑.

Galperin: the Inactive Verb.

Ham: We Put Them in a Passive Voice, Don\'t We, Which I Guess Is Good
Because it Conjures up This Idea That We Weren\'t Involved, Right?

Galperin: Right, Take out the Subject.

Ham: I Didn\'t Collect Those Data.

Galperin: the Data Was Collected. It Was Magic.

Ham: Well, at Any Rate, Let\'s Focus on These Verbs, Because What We
Want to Do and Particularly Those of Us Trained In Technical Fields Will
Have to Be Conscious Because of Our Training, Let\'s Make Sure We Keep
Them in Our Active Form. We Want to Say, for Example That 2 the Desert
‑‑ Instead of Saying the Desert Landscape Was Created by Harsh Winds and
Drought ‑‑ Notice That Passive Voice ‑‑ Was Created ‑‑ Let\'s Turn That
Around and Make an Active Verb. Let\'s Say Harsh Winds and Drought
Created this Desert Landscape. Can You Feel That Difference? Can You
Sense ‑‑ Can You See That Video, That this Wind and Drought Are Creating
the Landscape, Rather than the Landscape Being Created, Which Is the
Passive Alternative. All Right. Another Thing We Can Do with the Verb in
a Theme Statement Is to Avoid Using the Obvious Verb, The Most Common
and the Most Useful Verb in Our Language Without Doubt the Most
Versatile Verb in Our Language, Is the Verb ‑‑.

Galperin: to Be\... To Be or Not to Be.

Ham: It\'s a Good Verb. It\'s a Fantastic ‑‑ in Fact, It\'s So
Important, Many Language Have More than One Kind of Verb To Be. But
Unfortunately it Describes a State of Being, a Condition. It\'s Not
Visual, Not a Terribly Interesting Verb but it Is a Useful Verb. So as a
Rule We\'re Going to Try To Ignore ‑‑ We Are Going to Try To Avoid Using
the Verb to Be Whenever We Can in Theme Statements. A Good Example of
That Would Be That These Mountains Are Millions of Years Old. An
Alternative, Though ‑‑ Notice That Are Millions. There\'s the Verb to
Be. Let\'s Tweak That Theme Statement And Turn it into a More
Interesting Statement. We Might Say These Mountains Tell a Story
Millions of Years Long. Can You Sense the Difference in That the Second
One Is More Interesting than the First One. Many of the Themes We
Reviewed In the Exercise Utilized the Verb to Be. It Is Almost Always
Where I Start When I Write the First Draft of a Theme. I Am Not Worried
about this Stuff Yet. I Get it down Where Where I Know I Am Getting My
Negligent Stated Accurately and Now I Start Working on These Things. If
You Were One of the People Whose Themes ‑‑ Look at the Theme Statements
You Faxed Us To, If You Have the Verb Noon There, Why Don\'t You Start
Looking at That Verb to Be and See If You Could Change Things Around a
Little Bit to Avoid That Verb. But Sometimes You Can\'t and That\'s
Okay. You Don\'t Want to Force Fit Any Of These Things. But Avoiding the
Verb to Be Is Good to Do If You Can Do It. I Am Going to Turn My
Attention Now Quickly to Another Topic and We\'re Going to Come Back
These Five Ideas in an Exercise in a Few Minutes, but Before I Do I Want
to Talk a Little Bit about The Strategy of Communicating a Theme.
Basically I Think You Can Divide Sort of Your Strategic Approach Into
Two Categories, One That\'s Based upon Sequential Communication and One
That\'s Based upon Nonsequential Communication. Let\'s Look at
Sequential Communication First. Sequential Communication, It\'s You That
Controls the Order in Which the Audience Receives Information. All
Right? I Mean, Obviously in this Telecast, You Are Not Going to Hear it
until Amy or I or Renee Decide That You\'re Going to Hear It. We Control
the Order of the Sequence in Which You Receive Information. The Same Is
True If You\'re Guiding a Walk along a Trail. If You\'re Giving a Talk,
the Audience Won\'t Hear Anything Until You Decide It\'s Time to Tell
Them about That. Going Back to Our Visual, You Can See Other Examples
Are Scripts That You Might Have Written for an Audio‑visual Program or
Multi‑media Program, Novels, Short Stories, Things That Might Be Written
That Are Long Enough That They Have an Introduction, a Body and
Conclusion. In Contrast, Nonsequential Communication Is Communication In
Which the Audience, Not You, Controls the Order in Which Information Is
Received. Now, Think of Yourself as a Visitor Center or Interpretive
Center, Museum, Looking at a Room Full of Exhibits. Do You Walk up to
Every One, Start at the Upper Left and Then Read until You\'ve Reached
the Lower Right‑hand Corner? Well, of Course Not. You Look at Some
Things Instinctively, First, of Course, But Then You\'ll Bounce Around,
Find Some Things That Are More Interesting and Other Things That Are
Not. You Can Read That Exhibit or Not Read It. You Can Read Any Part of
it Not Read That Part of It. And You Can Do All of in That Any Order.
And If We Took 100 of You and Had You All Look at the Same Exhibit and
Stood Behind with a Special Measuring Device That Tracked the Direction
of Your Eyes, We Would Find That Except For the First Fraction of a
Second to Possibly Two or Three Seconds, Except for That Time Period in
Which All of Your Eyes Would Probably Be Fixed on the Same Place, We
Would Find That Your Eyes Moved in 100 Different Directions, or Close to
It. That Is the Idea of Nonsequential Communication. The Audience Can Go
in Any Order That it Wants. Examples Here Are Exhibits, Signs and
Wayside Exhibits, Displays, Bulletin Boards, the New Multi‑media, Which
Would Include the Web and Internet Technology and Cd‑rom and Other
Multi‑media Programs in Which The User Determines the Direction and
Navigation He or She Will Use to Take in the Information. Most
Brochures, Pamphlets, Posters, et Cetera. And Other Media. Now New Media
Coming on into Existence Are Probably Going to Be a Little Bit of Both,
Sequential and Nonsequential, And, as a Matter of Fact, That\'s What a
Self‑guided Trail Is, Isn\'t It?

Galperin: Right. You Get to Choose What You Are Going to Stop at and
Where You Are Going to Stop.

Ham: You Do. But You Probably Wouldn\'t Go From Stop 1 to Stop 8 and Run
Back to Stop 2.

Galperin: Right. Unless You Had Gigantic Legs.

Ham: and a Very Weird Sense Of Humor. But You Certainly at Each Stop
Have a Nonsequential Problem. You\'ve Got Probably Either a Panel of
Some Kind or You\'ve Got A Block of Text in a Brochure And Each of Those
in Nonsequential. So While We\'re Thinking Thematically along the Core
Adore of the Trail with an Introduction, Body and Conclusion, Each Stop
Is a Nonsequential Problem Because The Eye Will See after the Title The
Eye Could Go Anywhere. So When We Are Looking at Nonsequential ‑‑ Excuse
Me ‑‑ at Sequential Communication, We Want to Think Sequentially. All
Sequential Communication Devices and Presentations, Talks, Guided Tours,
et Cetera, Scripts, They Have Introductions, They Have Bodies And They
Have Conclusions and Each of Those Has Different Functions or Purposes
with Respect to Developing the Theme. The Introduction Introduces the
Theme. The Body Develops the Theme. And the Conclusion Rein Forces The
Theme. Also in Sequential Communication We Can Think in Terms of Using
Transitions Because We Know What\'s Coming next or Later and So We Can
Make Transitions to That. I Can Say, and Now Amy Will Tell You about
Such and Such, Because I Know That I Control and That That Amy, Indeed,
Is Ready to Talk about Something next. Don\'t Worry, I Have Nothing for
To You Say Yet. I Can Use Techniques Such as Foreshadowing Where I Hint
or Suggest at What Is to Come. I Might Say on a Guided Walk, For
Example, Our next Stop Now, You Will See an Interesting Exception to
What We Have Just Seen Here. That\'s a Foreshadow. I Do That Because I
Control the Order. I Can Use Mystery for the ‑‑ for The Same Reason. I
Can Say Between Now and Our Next Stop the Forest on Your Left Is Going
to Change in Two Dramatic Ways. See If You Can Find out What They Are
and We Will Talk about It When We Get to Our next Stop. I Have Built
Anticipation. Right? I Can Begin an Anecdote or Story And Then Keep Them
Hanging until The Conclusion When I Bring Closure Tight. Can I Do All
Those Kinds of Things Because I Control the Order, You See. But There
Are Some Types ‑‑ I Should ‑‑ That Last Idea I Just Mentioned Is Called
Pragnanz. It Is a Word ‑‑ German Word from A Branch of Psychology Called
Gestalt Psychology, Which Is the Psychology of Wholeness, Unity, Closure
and Good Talks, Songs, Poems, Movies and Most Sequential Communication
Devices Have an Element of Pragnanz, and That\'s the Feeling the
Audience Has When You Know Things Have Come Full Circle, When They
Ended, When You Hear That Music You Heard in the Beginning and You Hear
it Again Toward the End, You Sense a Feeling That This Program Is about
to End, Right? If You Catch ‑‑ You Hear the Theme Statement in the
Introduction and Then in the Conclusion in the Transition Is ‑‑ So I
Hope You\'ve Gotten the Idea Today That ‑‑ and There Is That Word That,
and You Go, Oh, Yes, I Remember Now That\'s Where We Started and
Psychologically, We\'re Bringing Closure. That\'s the Pragnanz Feeling.
Nonsequential Communication Requires You to Think Differently. There Are
No Introductions, Bodies and Conclusions. We Don\'t Control Those
Things. There Are No Transitions. We Don\'t Control Sequence. There Is
No Sequential Mystery Because We Can\'t Control Sequence And, of Course,
There Is No Pragnanz Because There Is No Conclusion or Introduction. It
must Require a Different Approach. An Exhibit must Require a Different
Approach Than, for Example, a Talk, and There Are Many Ways in Which
Talks and Exhibits Differ but Psychologically and the Research Would
Show This, I Think, the Main Difference Is the Strategic Importance of
the Title in an Exhibit, or in Any Nonsequential Device. Use Theme
Titles. Use Titles That Express Awareness of the Theme, of the Actual
Message, Not Simply a Topic Title. And, Remember, Your Audience Decides
What to Pay Attention to And in What Order It\'s Going to Look at It.
But We Do Know from Many, Many Hundreds of Studies on Museum Gores and
Exhibit Viewers That Although People Differ in the Direction and Order
They Go in In an Exhibit, the Things They Pay Attention To, We Know That
Some People Will Spend less Time And Other People More Time, an Idea We
Will Come Back to in a Second. Virtually Everybody, Virtually 100% of
the People, Will Instinctively Look for the Biggest and More Conspicuous
Letters in a Design, and That Would Be the Title, and a Well‑designed
Exhibit Always Has A Conspicuous and Visually Demanding Title So That
the Eyes Go to it Within a Fraction of a Second. Usually along with That
Is Some Major Graphic Element, Color, Perhaps a Stuffed Animal or a
Three‑dimensional Object or Movement or Lighting That\'s Interesting.
Other Visual Things Will Happen Also That Will Be Perceived in That
Fraction of a Second along With the Title. But Many People, and Research
Shows That the Majority of People Are Going to Stop Right There, Amy,
and You\'ve Heard of These Three Groups. You\'ve Got Three‑second
Viewers, Called Streakers. You\'ve Got 30‑second Viewers. They\'re
Called Browsers. And You\'ve Got Three‑minute Viewers, and They\'re
Called Studiers. One Time I Gave a Conference, a Workshop for a Room
Full of Exhibit Designers and Interpretive Facility Managers And I Asked
How Many Had Read All the Words of Their Exhibits And Not One Hand Went
up Because Even We Won\'t Do It. I Mean, Therefore, We Can\'t Expect Our
Audience To. Research Shows less than 1%, a Fraction of 1% of the People
Who Look at Any One Exhibit Will Spend the Requisite Time to Read The
Entire Text. And Those That Do, What Do You Think We Know about Them,
about That Few That Read it All?

Galperin: They\'re Interpreters Trying to Get Information for Their next
Exhibit.

Ham: or People Who Already Have an Established Interest or Background in
the Area. It\'s a Case of Preaching to the Choir To. Evaluate an Exhibit
Based upon How Much Time People Spend Looking at Sit a Mistake, Because
in Terms of Human Behavior There Is No Reason to Believe That We Should
Be Looking or Reading All of an Exhibit Because It\'s Not Our Nature to
Do It. But We Do Look at That Title, And That Title Is What Becomes
Strategically Important, Then, In Nonsequential Communication. A Theme
Title Is Not the Same as A Topic Title. A Theme Title Expresses a Theme
And it May Be with Words Alone Or it May Be a Combination of Words and
Some of the Visual Elements I Referred To. Let\'s Look at Some Examples
Pulls. Let\'s Take a Topic Title, Agriculture. If You Looked at an
Exhibit Only For Three Seconds as the Vast Majority of Visitors Will Do,
I Should Say the Majority of Visitors Will Do, in Most Settings, and All
You Read Was The Title, and All the Title Said Was Agriculture, What Do
You Walk Away with?

Galperin: a Complete Confusion. It Could Be Al Culture about Dairy Cows,
it Could Be Agriculture about the History of Agriculture, it Could Be
Agriculture on the Lifestyle of A Farmer.

Ham: in Other Words, Nothing. Right? In Other Words, You Don\'t Know.
There Is No Message There. You Have a Topic. You Really Don\'t Have a
Message. Let\'s Say That My ‑‑ That Exhibit Did Have a Theme but it
Required Me to Read. You\'ve Missed Me. You\'ve Missed the Majority of
The People. Let\'s Say I Had to Read All the Way Through the Exhibit to
Get ‑‑ Obviously I Am Going to Miss Virtually Everybody. But, You See,
an Exhibit Should Communicate the Theme to 100% of The Viewers, Not Just
Those Who Are Studiers, Not Those Who Just Spend a Lot of Time on It.
Let\'s Say the Title Was \"Our Lives Depend on Agriculture.\" Now If I
Have Only Read the Title I Have Walked Away with a Theme. The Topic
Title the Sea, Right, Doesn\'t Tell Us Much If We Read Only the Title.
But If We Look the Sea, Complex Yet Fragile, You See the Theme. You
Don\'t Have to Write a Complete Statement. Can You Use Hyphens, You Can
Use A Major Title and a Subtitle. You Can Use a Main Title and a Visual
That Together, as We\'ll See in an Example Here in a Minute, Indicates
the Title of The Exhibit. Let\'s Look at Another One, the Danger of Pest
Tides, a Theme Title Might Be Pesticides Can Kill. A Topic Title Might
Be Water Contamination. A Theme Title Might Be We Are Polluting the
Water the Dinosaurs Drank. Now, Can You Imagine, Amy, Here We Are
Talking about Exhibits And Wayside Exhibits but We\'re Also Talking
about Brochures, Aren\'t We? And We Are Talking about Each Stop on a
Self‑guided Trail That\'s a Nonsequential Problem Even Though the
Overall Tour Itself Is Sequential.

Galperin: and a Wayside Exhibit ‑‑.

Ham: Absolutely. Anything in Which the Audience, Not You, Determines the
Order in Which it Will Receive the Information. That\'s Just Very Clear.
Here Are Some More Examples. How about the Birds of the Area. This Is an
Actual One. I Worked with a Very Creative Group. It Took Days and Hours,
Maybe Weeks Before Some Very Creative People at Mount St. Helens Came Up
with this Idea. I Believe That this Theme Title Or this Theme Began
Simply with \"Many Birds Live Here\" or \"There Are a Lot of Birds
Here.\" But after Many, Many Editing Sessions and Revisions of the Theme
Title, They Came up with \"You Are Surrounded by 100,000 Beating Bird
Hearts.\" A Theme Title I like Not Only Because it Is a Very Interesting
Idea, but Also Because of the You a Lit Ration \"Beating Bird Hearts\"
in the Title Itself. Another Example. Soil Erosion. Says Nothing. Can\'t
You See a Big Panel in a Visitor Center That Says Soil Erosion and
That\'s All it Says. But If it Says \"We Are Losing Our Soil,\" Now
There Is a Message I Can Grab onto. Okay. What I Would like to Do Now Is
I Think We\'re Going to Go to Our Exercise in a Minute, but What I Would
like to Do Is to Show You A Couple of Examples of How These Have Been
Used in ‑‑ Do We Have Those Visuals, the Two Signs, the One with the
Moose And the One with the Snowmobiler? This Is from a Very Creative
Design Group in Montana Called Native Design Who Have Allowed Me to Show
Their Work Publicly Here, Even Though I Believe They Are Still Working
on It. All I Want You to Notice Here Is The Use of Theme Titles. All it
Takes Is a Little Respect. But That Alone Isn\'t Enough. But Notice
Visually with the Animals, the Snowmobiler and the Cross‑country Skier,
Can You See Visually, Quickly, All it Is Saying Is a Little Respect, and
This Has to Do with the Wildlife. So There Is an Example of an Overall
Theme Title and Notice That Also Each of the Smaller Headings Is Itself
a Theme. Many Kinds of Winter Recreationists Enjoy this Area. Winter
Wildlife Live on the Edge. Courtesy Counts, et Cetera. Another Example
Is this One \"We\'re Not Lazy\... We\'re Saving Energy.\" Again, Alone,
That Doesn\'t Say Much to You. But with That Big Graphic of the Moose,
You Get the Sense the Moose Here Is Doing the Talking And Notice Also
the Subheads Are Thematic. So If I Don\'t Read All the Rest Of the Text,
I Have Got the Message. That\'s the Key to Thinking Nonsequentially in
Nonsequential Communication. Now What I Would like to Do Is Introduce
Your Exercise for the Next Few Minutes That Involves Improving on a
Theme Statement. Let\'s Go Back to Those Five Ideas of of Being Personal
Using An Analogy, Building in a Metaphor, Trying to Put Verb Ins Active
Voice and Trying to Avoid The Verb to Be as Ways to Improve a Theme
Statement. Here in Part Number 1 of Your Exercise I Have Given You Four
Different Theme Statements. These, by the Way, Are Not in Your Work
Books. You\'ll Have to Take Them off the Screen Here. What I Would like
You to Do Is Pick One of Them and Try to Improve it Using One or More of
Those Five Methods, Being Personal, Using an Analogy, Incorporating a
Metaphor, Using Active Voice Verbs and Avoiding The Verb to Be. Use One
or More of Those to Improve One of These Theme Statements. Education of
Youth Is Important. The History of Our Forest ‑‑ Excuse Me ‑‑ the Health
of Our Forests May Be in Danger. This Canyon Is the Result of Powerful
Forces. Or There Are Many Kinds of Birds In this Area and I Don\'t Want
to Hear about Beating Bird Hearts In this One. I Want You to Come up
with Your Own Analogy. Then after You Have Done That, a Second Thing I
Would like You to Do Is Write Your Own Topic and Write Three Themes
Related to And it We Will Go Through One More Practice Exercise, and
with That, Renee, Let\'s Go Back to You.

Straub: We Had a Few Late Faxes and People Would like to Have You Go
over That Last Exercise.

Ham: Very Good. We Have Time. Excellent. This One Is from Escalante, New
Mexico. From Greg. Greg Says ‑‑ He Wants His Audience to Know That: the
Grand Staircase Represents ‑‑ or The Grand Staircase Allows Visitors to
See the Geologic Cross Section of the Entire Colorado Plateau. Great
Idea. Great Idea. The Only Thing I Would Suggest Here Is That You Could
Make this More Personal by Taking out the Word Visitors and Putting in
That Personal Word You, Because, After All, That\'s Who You Will Be
Communicating With, Greg. It Will Be Saying Allows You to See Geologic
Cross Section of The Entire Colorado Plateau. Very Good. This One Comes
from the Anchorage, Alaska ‑‑ We\'re Going All the Way to the Iditarod,
and Let\'s See If I Can Get this ‑‑ And the Topic Is the Iditarod Trail.
And this Is from ‑‑ Doesn\'t Say Who It\'s from in Anchorage, but This
Person Wants the Audience To Know That: the Iditarod Trail Is Not Just
the Route for A Dogsled Race; It\'s a Historic Gold Rush Trail.
Outstanding! You Agree?

Galperin: Oh, Yes.

Ham: I like Themes That Say, Not Only. Here Comes the Revelation Now,
This Is What You Didn\'t Know. Very Good Idea. The Second One Is: the
Iditarod Trail Is Unique Because it Is The Only National Historic Trail
That Is a Winter Trail and Routinely Utilized Dogs as Transportation.
You Are Right, That Does, in Deed, Make it Unique. Good Job. And Then We
Have Another One Here from Albuquerque. This Person Has Really Gotten
Into Themes. This Person Wants to Know ‑‑ Wants the Audience to Know
That: Lava Flows Alter Not Only the Landscape, but the Productivity Of
the Area. Very Good. Also That: Birds Have Always Played an Important
Role in Religion and Cultural Beliefs of The Pueblo Indians. Terrific!
And Finally the Topic Is the Ccc: the Civilian Conservation Corps
Changed the Face of Our Mountain as Well as Our Nation. Notice the
Metaphor, Amy. Notice the Metaphor and Changing The Face Of. This Is
Very G I\'m as Encouraged As I Have Ever Been about Thematic
Interpretation Based Upon the Response to this Thematic ‑‑ Theme‑writing
Exercise. Did We Give Them Time Now to Work on the next Exercise.

Straub: I Think We\'re about Ready to Go to the New Exercise. It\'s Good
We Could Look at More Of the Other Ones So People Have A Good Idea What
They Need to Do. Thanks, Sam. Now You Have 30 Minutes to Do Your
Exercise and Take a Break. The Exercise Will Be on a Screen During the
Break and When We Come Back, Sam Will Go over the Exercise. Don\'t
Forget to Phone or Fax in Your Responses as Soon as Possible. You Don\'t
Need to Fax in Cover Sheets. We Have Fax Machines Dedicated That Come
Right to the Studio Here. So You Just Need to Fax in Your Exercise. See
You after the Break!

Straub: Welcome Back. Once Again We\'d like to Pick Things up with Sam
Ham and Amy Galperin Who Will Review the Exercises You Worked on over
the Break. Some Great Collection of Things Have Come In. Also, Sam\'s
Teaching Points for The Last Section Will Be on the NTC Home Page in
about a Week. So If You Would like Copies of Those, Check out the NTC
Home Page. Sam, How about the Exercise.

Ham: Glad to Hear All That Interest. I Do Want to Start off by Letting
the Bilingual Group in California Know That I Did Receive Your Fax with
the Simple Message Si, Is My Simple Response Is Que Bueno. This Is
Turning into an Interesting and Fun Event. We Have Gotten Terrific
Responses.

Galperin: It\'s Been So Much Fun Reading These. The Creativity out There
Is Exciting for Both of Us. We\'ve Had a Wonderful Time Reading These
and Looking Forward to Sharing it with All Of You.

Ham: Again, We\'ve Gotten About 30 or More Responses and We\'re Going to
Have Only about 8 Or 9 More Minutes to Do this. I Want to Quickly Bring
up Some That We\'re Picking at Random This. One Comes from Joann in ‑‑ I
Can\'t Read Where Joann Is from. Borden? The Theme That I like ‑‑ Look
at This Metaphor. \"Water from the Mountains Cut Through this Canyon
like a Knife Through Butter.\" Isn\'t That a Terrific Metaphor? Can\'t
You Just See That Happening over Time? That\'s a Really Good Job, Joann.
Here Is One from Your Sister Agency, the U.s. Forest Service. This Comes
from Cindy, and I Believe Cindy Is on the Angeles National Forest. She
Improved Actually Three of The Theme Statements but She and Her ‑‑ in
Her Second Step Is Focusing on the Topic, the Yucca Plant, and She Wants
Her Audience to Know That the Gabrielino Indians Referred to The Yucca
Plant as the Forest Grocery Store Because of its Many Uses, and Again
Here We Have a Metaphor of Forest Grocery Store. I Have Also Heard
Tropical Forests and Forests of All Kinds Referred to as a Pharmacy
Because of All the Medicinal Plants That Come from Them. So Terrific
Thinking.

Galperin: plus That Metaphor Also Helps Get out the Appreciation of the
Unique ‑‑ of The Specialness of the Forest And Why They Should Be
Protected.

Ham: Exactly. Again, Focusing on One of Those Benefits to Society.

Galperin: Here Is Another One With a Cute Metaphor.

Ham: this One Caught My Eye. This One Comes from the Ridgecrest Office
in the California Desert District, and Notice this ‑‑ this Looks to Me
Like it Would Be a Perfect Theme Title on a Brochure or an Exhibit on
the Importance of Water. It Says Water! Drink It, It\'s the Liquid of
Life. Do We Have a Telephone Call?

Straub: Yes, We Have a Phone Call. Looks like We Have Jean in Alaska.
Jean Jean, What\'s Your Question?

Caller: Hello. Yes, My Question for Sam Is Since We Deal a Lot with Back
Country Byways and Other Long Road Corridors I Was Wondering How Would
You Approach Themes And That Sort of Situation. Would You Try to Find a
Unifying Theme for One Corridor or Would You Go Ahead and Do Individual
Site Themes, or How Would You Handle That?

Ham: That\'s a Terrific Question. Thank You, Gene. It Really Depends on
How Long That Corridor Is. We Have Experienced the Same Kind of Question
in Idaho with The Nespers National Park, Which Is Spread out over Three
States And a Very Involved Series of Corridors, Some of Which Are
National Park Service Land and Most of Which Are Not. But the Question,
Again, That\'s Face There Had Is: Should Those Corridors Be Thematic? In
Other Words, Should There Be Sequential Thinking? Or Should Each of the
Sites, Which Essentially Correspond to Features, Be Interpreted More or
Less Separated and Isolated from The Others? In Other Words, a
Nonsequential Approach. One Thing You Might ‑‑ And, Again, If You\'ve
Got a 250‑mile Corridor and it Is Not Possible To Enter That Corridor in
the Middle or it Is Not Possible to Do it in Two Directions, Then, Sure,
Go Ahead and Think Sequentially. But Probably You\'ve Got Crossroads
Coming in from Communities along the Way. It\'s Possible for People to
Enter That Corridor at a Variety Of Points So That It\'s Possible That
Some People Might Miss the Introduction If There Were an Introduction.
Also, Unless It\'s a One‑lane Highway, Which I Find Probably Not Likely
in Alaska, or Anywhere, for That Matter, You Probably Would Have the
Problem, If You\'re Thinking Sequentially Of Having Be Able to Introduce
It and Have it Make Sense Starting at Either End. That\'s Probably Not
Going to Work. My Advice Would Be to Treat it As Nonsequentially as You
Can, But Where Possible Within Sections, You Can Do a Little Sequential
Thinking. For Example, If One Stop on That Corridor Can Be Used to Build
Anticipation, Mystery, et Cetera, in Relation to Another Stop along the
Way, Go Ahead and Do That. Just Make Sure That it Also Makes Sense in
the Reverse Direction for People Who Are Going in the Opposite
Direction. This Is a Common Type of Problem That Comes Up. Did That
Answer Your Question, Gene?

Caller: Sam, I Think My Question Is Slightly Different. I Guess What
I\'m Thinking about Is Do You Want to Organize All The Interpretation
along That Corridor Based on One Over‑arching Theme or Do You Want to
Have it Broken out and Just Say ‑‑ Just Have Individual Sites Have Their
Own Theme.

Ham: I Think That Will Depend A Great Deal on What\'s There and On Your
Inclination, Gene. Now I See What You Are Asking. Though I Hope My Other
Response Was Useful Thinking for You. I Would Say That Each of Those
Sites Certainly Has to Have Thematic Closure. It Needs to Be Able to
Stand on Its Own Because That May Be All That People ‑‑ All That People
See, or a Subset of Them. And I Wouldn\'t Have the ‑‑ I Wouldn\'t Have
the Entire Thematic Structure of the Corridor Depend upon Everybody
Stopping at Every Point along it Because Perhaps They Didn\'t. So
Whether All of the Individual Stops or Individual Features Add Up or
Contribute in Someway to Some Overriding Theme Is Really A Creative
Decision Your Crew Will Make Depending on What the Opportunities Are,
but it Would Be Just Fine If You Decided Not To Do That, in My Opinion.

Galperin: and Another Thing That Could Be Done on a Long Corridor like
That Is Having Each Individual Site Be its Own Site, Yet You Can Create
a Unity Among it Through the Graphics Approach, Through the Color
Approach, Through the Designs of The Sign. And Sometimes That May Be
Enough To Make a Connection, Even Though You Don\'t Have the Connection
of the Precise Theme. So You Can Accomplish That Goal In Multiple Ways
and Show the Connection There.

Ham: Did We Do a Little Better That Time for You, Gene?

Caller: Okay. Yes. Thank You.

Galperin: Thanks for Calling, Gene.

Straub: Why Don\'t We Go Back To Some of the Faxes on the Exercise.

Galperin: We Have Some Real Interesting Active Verbs and Metaphors.

Ham: Oh, Yes. Here\'s a Terrific Metaphor Right Here. This Is from the
Ridgecrest Office Again in Southern California. \"Canyons Are Nature\'s
Artwork.\" A Nice Idea. I Would like to See You Guys Now Take this
Theme, See If You Can\'t Work on That Verb to Be And See If You Can\'t
Do Something with That. Look Forward to Seeing What You Come up with.
See If You Can Make Nature Be The Subject, Be the Actor Here And Keeping
with the Artwork Metaphor, See If You Can Live Evan up That Verb a
Little Bit. Here Is a Very Interesting One. Here Is a Person That If
You\'re Not a Writer, Well You Ought to Think about Becoming One. This
Is from Jim in Tucson. Jim\'s Topic Is Desert Grasslands And What He Is
Trying to Use Here Is a Type of Comparison, an You a Simply, Which He
Has Done Very Well, Simile Is like a Metaphor, but Metaphor Is a Word
You Use in One Context but Normally Now You Are Picking up And Using it
in a Different Context, and That Play on it Creates New Interest or
Insight. Simile Is a Phrase like \"Something Is as Cold as Ice,\" \"As
Black as Night,\" \"As Sharp As a Dagger.\" Those Are Things That Are
Similar to Something. Anyway, He Has Got an Interesting Idea Here. He Is
Saying That Waving Grasses Hang like a Veil over the Face Of Rich Desert
Grasslands, and I Really like That. The Only Thing I Would Suggest, Jim,
Is That You Got a Couple Grasses Going on Here, and You Might Be Able to
Do Something With this Second One That Would Allow You to Avoid That
Apparent Redundancy. For Example, over Rich Desert Landscapes or
Something like That, but Look at the ‑‑ Look at The ‑‑ the Beautiful
Simile There. They Hang like a Veil over the Face of a Rich Desert
Grassland. Terrific Thinking and Writing.

Galperin: How about That One Right There? Involving the Visitor
Directly.

Ham: Amy Handed Me One Because It\'s a Personal Theme. It Starts with
\"You Are.\" You Are but One of the Many Powerful Forces in this Canyon.
Most Visitors Aren\'t Used to Thinking of Themselves as Forces, Much
less Powerful Forces and I Think this Is a Very Interesting and Personal
Theme. Congratulations to Somebody from The Salmon Field Office in
Salmon, Idaho. Very Nice. Remember That One of the Themes That We Asked
You to Consider Working on Was the One That Suggested That the Health of
Our Forests May Not Be So Good, and This Person Says \"A Dying Forest
Can\'t Wait for Us to Determine Who Is Politically Correct.\" I Would
like to Hear More about That Theme, but That Is ‑‑ It\'s An Involving
and Intriguing Theme Because, Not Only Does it Involve the Act of Dying,
Which Is Always Interesting to Human Beings, but Also this Idea of
Political Correctness in Terms Of a Dying Forest I Think Is Fascinating
and Want to Know More about It. So I Will Show up at the Beginning of
That Program.

Galperin: Here Is Another One, Similar, Also Bringing in Some ‑‑ What
Should I Say ‑‑ Latest Thing in the News Media?

Ham: this One Here? Oh, Yes. Oh, Yeah, of Course. I Think Our First Lady
Would Be Pleased with this Theme. \"Our Forests May Need First Aid If We
Don\'t Develop a Health Care Prevention Plan.\" That\'s a Nice Metaphor
for Essentially Probable ‑‑ Probably A Metaphor for Ecosystem Management
or Landscape Level or More Holistic Approach to Land Management. I Think
What We Are Going ‑‑ Let Me Do this One Real Quick. This Trashy Campsite
Could End a Bear\'s Life. Again, We Are Conjuring up Responsibility for
Taking Life Of an Animal. We Have So Many More Here. Unfortunately
We\'re Just out of Time, and I Wish We Could Get to All of Them, but I
Want to Congratulate All of You, Those Whose Themes We Have Read and
Those Whose Themes We Haven\'t Had a Chance to Read Because of Time for
Doing the Terrific Piece of Work. You Have Convinced Me Can You Think
Thematically and You Wrote Good Themes.

Straub: Before Sam Wraps up His Segment, Just a Reminder That in a Few
Minutes We Will Be Taking Your Calls. So If You Have a Question or
Comment for Sam or Amy, this Will Be a Good Time to Give Us a Call or
Send Us a Fax. Sam Will Only Be with Us Today. So If You Have a Question
for Him, Be Sure to Call Now. Sam, You Want to Wrap up Your Segment?

Ham: Yes, Thank You Very Much, Renee. I Wish I Could Stay and Be a Part
of this Event. You Know, this Is the First of Its Kind and It\'s Really
Been an Honor for Me to Have Been a Part Of It. What I Hope You Have
Gotten from The Little Time We Have Spent Together Is Certainly the Idea
That Themes Are Important. They\'re an Important Concept Because They
Deal with the Meaning of What We Are Leave Our Visitors and as We Also
Have Seen, They Constitute the Building Blocks for New and Sometimes
Improved Behaviors. Also, We\'ve Seen That Thinking Thematically Is a
Useful Tool Because it Leads Us Quite Naturally into Effective Program
Development, Both Conceptual and Creative Designs, Based Around The
Single Goal of Getting That Idea, That Theme, Across to Our Audiences.
And Finally, We\'ve Seen That We Can Write Interesting Themes If We Pay
Attention to Just a Few Simple Ideas like Being Personal, Using
Analogies, Comparisons, Metaphors, Avoiding The Verb to Be, and Trying
to Use the Active Voice Verbs Whenever We Can and Finally That When
We\'re Practicing Thematic Interpretation, Actually Developing Programs
and Devices, Paying Attention to Whether That Device Is Sequential,
Where We Control the Order, And, Therefore, Have an Introduction, A Body
and a Conclusion, or Whether It\'s Nonsequential, Where It\'s the
Audience, Not Us, That Controls the Order And, Therefore, Doesn\'t Lend
Itself To All Those Sequential Techniques. That\'s an Important
Distinction To Make at the Outset. I Want to Thank You Again for Making
Me a Part of this. I Look Forward to Meeting Many Of You in the Real
World Face‑to‑face in the near Future. Bye‑bye. Thank You, Renee.

Straub: We Have Questions That People Have Been Sending In. Let\'s Start
with the Phone Call. We Have Tina in Lake Wood. Go Ahead, Tina.

Caller: Hi, this Is Tina. How Are You Guys Doing?

Straub: Real Well.

Caller: My Question Is: How Do You Know What the Visitors\' Interests
Might Be at a Site?

Galperin: Excellent Question. This Is One of the Issues That Often Comes
up When We Do Planning and Why So Many of Us Go into a Whole Issue of
Trying To Come up with Just Generic Interpretation, and Yet It\'s Very
Easy to Analyze the Visitors at the Site and Figure Out What Are Their
Interests? It Can Be as Simple as Standing There and Just Observing What
Visitors Do. It Could Also Be out of Uniform Going Over, Saying Hello,
and Finding out Where Visitors Are From, What Visitors Are Interested
In, and Just Through Your Conversation. I\'ve Also Done this a Lot in
Uniform Where I\'ll Go Around to The Sites and I Find That When I\'m in
Uniform, Some People Respond to Me a Little Easier Because Then They
Don\'t Think, What Is this Weird Person Coming Over and Asking Me
Questions. And it Really Depends on Your Situation Which Way Would Work
Best with Your Visitors. But Just Having a Simple Conversation, Asking
Them Where They\'re From, Asking Them How They Got to the Site, Why
They\'re Here, What Are Their Expectations When They Are Here. You Would
Pick up Tremendous Amount of Information on Their Interests and What
They\'re Doing. You Can Also Look at People Who Are Working at the Site.
You May Have Somebody Working in A Campground Collecting Fees, or You
May Have Somebody Who Is Working the Visitor Center in The Information
Booth. Or You May Be ‑‑ Maybe Have Lots Of Outfitters and Guides on the
River. If You Ask Some of Those People What Are the Trends and Interests
They See Coming from The Visitors, That Will Give You The Keys to
Developing Your Interpreter Program.

Ham: Another Thing I Would Suggest to Tina, Amy, Is I Think It\'s
Healthy and Good for Interpreters to Practice Not Only Being
Interpreters, but to Practice Being a Part of the Audience and in Those
off Days, If You Have an Evening Free, You Catch a Campfire Program,
Maybe In Your Own Area, or Maybe You Travel down the Road and Be in
Somebody Else\'s Area and Be a Part of the Audience. Remember What It\'s
like to Be Out There.

Galperin: That Helps You Focus Your Interpretive Program.

Straub: Did We Answer Your Question, Tina?

Caller: Yes, You Did. Thank You Very Much.

Ham: Thank You for Calling, Tina.

Galperin: Yes, Thanks for Calling.

Straub: Before We Go to Our Next Call, We Would like to Remind If You
Could Stand Away From the Tv or Turn down the Volume, That Will Cut out
the Echo Effect That Everyone Was Just Getting on That Last Call. We Do
Have Another Call. Let\'s Go to Carol in Elko. Carol?

Caller: Yes.

Straub: Go Ahead with Your Question.

Caller: My Question Concerns A Field Trip I Am Trying to Organize for
Sixth Grade Students, and I\'ve Got a Presenters Covering a Wide You a
Array of Disciplines and I Am Wondering How I Can Focus this Or Narrow
it down and Come up With Themes That Will Take a Wide ‑‑ People
Representing a Wide Variety of Disciplines and Come up with Something
That Sixth Grade Students Can Deal With in a Short about Four‑hour Field
Trip.

Ham: Well, What a Terrific Idea. I Wish You Luck with Your Field Trip.
Why Don\'t You Sit down Yourself And Ask Yourself When it Comes To That
Field Trip What You Really Want Your Students to Know or Understand or
Appreciate, Remember All Those Verbs. Complete That Sentence as Many
Ways as You Can. In Other Words, When it Comes to This Field Trip, I
Really Want My Students to Know That\... Or as a Result of this Field
Trip I Want Them to Understand That\... And it Might Help to You Think
In Terms of Each of Those Speakers. You Also Already Have Scheduled To
Interact with Your Students. If They Aren\'t Already Clear What They Are
Going to Do, What You Might Do Also Is to Share Some of Your Thinking
with Them And Bring Them into it Because They Probably Have Some Plans
as Far as Content Goes, et Cetera, That Would Be Useful for You to Know
as You Think about Those Themes.

Caller: Okay. Great.

Straub: Did We Answer Your Question, Carol?

Caller: Yes. Thanks.

Ham: Terrific Idea.

Straub: We Have a Few Fax Questions We Are Going to Take a Look At. Amy,
May in Albuquerque Would Like to Know How Do I Find out More about
Tilden\'s Principles, What Books or Source Materials Do We Have?

Galperin: Actually, Sam\'s Got A Great Book. We Do Have the List of
References in the Back of Our Workbook. So I Would Advise You to Look at
The Workbook and See What\'s in The Back, and Then, Sam, Your Book Is a
Wonderful Book That Really Summarizes a Lot of What Tilden\'s Been ‑‑
Says and a Late Of What We Have Been Discussing Today. Of Course, Tilden
Himself Wrote A Book Interpreting Our Heritage, and That Book Was
Actually Written, and this Is Something That Always Fascinates Me, it
Was Written in 1958, and Here We Are Still Discussing it Because There
Is So Much Truth To What He Said Back Then.

Ham: University of North Carolina Press at Chapel Hill, My Book,
Environmental Interpretation, a Practical Guide for People with Big
Ideas And Small Budgets, Is Available Through Fulcrum Publishing in
Golden, Colorado. I Would Also Recommend a Delightful Manual Written by
a Woman Named Regnier Published Through the University of Wisconsin at
Stephens Point Called the Interpreter\'s Handbook Which Also Does a Very
Good Job of Summarizing Those Principles in a Very Applied and Practical
Way for Contemporary Interpreters.

Straub: Great Question. Most of Those Questions ‑‑ the Books Are in the
Reference Section. If Not, Contact Amy or Myself And We Will Be Happy to
Find it For You. Another Question, for Sam Here, How Does Interp Fit
into the Ecological Niche in the BLM? Isn\'t People Related Stuff Part
Of the Ecological Management Scheme?

Ham: I Am Going to Need a Little Help Interpreting the Question. Well,
Yeah, I Think That Second Part of the Question, I Mean, I Studied Human
Ecology. It\'s Hard for Me ‑‑ I Cannot Make the Distinction Between
Natural and Man Made. I Don\'t Understand That Distinction Because it
Assumes That at Some Point in Sort of Human Evolution or However You
Want ‑‑ Whatever Word You Want To Use, as Humans Have Changed As a
Species, I Can\'t Imagine That at Some Point We Became Unnatural, And,
Therefore, it Makes Sense to Me That, Indeed, Humans Are Part of the
Natural Scheme, No less So than a Deer Or a Microorganism And,
Therefore, People Are Definitely Part of the Ecological Mix. As Far as
Ecological Management Goes, I\'ve Always Felt That Effective Land
Stewardship Is Always Made Easier If You Are Working in Concert with an
Enlightened or Informed Public And So in That Respect, Being Able to
Carry out Management Activities That Are a Part of Responsible
Stewardship and Management, Which Is Another Way Of Saying as a Part of
Being Able to Enjoy and to Use Today\'s Resources Without Impairing
Those Resources or Their Availability to Future Generations, That
Definitely Requires That We Work with an Informed Public, and That\'s
What Interpretation\'s Goal Should Be In Part.

Galperin: and I Would like to Add to That Because We Talked About the
Interpretive Triangle And How the Interpreter Tries to Serve the Needs
of the Visitor, The Needs of Management and the Needs of Resources, and
Pat and Rich Are Going to Go into a Lot More Detail about Planning,
About How to Assess All of That. But a Good Way to Bring Interpretation
into Our Management Programs and into the Whole Ecosystem and the
Ecosystem Management That the Agency Is Getting More and More Involved
in Is to Work with the Managers to See What Issues or What Needs They
Have of Information They Want the Public To Know and Then Take That
Information and Turn it into an Interpretive Experience And, Remember,
Interpretation Is Based on Information, but It\'s Really Revelation.

Straub: Let\'s Go to Our next Question. How Do You Get Managers to
Understand They Need to Relate To Visitors and Not Just Talk About
Management Issues? This Was Related with You, Amy, If You Would like to
Start with That One.

Galperin: Well, this Goes Back To, Again, That Triangle. One of the
Things That I Found a Lot in My Career, Especially in Dealing with
Managers, Is When You Ask Them \"What Do You Really Want from Your
Interpretive Program?\" The Most Common Response Is I Really Want the
Visitors to Understand How We\'re Managing The Resources or I Really
Want The Visitors to Understand How We\'re Different from Another
Agency. And from That Agency Perspective. And We All Know That the
People Who Come to Our Public Lands Not Only Don\'t Care Which Lands
They\'re On, but I Have Done Tests Where I\'ve Actually Had Different
Shirts and Asked People If They Noticed That I Was Changing Shirts from
a Forest Service Shirt to a Corps Of Engineers Shirt to a Fish &
Wildlife Shirt and They Didn\'t Even Notice the Different Color Shoots
Because the Uniform Pattern Was about the Same, and The Differences in
Agency Really Wasn\'t an Issue for the Visitors. The Best Way to Deal
with this Is to Show Managers That in Order to Help Visitors Use the
Resources with less Impact and Appreciate the Resources and Support
Management, We Really Have to Look at What the Visitor Needs Are, What
Their Expectations Are, How to Relate To Them, and Then Take the
Management Issues and Try to Relate That Directly to the Visitor Needs.

Ham: and I Would Add, Amy, You Ask How Do You Get Managers To Understand
They Need to Relate to Visitors and Not Just Talk about Management. I
Would Urge You to Reconsider Whether That Dichotomy Exists, Whether
There Is Such a Choice. We Relate with Visitors or Talk About
Management. I Think You Need to Relate with Visitors Regardless of What
You Are Talking about. Maybe What You Are Saying Is We Need to Do a
Better Job Relating With Visitors While Talking with Managers and Let\'s
Talk to Visitors in Terms of Things They Know about and Care About,
Rather than in Terms of Things Managers Know and Care about and This Is
a Common Mistake That\'s Made in Interpretation of Management and of
Agencies, Is They Talk in Terms of Things They Know and Care about
Rather Than in Terms of What Things Their Audiences Know and Care About.
If You Do That, You Will Be Relating and Talking about Management.

Galperin: Right. That\'s Why It\'s So Important to Meet Your Visitors
and Get to Know Them.

Straub: Todd in Spokane Would Like to Know: How Do We Plan And Design
Sites Which Blend Into the Natural Surroundings And Don\'t Become Icons
of Concrete and Steel While Still Meeting Safety and Accessibility
Guidelines.

Ham: I Would Say to Have an Ada and La Specialist on Your Staff, Someone
Who Knows ‑‑ Someone Who Knows about Universal Design and Someone Who
Knows about Line, Form, Color And Texture and Visual Resource
Management. What Would You Add to It?

Galperin: I Completely Agree. In Fact, I Know of a Visitor Center out in
the Denver Area Where the Visitor Center They Actually Built the
Hillside and Put it into the Hillside, and Because It\'s on a Main Path,
They Didn\'t Need the Visitors to See the Visitor Center to Know It Was
There. They Were Going to Go past it Anyways. And Yet it Has No Impact
on the Environment Because It\'s Actually down below and They Blended it
in So Well. So If You Have the Right People On Your Team, They\'ll Help
You Get There.

Ham: Excellent Question, and A Very Common Issue. People Think to Be
Functional You Have to Be Ugly, and I Just Don\'t Think ‑‑ I Don\'t
Think There Is ‑‑.

Straub: a Connection?

Ham: Yes. I Think They Can Both Be Accomplished Simultaneously.

Galperin: Thank You for the Question.

Straub: David in Phoenix Would like to Know, What If You Have Groups
with Children and Adults, How Does One Meet the Needs of Two to Three
Audiences At the Same Place?

Ham: Great. You Run into That All the Time, And My ‑‑ in My Many Years
as a Field Interpreter, I Certainly Encountered it on Every Walk and On
Every Campfire Program and Those Were the Two Places Generally Where it
Was Clear. The Other Commonplace I Guess Would Be at the Information
Desk When Group ‑‑ Family Groups Especially Come up to Ask for
Information. What I Would Say Is This, Yes, You Have a Very Diverse
Audience And Look at a Campfire Program Audience. I Have Given Campfire
Programs For a Thousand People, Consisting of Probably ‑‑ I Mean, a ‑‑
20 or 30 Different Audiences. Despite the Fact There Is Diversity in an
Audience, You Always Have One Primary Audience. You Always Have One
Dominant Audience, and You must Pitch Your Program to That Audience, But
Do it in a Way in Which You Avoid Excluding Other Audiences While Doing
That. But If You Try to Communicate to Everybody Well, Your Common Sense
Tells You That You Won\'t Succeed Very Often. In Fact, You Probably
Won\'t Ever Succeed. You Choose One of the Audiences. If It\'s Primarily
a Children\'s Activity and Adults Accompany The Children as They Might
on a Special Morning Program in a Campground Where Preschoolers Are
Invited to Finger Painting Or Puppet Types of Things, Parents, of
Course, Are Going to Accompany Them, but You Are Not Going to Pitch That
Program to Adults. By the Same Token, I Would Say On a Guided Walk That
Is Advertised in a Brochure or in a Newspaper in Which All People, All
Visitors, Are Invited, I Think You Are Probably Safe in Assuming You
Have an Adult Audience There. But Because You Know Many of Those People
Will Come with Children, You Probably Are Going To Want to Pay Attention
to Who They Are and Where Possible Involve Methods and Approaches In
Conducting That Walk That Allows the Parents to Interact With Their
Children and Maybe Some Things That Are Especially There for the
Children. But Primarily It\'s Aimed at the Adults. I Think It\'s about
Predominant Audiences.

Galperin: There\'s Also Been a Lot of Techniques That Help Bring in Both
of Those Audiences. One Common Technique That I See Used Quite Often in
Visitor Centers Is They\'ll Have a 3‑d Display and Information about
Display on the Bottom Which Is More Aimed Towards the Children, But on
the Top They\'ll Have Little Signs That the Adults Can Get That Have
Further Explanation, and You End up Putting the Adult, and Usually The
Parent, into the Opportunity To Be the Explainer, and the Kids Love It,
the Kids Think, Oh, Mom, Dad, No So Much. The Parents Love it Because
They Can Answer the Questions. It Really Helps Build That Family
Bonding. I\'ve Also Seen Many, Many Times Where You Want to Get a
Concept Out Such as an Example That I Saw Was Where They Were Trying To
Teach about How Whales Maneuver Themselves in the Ocean, and They Had
the Kids Act It Out, and Then the the Adults Were Watching the Kids Act
it Out and the Adults Love Watching Their Children Involved, and Both
Audiences Were Involved in The Program.

Straub: We Have Another Phone Call. Let\'s Go to Nancy in Worland.
Nancy, What\'s Your Questions for Us? Nancy?

Ham: Nancy, I Hope You\'ll Give it Another Try.

Straub: Hopefully She Will Get Another Chance. We Did Have a Lot of
Faxes That Came In. If We Didn\'t Get a Chance to Answer the Question We
Will Try To Answer it Later in the Broadcast or We Will Be Taking Some
of Those and Answering Them And Putting Them on the Web Page Later. Amy,
Do You Have Any Closing Statements Would You like to Make for Today\'s
Broadcast?

Galperin: Yes and Thank You, Renee. One, I Would like to Thank Everyone
for Being Involved and Sending Us These Faxes. It\'s Really Given Sam
and I a Lot of Joy Just Looking Them Over. When We Were Working on This,
What We Really Want to Accomplish Today and Hope That We Have, Is That
You Got a Good Sense of What Interpretation Is, And You Got a Good Sense
of How To Make Something Interpretively, How to Make it Become Alive and
Interact with The Audience and Accomplish Tilden\'s Six Principles, and
That You Saw, as Sam Has Shown You, the Magic of How Themes Can Make
That Happen. All That We Did Today, Especially the Exercises Where You
Were Working on Your Own Sites in Developing Themes for Your Own Sites,
We\'re Hoping That this Helps You Get Going on Some of Your Interpretive
Planning at Your Own Areas.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Sam, Any Closing Thoughts?

Ham: Only to Add What I Said Earlier, and That Is That, I Really Want to
Congratulate the Bureau of Land Management for Taking on the Ominous
Task of Launching What I Believe to Be The First Distance Learning
Interpretive Training Event. I Know That There Are Many Agencies Around
the United States That Are Participating in This, and I Really Think We
All Have to Have a Little Debt of Gratitude to the BLM for Taking This
First One On. Personally, It\'s Been a Pleasure For Me Not Only to Work
with Amy And Renee, but the Other Instructors You\'ll Have in the Days
to Follow. I Would Encourage Any of You Who Wish to Contact Me at the
University of Idaho, Please Do That. My E‑mail Address Is Simple. It\'s
Sham@uidaho.edu and I Look Forward to Hearing from You. It\'s Been My
Pleasure. This Is My Form of Pragnanz. Good‑bye and Good Luck to All of
You.

Straub: Thanks, Amy and Sam. That about Wraps up the First Day of Your
Introduction to Interpretation Course. Now Please Turn to 1‑12 in the
Back of Your Workbook and Fill Out the Evaluation for Day One. At the
End of Day Three You Should Give Your Evaluation to The Downlink
Coordinator Who Will Forward Them to the National Training Center at the
End of the Course. During the First Segment of Tomorrow\'s Broadcast, We
Will Be Looking at the Interpretive Planning Process. In Tomorrow\'s
Second Segment, We\'ll Go over the Basics of Interpretive Writing and
Give You a Chance to Sharpen Your Interpretive Writing Skills. We\'ll
Start Tomorrow the Same Time We Did Today and We\'ll Be Right Here on
Galaxy 3, Transponder 21. If You Leave Your Receivers Set Where They
Are, You\'ll Be Set to Go. See You in the Morning.

**Day 2**

**Telecast, May 22, 1997**

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"An
Introduction to Interpretation,\" Course 8300‑07, \"Making it Happen
Interpretively.\" An Interactive Training Course On Communicating with
the Public About Natural and Cultural Resources. And Now\... The Host of
Your Program, Renee Straub.

Straub: Good Morning, Everyone. Welcome Back to the Second Day Of Your
Course. Once Again, Throughout Our Telecast, You Will Be Able to
Communicate with Us by Telephone And Fax. You Can Send Us a Fax Any
Time. Use the Fax Form Provided in the Front of Your Workbook. Please
Print Your Questions with A Dark Marker. You Can Give Us a Call Whenever
You like. Our Operators Are Standing By. Generally, We Will Only Put
Calls on the Air During the Scheduled Interactive Segments. But We\'ll
Take Calls During the Instructional Segments If Time Permits. Faxes That
We Didn\'t Get to Yesterday, We Will Try to Address During One of the
Interactive Segments Later Today. Yesterday We Covered the Principles of
Interpretation and Thematic Interpretation. Today You Will Learn the
Nuts And Bolts of Interpretive Planning Process and Why it Is Important
to Use a Collaborative Approach to Planning. During this Segment You\'ll
Also Meet a Resource Specialist in Phoenix That Are Planning for an
Interpretive Site. This Will Be Our Case Study in Interpretive Planning.
Later in the Broadcast We Will Shift the Focus to an Important Basic
Interpretive Skill\... Writing. Ron Russo, an Expert in the Field of
Interpretive Writing, Will Share His Insights with Us And Give You Many
Opportunities To Sharpen Your Writing Skills. Now We\'re Going to Start
Things Off by Looking at the Interpretive Planning Process. Joining Me
for this Morning\'s Session Are Rich Ray, Interpretive Lead Tore BLM in
Washington and Oregon. Good Morning.

Ray: It\'s Great to Be Here. I Am Looking Forward to the Session this
Morning.

Straub: Also Joining Us Is Pat Gubbins. Pat Is Interpretive Lead in
Montana and the Dakotas. Glad Could You Join Us.

Gubbins: I\'m Glad to Be Here. It\'s Always Good to Be Here in The
Valley of the Sun. We Have Had a Lot of Fun Working On this Project.

Straub: Yes, it Has Been Great. If You Will Turn to Page 23 in Your
Workbooks, Pat and Rich Will Get Things Started by Discussing the Team
Approach to Interpretive Planning. We Also Have a Message That Can Julie
Bofoni from the San Bernadino National Forest Wants To Participate in
the Phone and Fax Interaction. You Gave Us a Call Yesterday. We Need to
Be Able to Get Ahold Of You. If You Would Call Us Back at Our Screening
Room at 602‑906‑5659, They\'ll Get You Set up with the Phone and Fax
Numbers So You Can Participate More. Pat and Rich.

Ray: Don\'t Forget to Send Those Cards and Letters. Pat, I Was
Wondering, I Got an Interp Plan in the Mail a Couple Weeks Ago. Had You
Seen this One?

Gubbins: No, I Don\'t Think I Have. Bad Water Interpretive Plan. Boy,
this Looks like Somebody Put a Lot of Work into It.

Ray: It\'s Really Unfortunate, But You Know What Happens to Most of Our
Plans? You Want to Show Them?

Gubbins: I\'m Afraid I Do. They Kind of Get Filed Away.

Ray: this Is What Happens, Unfortunately. Today We Are Going to Try to
Change Those Attitudes Towards Plan. Not Only Will We Show You That
Planning Can Be Fun and Innovative and a Good, Valuable Use of Your Time
but Also Going To Show You That Plans Can Be Helpful in Getting Your
Projects Done. Today We Are Going to Look at a ‑‑ Why We Plan for
Interpretation and What Kind of Questions a Plan Can Answer.

Gubbins: We\'re Also Going to Be Looking at Taking a Collaborative
Approach to Planning and Goals and Objectives.

Ray: Then We\'re Going to Dive Into Assessments, Learn How to Assess Our
Audience out There, Assess the Resource and Also Assess Management
Issues, Concerns, So We Can Look and Balance All Those Things.

Gubbins: We\'re Going to Be Looking at Also Assembling Interpretive
Themes and the Strategy, Testing Our Delivery Methods.

Ray: Some of What We Cover Today Will Relate Back to What Took Place
Yesterday When Amy Explained the Fundamentals of Interpretation, Those
Important Principles That Guide the Interpretive Process and Also Sam\'s
Excellent Presentation on Thematic Interpretation. So We\'ll Be Tying
Back to That Quite a Bit.

Gubbins: So Let\'s Look at Why We Plan for Interpretation. The Questions
an Interpretive Plan Will Answer. And the Importance of Taking a
Collaborative Approach. Folks, Follow along with this First Section, and
Please Turn To Page 24‑26.

Ray: Let\'s Look at Why We Plan for Interpretation. An Interpretive Plan
Accomplishes Several Important Goals: it Helps Us Understand The
Audience, the Customers out There, Their Needs, Recreational Preferences
and Expectations. We Get to Our Section on Audience Analysis, We Will
Look At Some of Those Needs and Explore Just How it Is We Try to Help
Determine What Those Needs And Expectations Are. Also an Interpretive
Plan Assists Us with Meeting Management Goals and Protecting The
Resource. This Is Very Important. All of Our Management Plans Do,
Interpretive Plans Also Look at How We Can Protect the Resource And
Still Provide Opportunities For People out on the Site. An Interpretive
Plan Also Assists Us with Determining the Best and Most Compelling
Messages to Convey. Yesterday We Heard Sam Ham Describe How Important it
Is to Come up with Effective, Compelling Messages and Gave Us Some
Really Good Ways to Do That. So Today We\'ll Look at How We Build Those
into the Planning Process and How Important That Is to Become One of Our
Goals When We Do Our Planning Process. Also a Plan Helps Us Promote and
Obtain Approvals and Funding for Projects.

Gubbins: Rich, this Is So Very Important. In BLM Montana/dakotas We Are
Just Start to Go Look at Alternative Funding and I Have Been Going
Through Some of the Directories for Foundations and In More Cases than
Not They Want To See a Plan Before They Will Even Look at Approving a
Proposal for Funding.

Ray: and It\'s Important, If You Have That Plan, You Can Use That to
Help Promote Your Project, to Help Market and Also Line up Partners and
Get Things Going. So It\'s So Important That We Do That. Another Thing
That a Plan Does, It Determines an Effective Starting Place and a
Process to Achieve on the Ground Results. Planning Is a Way to Line out
That Process We\'re Going to Take To Get to Our Products in the Field,
Our Facilities, Our Programs and So the Plan Is a Very Important Vehicle
to Move Us in That Direction.

Gubbins: Oh, Yeah, It\'s a Blueprint, a Blueprint to Where You\'re Going
to Go and How You\'re Going to Get There, All The Steps You Need.

Ray: I Think on Day Three, Pat, You Are Going to Help Describe Some of
the Strategies We Can Use to Deliver Those Messages, Right?

Gubbins: Right. Thanks for the Plug. Tomorrow Morning We Will Talk About
Some of the Pros and Cons Of the Delivery Methods.

Ray: Another Thing Plans Do Is Help Us Make Choices in Interpretive
Products and Programs. There Are Some Basic Questions That All
Interpretive Plans Should Answer, the Who, What, Where, Why and When.
One of the Things That We Need To Look at Is Why We Do These Plans, Just
What ‑‑ What it Is We\'re Doing out There. So When We Answer These
Questions, These Questions, the Who, What, Why, When and Where, Our
First Is to Look at the Who. The Who Is Really the Audience Out There.
Who Is this Existing Audience? Who Is Come to Go Your Site and Using It?
When We Explore the Audience, We Not Only Look at Who\'s Using it Now
but Also Look at Who We Can Attract to the Site. What Potential Audience
Is out There That We Can Bring to Our Sites and Who Can We Market To?
What Audiences Are Just Waiting Out There for an Opportunity to Come and
Use Our Sites? Another Thing We Look at Is How This Audience Will Change
During The Year, and Sometimes Even During the Course of a Season. So If
We Understand More about These Changes in the Audience, We Can Plan Our
Sites Better, Do A Better Job of Interpretive Planning. The Other Thing
an Interpretive Plan Should Answer Is What. What Features or Stories Are
Best Interpreted at this Site? This Is Absolutely the Essential Part of
the Plan. Those Stories, Those Features Out There, Those Are, as We Will
Discover in Our Analysis of this Later in the Program, We Will Talk
about How Important Those Features Are, Those Things at The Site Are
Really Our Assets And We Need to Explore Those So We Can Provide Good
Interpretation Another Site. Another Thing an Interpretive Plan Is Going
to Answer Is Why. Why Is Interpretation the Method You Want to Use to
Convey These Messages? It\'s So Important That We Look At That Why
Issue. Is Interpretation What We Want To Do on the Site? Is this a Site
Where We\'re Really Just Giving People Orientation or Providing Basic
Information? As We Found out Yesterday, One Of Freeman Tilden\'s
Principles Is That Interpretation Is Revelation, Not Information. So
It\'s Important to Know That ‑‑ When We Do Interpretation, There Should
Be a Good, Compelling Story to Give out There.

Gubbins: Rich, I Think That\'s An Important Point. So If You Have a Law
Enforcement Issue or Problem or Challenge, If You Will, You Should Call
in The Law Enforcement Specialists. Interpretation May Not Be Able To
Help out Much on That. But it May Also Be Able to Help A Little Bit.

Ray: Right. And That\'s What We Need to Do. We Need to Look at Why We
Are ‑‑ What We\'re Doing out There on Site, Why We Have That Particular
Site. We Do this at Byways a Lot of Times, Places Where We Might Be
Providing Orientation or Guiding People to Someplace. That May Not Be
the Best Place To Tell a Story. Also We\'ll Look at the ‑‑ Answering the
Question When. When Is the Best Time to Deliver Your Message? Is Your
Message Seasonal? As We All Know, Sometimes Our Sites, Especially
Wildlife Sites, May Have a Peak Time When Wildlife Is Really Active, and
So There\'s an Opportunity to Jump on a Seasonal Program and Try to Get
Those Messages about Wildlife out to People in the Field.

Gubbins: You and I Were Visiting Earlier and I Was Telling You I Have
Been Working With the Travel Industry, Travel Montana, and Their
Interest up There Is to Actually Create Some Tourism Seasons to Try to
Get People to Come up to Montana in The Fall and in the Spring Season
and Not Have All the Folks Just Come up in the Summertime. So There\'s
an Interest There and I Think an Interpretive Niche For Us to Be Able to
like Work With Those Folks and Do That.

Ray: That\'s an Important Part Of That When Issue and We Found The Same
Thing on the Oregon Coast. There Is a Place Where We Have For Three
Months Intense Use, And Our Shoulder Seasons, as You Call Them, the
Spring and Fall, We Still Have All Kinds of Potential. For Instance
There Is Wildlife Migrations, There Is Seasonal Water Fowl, and So We
Would like To Spread That Use out More So That We\'re Not All Bunched up
at One Time of the Year. An Interpretive Plan Can Help You Accomplish
That Kind of Timing. The Other Issue That We Can Look At, Is There a
Time When You Don\'t Want to Increase Use? Can We Go Back to That Last
Visual? Is There a Time When We Don\'t Want to Increase Use? For
Instance, a Nesting Season And When There Is ‑‑ When There May Be
Sensitive Wildlife out There and We Want to Close a Site down
Temporarily or Limit Access and this Is Very Important Because We Do
Have to Protect the Resource as Well as Provide Opportunities. And the
Last Thing Is, Would a Specific Schedule Help the Delivery? This Is an
Important Thing, Especially When We Have Personal Services and We Can
Gear Our Schedule to the Site to When People Are out There. If it Gets a
Lot of Weekend Use, We Can Look at Ways to Provide Those Opportunities
on the Weekend. The Other Question We\'re Going To Look at Is Where Is
the Best Place to Communicate the Message? This Is a Chance for You to
Look At ‑‑ to Find out If You Have Chosen the Best Site. If You Have
Already Selected a Site You Are Going to Use out There in the Field,
Let\'s Make Sure It\'s the Best Site to Do It. If for Some Reason Your
Site Isn\'t Going to Work with the Messages You\'ve Chosen, Then Look at
Another Site Is Possible Or Look at Ways Can You Modify Or Bring People
to Other Sites That Are Going to Help Reinforce That Message. Another
Thing to Look at Is, Is The Same Story Being Told at a Nearby Site? This
Is an Important Thing. We Have Seen this in a Number of Places Where
We\'re Telling Essentially the Same Story as Another Agency Just down
the Road. It\'s Important That We Be Able To Complement Instead of
Compete, Which Is My Last Bullet On this. We Want to Make Sure Our Sites
Are Complementary to Other Sites, and So this Is Essentially an Area
Approach to Planning.

Gubbins: I Think That\'s a Very Good Point. It Would Be So Terribly
Boring For Someone to Go from One Site To Another and Get the Same
Message and I Think Taking a Regional Approach Is Really the Way to Go.

Ray: it Sure Is. And the Thing Is That Our Sites Don\'t Exist out There
in a Vacuum. They Do Relate to Other Places, Even If It\'s Another
Agency or Another Group That Manages Those Sites. So It\'s Important to
Look at All The Opportunities out There and Who Is Doing Them and Tie
Those Together. So That\'s Part of That Important Question. Projects
Really Vary, Too. Once You Have Answered All These Questions You Are
Well on the Way of Producing a Good Strategy, and Then You Can Look At
How to Build Your Plan from This. And as We Know Well, Pat, You Know,
Our Projects Are Changing All the Time. We\'re Looking at Bigger
Projects Instead of So Many Small Ones. So One of the Points We Want to
Make Here Is That Interpretive Plans Are Going to Change When We Do
These Different Projects As Well. Interpretive Plans Are Going to Vary
in Size, Depending on Whether It\'s a Small Project Like a Wayside Visit
or Large Projects like a Visitor Center Or a Specific Area like a Byway
Or Historical Site or a Large Area like a District Plan Which We Have
Done Some in Oregon, or A Park or a Special Management Area, Which Is
Another Thing We Are Trying to Do Interpretive Plans for. So It\'s
Important to Look at the Scope. I\'ve Got a Graphic Here, Too, of Some
Plans We Did in Oregon, Just to Give You an Idea of the Variety of
Different Types of Plans That Are out There, and You Will Notice That
These Vary A Lot from Places like the Columbia Gorge, Which Is a Very
Large Area, down to an Interpretive Trail That We Did a Plan ‑‑ Actually
That the Forest Service Did a Plan for. So the Point Here Is That It\'s
Very Worthwhile to Plan Because Of These Reasons, Even If It\'s a Small
Project, Especially If It\'s a Larger Project, You Put More Effort into
It. So Let\'s Look at Some More Ways To Do That. One of the Ways We\'re
Going to Do it Is See How They Did it at The Hassayampa Project.

Gubbins: Rich, Great Lead‑in Here. For the next ‑‑ Well, for the Rest of
the Session, Including Tomorrow, We Are Going to Be Following a Case
Study, and It\'s An Interpretive Team That Worked On a Project, a
Highway Rest Area Project and it Was Called The Hassayampa Interpretive
Team. Why Don\'t We Take a Look at How The Hassayampa Team Got Their
Project off the Ground.

Hi, Rich. I Have Been Meaning to Call You.

Hello, Kathy. I Heard You Wanted to Talk to Me.

Yes We Have a Project along The Hassayampa River at the Old Rest Area
along Highway 60 and We Are Going to Be Doing Improvements out There and
We Have Some Mitigation Issues Throughout Where the Highway Created
Impacts to the Riparian Area.

You Know, Kathy, We Have a Long‑term Interest in the Hassayampa River\'s
Riparian Area And We Are Certainly into Collaborative Efforts These Day
Snooze We Were Hope to Go Put Together a Team of Different People from
Different Agencies To Help Us. So You Are Interested in Helping Out.

No Problem. I Have Some Ideas on Who Can Be On the Team Already and I
Think The People Are Going to Be Really Interested.

Also I Was Wondering If You Could Maybe Call Some of the People from the
Other Agencies, Sips You Know Them Better than I Do.

You Bet. I Have to Check with Some People First, Especially Managers,
but I Think Management Would Go for A Project like this.

Okay. Great. See You Later.

Hello, Dave. Thanks for Seeing Me on Such for The Show Dis.

Sit down.

Have I Got a Good Project for You.

Hello, Don, this Is Rich over At the Phoenix Field Office. How Are You?

Hi, Rich. Nice to Hear from You.

Don, We\'re Working on a New Project on the Hassayampa River And Thought
You Might Be Interested. We Will Be Working with Adot and Other Agencies
and I Have a Feeling That Interpretation Will Be a Big Part of this
Project. My Manager Asked If You Would Be Interested in Leading Our
Group Effort and Possibly Directing The Team. Would You Be Available to
Work On this Project?

I Think I Have the Time. I\'ll Need to Check with My Group
Administrator. How about next Week? Is That Good for You?

Okay, Don. I\'ll See You Then.

Nice to Hear from You, Rich. I Will Be Looking Forward to It. Good‑bye.

Bye‑bye.

Gubbins: We Saw Several Key Points from this Video. We Saw the Key
People Coming Together at the Onset. We Saw Networking Beginning,
Because the People Were Talking, Okay, Who Else Should We Bring In?
That\'s Real Important. Very Important, We Saw a Management Buy‑in Right
on the Bat. You Want to Get the Management, See How They Feel about it
and Get Them In.

Ray: We Know How Important That Is.

Gubbins: Absolutely. Bringing Interpretive Specialist In at the Onset,
So Very Important. And I Would like to Liken this To like the Difference
Between Building a House or Remodeling a House. It\'s Always Easier to
Follow Your Own Hand and Build Your Own House than to Rectify Problems
In a Remodeling Process by Bringing the Interpretive Specialist In, He
or She Is on Board Right Away and Doesn\'t Have to Come in and Undo
Things. So It\'s Very Important. And it Was a Diverse Team. I Thought
That Was Very Good.

Ray: I Noticed That as Well, And What Was Great about the Diversity Is
We Were Able to See How People Brought Different Issues to the Table to
Identify Those Issues Early on in the Planning Process, Which Is So
Important to Get Those Things up Front. So Let\'s Take a Look at the
Collaborative Process. This Process of Bringing Together a Team of
Interested Individuals into the Planning Process. The First Group We\'re
Going to Look at Is Bringing in an Interpretive Specialist. These Are
the People Who Are Familiar with How to Get Interpretive Projects Done.
Often They Have an Interpretive Planning Background. And It\'s Good to
at Least Have One of These People Helping You Out with Your Project. In
Addition, It\'s Good to Have a Recreation Planner There, Someone Who Can
Look at Site Development Issues, How the ‑‑ Your Customers, Your
Audience, Is Going to Use the Site. They Can Look at a Lot of Issues In
Maintenance and Long‑term Management of the Site. In Addition, an
Important Part Of Your Planning Team Should Be Those Subject Matter
Experts Who Will Help You Move Towards Those Messages That You Want to
Convey To Visitors. Subject Matter Experts Are Those People Who Have the
Background, The Knowledge of the Resources Out There, of the History of
the Area, the Wildlife Issues, Whatever it Is That You Want to Turn into
Your Interpretive Messages. In Addition, We Bring in Technical and
Resource Experts, People Who Are ‑‑ Who Understand The Resource Issues
That Are out At the Site and Also the Technical Issues, What\'s Going To
Be Involved in Doing the Engineering of this Site, What Will Be Involved
in Getting this ‑‑ the Plans for it Completed, Et Cetera. The Last Group
We Want to Look At Right Now Is Bringing in Possibly a Writer/editor.
This Is Someone, If You Have a Larger Plan, Who Can Help You Guide That
Process as You Start Feeding Them Information. They Can Start Working
this Plan Up. It\'s So Important to Have a Good Writer, a Good Editor,
Someone Who Can Actually Take All this Material You\'re Generating and
Get That into a Good Planning Format. Also We\'re Going to Look at
Outside Partners. Outside Partners Are People. They\'re Your Friends‑of
Groups, Other Agency Folks Around You, People Who Can Help Make Your
Plan Work. Often They\'re a Good Source of Funding and Support. In the
Case of the Hassayampa Plan, We Saw That Right Away They Identified That
There Was Some Key Partners from a Friends‑of Group That Were Managing a
Site near the Site They Were Looking At, and They Brought Those People
into the Process, and We Know How Important That Is to Have Those Folks
There.

Gubbins: Yeah, That\'s a Real Good Point and That\'s Part of The
Networking, Too. You Get Going, and You Are Just Start to Go Crawl as
Far as Building Your Team, but People Start Bringing Ideas and Advice On
Who Else to Bring in at That Point. It\'s Very Good to Network.

Ray: Let\'s Look at Some Helpful Tips in Forming Your Planning Team.
These Tips Are Going to Help You With the Process of Getting Your Team
Going Here. Bake Sure ‑‑ Choose Team Members That Will Make a Commitment
to The Process Through to Completion. So Your Core Team Should Be People
Who Are Willing to Hang In There for the Whole Duration. They Should Be
There at the Onset. They Should Have the Energy to Get Things Rolling,
and They Should Be Able to Make That Commitment to Move All the Way
Through the Process until You Come to the Other End There.

Gubbins: I Have a Question For You on That. Rich, Are You Saying You
Never Bring Somebody in at the End? I Might Be Missing Something on
This, Because I\'ve Had Situations Where We Had like a Lot of People
Come in Maybe at The Wrong Time During a Process, And it Can Be
Disruptive at Times.

Ray: and That Does Happen, But It\'s Important to Have Your Core Team.
Now, We\'ll Talk about Some Other Individuals Who Can Come in at
Different Times. So We\'ll Visit That as We Move Along Here, but It\'s
Important To Note That You Need ‑‑ If You Have a Core Team of People Who
Are Going to Be Interested in The End Product, You Should Have Those
Folks in There. But If You Need a Specialist Who Is Going to Help You at
Some Point along the Way, Make Sure You Don\'t Waste Their Time by
Bringing Them in Too Early. Bring Them in When You Need Them. But Let
Them Know up Front. Let Them Know When You Start Your Planning Process
That, Hey, When We Get to this Point, We\'re Going to Need Your Help.

Gubbins: Good Advice.

Ray: Let\'s Look at Some More Helpful Tips. Make Sure You Have a Good
Mix of Content Subject Matter Experts And Recreation Planners. We Look
at That Combination of People Who Are Creative and Who Are Going to Take
the Subject, Whether it Be a Cultural History Story or Resource Matter
or Opportunity out There, like Wildlife Viewing, They\'re Going To Look
at Taking That Opportunity and the Best Way to Maybe Present That to
Visitors. So It\'s So Important That Those Two Groups Work Closely
Together. Also We\'re Going to Look at Identifying a Team Leader That
Will Help the Process Keep Moving and Identify Tasks to Be Completed.
Again, We Saw That\'s ‑‑ That\'s Something We\'ll See Develop in Our
Case Study.

Gubbins: and That Doesn\'t Necessarily Always Have Have to Be the
Interpretive Specialist, Is That Correct?

Ray: No, and Often It\'s Not, Pat. In the Cases Where I Have Done a Lot
of These Plans, We Have Been Approached by Resource Specialists, Someone
Who Says, You Know, We Have a Site out There, It\'s a ‑‑ It\'s Going to
Be Great Potential, Watchable Wildlife Site. Let\'s Get Some Folks out
There On Site, Take a Look at and it See If It\'s Going to Work, and If
So, Let\'s Get a Plan Together. So the Person Who Initiates Is Not
Always Going to Be the Team Leader, but Often the Person Who Has the
Most Investment Will Want to Take That Role.

Gubbins: Okay.

Ray: Also Consider Bringing In an Artist and Possibly an Interpretive
Writer in the Later Stages. You Mentioned, Pat, Before, at What Point Do
We Bring People In? Sometimes with Bringing in an Artist and Writer We
Have to Get Some Things Done First. We Have to Identify Those Key Things
That We\'re Going to Be Focusing On, and Then Once We Have Some of That
Put Together, Then We Can Bring in Someone Who Will Help Us Draft
Messages and Potentially Graphics and Things That Will Help Us Through
the Process.

Gubbins: Rich, Now That We\'ve Kind of Got a Handle on What We\'re
Doing, I Think it Might Be Interesting to See How Our Hassayampa Team Is
Going. So Let\'s See How They Took on The First Meeting and What
Developed at the First Meeting.

Good Morning. I Would like to Thank Everyone For Coming this Morning,
Taking Time out of Their Busy Schedule To Show up for this Meeting and
To Start the Meeting Off, Let\'s Go Around the Room and Introduce
Ourselves and Say What We Do. I Guess I Will Start. My Name Is Rich
Hanson. I Am a Recreation Planner with The Bureau of Land Management in
Phoenix.

I\'m Jack. I\'m the Manager of the Friends Of the Hassayampa Preserve
and I\'m a Biologist. The Preserve Is Located Right Next to the Rest
Area. We\'re Actively Trying to Protect The Remaining Riparian Areas and
If Possible Restore Those Area.

I\'m Lori. I\'m a Wildlife Biologist with The State Game and Fish Agency
And I Do a Lot of Work along the Hassayampa.

I\'m Don. I\'m the Interpretive Coordinator For the BLM State Office
Here.

I\'m Kathy and I\'m a Landscape Architect with the State Highway
Department, and I Work in Our Roadside Development Program Where. We\'re
Responsible for Rest Areas Throughout the State. I Guess the Reason
We\'re Here Today Is Rich and I Were Talking And We Think We Need to
Have a Meeting to Look at How to Restore this Rest Area.

That\'s Right, Kathy. Could You Give Us More Background on this Project?

I Would Be Happy To. Some of You Know There Was Some Serious Flooding
along the Hassayampa River Last Year and Essentially Destroyed the Rest
Area We Had out There. The Highway That Goes by the Rest Area Is Very
Heavily Used By Tourists, in Particular Going To Either Wickenburg or
Las Vegas from the Metropolitan Area And We Feel That There\'s a Need To
Restore the Area for That Purpose. We Also Would like to Do Some
Mitigation from the Highway Impacts That Occurred When the Highway Was
First Developed. Along the River There Is a Lot Of Riparian Area and
There Were Some Impacts to That and We Would like to Take Care of Some
Of That Now. My Boss and I Were Talking, If We Can Do Some
Interpretation, We Could Use That as Part of the Mitigation Efforts. One
of the Things We Would like For You to Do for Us Is Help Evaluate That
Interpretation Effort and Come up with Some Ideas. I Know Jack\'s Been
to the Site Before. They\'re Right next Door. How about the Rest of You?
Have You Ever Been There?

Kathy, I Have Been There a Number of Times on the Way to Kingman. I Find
the Facilities Were a Little Inaccessible and They Were Very Outdated. I
Think the Floods Did You a Favor. But I Think If We Renovate the Site,
it Has Some Potential.

Well, I\'ve Worked There a Long Time and the Area Is Really Unique by
Logically, Although I See Problems with Encroachment Of Nonnative
Species. In Addition to the Floods, it Changed the Density and
Vegetation.

I\'m Not So Sure Anything Needs to Go in There. I Believe That the Rest
Area Is Just Going to Be Another Intrusion into the Riparian Area. The
Traffic Was Bad Enough for The Old Area, Let Alone Having Something New
in There. As Far as I\'m Concerned, You\'ll Get Enough People in There
for One Week That We\'ll See for Two Or Three. I Would Just like to See
the Plans and What Kind of Impact This Rest Area Is Going to Have On the
Riparian Area.

Well, Jack, I Have Been to The Site a Number of Times, and You\'re
Certainly Correct. It Is a Popular Destination Point for Tourists, and I
Think Your Point about the Number of People Is Well Taken and Is
Critical to this Project. Whatever We Do Is Going to Affect a Lot of
People. So, Kathy, What Do You Have in Mind for this Group?

Well, I Would like to See the Group Function as a Planning and Design
Team for this Project. We Have Our Mitigation Efforts And We\'ll Need to
Incorporate Whatever You Come up with into The Design for the Project.
By the Way, We Do Have Money for It. So Are Any of You Interested in
Helping out?

That\'s Great News. I Was Hoping You Would Have the Money for the
Project. I Have Already Planted the Seed With this Group. With the
Exception of Jack, I Think We All See Great Potential For the Area.

Well, I Do Have Some Concerns About this Project. As I Said Earlier. But
I\'m Willing to See What the Group Comes up with. I Would Rather Be in
the Planning Process than Read about It in the Wickenburg Paper.

Jack, I Appreciate Your Honesty, and I Hope All of Us Throughout the
Meetings Can Speak Our Minds as to What the Issues Are about this
Project. At this Time I Would like to Turn the Meeting over to Don, And
If It\'s Okay with Kathy, Have Don Take the Lead and Direct Us Through
the Planning Process.

No, That\'s Sounds Fine to Me N Fact, Don and I Have Worked Together on
Projects in the past And I Look Forward to Working With Don Again and
the Rest of You on this.

It\'s Important That You All Realize the Planning Process and
Interpretation Is a Little Different. The First Thing We Have to Do Is
Set Our Goals and Objectives and Those Will Put Us on the Same Page.
Then It\'s Very Important That We Do a Field Assessment. We Have to Go
Out, Look at the Audiences, the Resources and See What Opportunities We
Have out There. We\'ll Come Back from That and We\'ll Use Those
Assessments to Develop Our Themes. The Themes Will Help Us Tell a Story.
Once We Have Our Story Line, Then It\'s Going to Be a Matter Of Choosing
a Methodology to Convey Our Story to the Public. Once That\'s Done,
It\'s Very Important That We Test or Pretest Whatever We\'re Going to
Use as Our Methodology, and After All That\'s Done We\'re Ready to Start
Production on Whatever it Might Be. Now, Are You All Ready to Start
Building Some Goals and Objectives? We Need to Spend the Rest of the
Morning Doing That.

Gubbins: We Saw Some Pretty Good Points in That Case Study, I Thought,
Rich.

Ray: Isn\'t That Great? They\'re Almost Doing Our Job for Us. Can We Go
Home Now ‑‑.

Gubbins: No, Not Yet. Okay. We Saw How the Team Looked at Projects and
the Scope and Purpose, and Then We Saw Each Team Member, He and She,
Introduce Themselves, and They Gave a Little Bit about Their
Perspective, and What We Saw Is We Saw Folks from Different Agencies,
and Obviously Different Missions, and That Kind of Affected Their
Perspective on the Project.

Ray: Yes, it Did.

Gubbins: the Team Leader Then Went over the Planning Process, Which I
Thought Was Great. It Keeps Everybody on the Same Page.

Ray: Right. It Let Them Know What They Were Going to Look Forward to and
All Steps They Were Going to Go Through.

Gubbins: Once They Did That, They Started Identifying Potential Goals of
the Project.

Ray: That Was Outstanding. Well, They Left Us with Goals And Objectives,
Which Is ‑‑ this Is an Important Thing in Doing a Plan. Obviously If You
Don\'t Have Goals and Objectives, Where Is Your Plan Going to Go? It\'s
Not Going to Go Anywhere. So an Important Thing to Look at Is Goals and
Objectives. So Let\'s Look at Some Examples Of Different Types of Goals
and I Think this Will ‑‑ this Is Going to Be Covered on Page 27 In Your
Workbook. So You Can Follow Along, and Let\'s Take a Look. Management
Goals Deal with Ways To Protect the Resources and They Also Provide
Opportunities For Use on Site. So Your Management Goals Are Going to
Guide How You Develop Your Site and Also How You Protect Those Resources
out There. Another Type of Goal Is ‑‑ an Example of a Management Goal Is
To Reduce User Conflicts Any Site and Protect Ground‑nesting Birds. And
an Objective, an Objective Being That Way You Are Going to Reach That
Goal, Is by Closing The Site to Motorized Vehicles. Here Is a Place
Where You Have Identified a Clear Goal That\'s a Management Goal Where
There\'s Some User Conflicts, and You\'ve Identified Something You Can
Do About It. Another Type of Goal Is Your Audience Goal. Your Audience
Goals Provide ‑‑ Your Audience Goal Is to Provide Quality Recreational
Experiences Out There. Think about What Your Audience Wants to Do When
They Get There On Site. So Your Audience Goal Is Geared To How Visitors
Will Use Your Site and Involve the Site Visitor in this Process. We\'ll
Talk about That When We Get to the Audience Assessment Part. But
Audience Goal Is Very Important. An Example of an Audience Goal Is to
Allow Visitors to Safely View Blue Lake from the Overlook, and an
Objective for That Would Be by Setting the Overlook Back Six Feet from
the Cliff Edge and Providing a Viewing Scope. So There\'s a Good Example
of How You Would Meet an Audience Need. The Last Type of Goal We Are
Going to Look at Is Interpretive Goals. These Identify the Knowledge,
Attitudes and Behaviors We Want To Foster on Site. The Interpretive Goal
Really Is What You\'re Aiming for Eventually, to Define Those
Interpretive Goals and Know What The Visitor Is Going to Leave With When
They Leave That Site. Amy Talked a Little Bit about This Yesterday.
It\'s So Important That When We Work Through this Process of the Plan
That We Have a Concept of How People Are Going to Leave The Site, What
Are They Going to Take with Them and We\'re Not Talking about Souvenirs
Here, Either. This Is Really Important Because It\'s an Opportunity to
Look at ‑‑ If They Gain New Knowledge, If Their Attitudes Toward the
Resource Has Changed and If Their Behavior When They Come to The Site
Will Be Different? Will They Help You out?

Gubbins: I Don\'t Mean to Interrupt You, but this Would Also Possibly Be
a Management Type of Goal, Too, Right? If You\'re Doing That, Meeting
That Need, You May Be Meeting The Management Need, Especially If You Are
Looking at Safety Issues, like the Platform, the Viewing Area.

Ray: Right. And These Goals Don\'t Always Fit Into Specific
Compartments. A Lot of Times They Cross over. It\'s Not So Important
Necessarily That You Have ‑‑ That You Identify Which Kind of Goal it Is.
It\'s Important That You Look at Those Categories When You Set Your
Goals So That You Make Sure You\'re Dealing with the Audience Management
Issues and the Interpretive Stuff That You Want To Come out with on the
Other End. So That\'s So Important.

Gubbins: Good Point. Thanks.

Ray: So Let\'s Take a Look at The Hassayampa Plan and See How They Did
with Their Goals.

Gubbins: If You Turn to Page 28 of Your Workbook, We Can Take A Look.
You Can Take Some Notes If You Wish.

Ray: the Hassayampa Group Came up with Some Interesting Goals Here.
Let\'s See If We Can Bring this Up. Okay. The First Goal They
Identified, Obtain Public Involvement and Support for the Restoration of
Riparian Areas. Another Goal They Came up with Was Eliminate the Illegal
Practice of Cutting down Live Mesquite Trees at the Hassayampa River
Rest Area. So These Sound Very Much like Management Goals, Resource
Goals That Can Be Achieved out There. Another Goal That They Came up
With Was to Foster an Appreciation for Arizona\'s Native Species and Why
They Are Disappearing. Here Is a Place Where You Are Tapping into
Possibly an Interpretive Theme That You Could Develop Around the Native
Species and Why They Are Disappearing. That\'s a Compelling Message
There. Also, Promote the Ecological and Social Benefits of Healthy
Riparian Systems and Wetlands. As We Know How Important That Is In the
Desert. So They Have ‑‑ from Their Process They\'ve Identified a Lot Of
These Key Things. Last a ‑‑ I Think ‑‑ Was That The Last Goal They Had
There? No, They Have a Goal to Help Visitors Get Public Access to
Birding Opportunities. So Watchable Wildlife. And Also to Provide
Environmental Education Opportunities for Local School Groups. And
That\'s Excellent. Now They Are Looking Beyond the Audience That They
Have, Which Is Something We Mentioned Earlier, and So Important to Look
Beyond Just What the Immediate Things Are That You See out There on
Site.

Gubbins: So Far We\'ve Covered Quite a Bit this Morning. I Really Do
like the Case Studies Because it Really Brings Things Home for Me. Every
Time I View That.

Ray: Yes and We\'ve Looked at Why We Plan Now. We Have Looked at Some
Questions That a Plan Should Answer. We\'ve Looked at this Collaborative
Process So Nicely Done, the Example from the Hassayampa Team.

Gubbins: They Had a Good Team.

Ray: and We Have Looked at Goals and Objectives. So We Are Well into the
Planning Process Here. So, Renee, Is it about Time for A Break?

Straub: Thanks, Pat and Rich. Great Morning. We\'ll Take 10 Minutes to
Give Everyone a Break. When We Return, We\'ll Take Your Questions about
Interpretive Planning. Please Call or Fax Your Questions Now. So Stretch
Your Legs. We\'ll Be Back Before You Know It.

Straub: Welcome Back. Now Rich and Pat Are Ready to Answer Your
Questions about Interpretive Planning. We Did Get a Couple Questions.
Here Is a First One: How Do I Tier an Interpretive Plan to Other BLM
Plans?

Ray: That\'s a Good One, and It\'s a Very Important One as Well. One
Thing We Do Is, of Course, We Start in the Planning Process With Looking
at Existing Plans, And That\'s a Very Important Point. We\'re Going to
Talk about That In Our next Section on Assessments. So We Should Look at
What\'s Already Existing in Terms of Policy, Direction, Plans That Have
Been Done, Our Resource Area Plans, Those Kinds of Things, and Find out
What Prescriptions Are Already in Place for Some of Our Sites and Some
of Our Programs, and this Is a Good Place to Tier off Of. A Loft Those
Plants Aren\'t Detailed into What Kind of Interpretive Products We Are
Going to Provide or How We Are Going to Develop a Site but They Help Us
Get a Starting Place There.

Gubbins: Yeah, I Think That\'s A Good Point. I Have Seen in Rmps Where
at Least There Is an Identification That There Is a Need and a Role For
Interpretation. It\'s Not like They Are Getting Into Developing an
Interpretive Plan or Prospectus at That Point By Any Means. Also What I
Have Seen Is That There\'s Some Assessment Information That Is Often
Taking Place. More Often than Not Visitor Demographic Type Information
That Could Be Usable in the Planning Process.

Ray: Right. Those Other Plans Are Resources We Should Use and They Are
Very Important for a Lot of Different Reasons. So We Shouldn\'t Ignore
Those. We Should Look at Those and That Should Be One of the Starting
Places, Especially in Our Assessment Process When We\'re Getting All Our
Background Materials Together and Start to Go Look at Goals and
Objectives As Well.

Gubbins: Definitely.

Ray: Do You Have Another One For Us?

Straub: We Sure Do. How Do I Make Sure My Interpretive Plan Gets
Considered in All of the Other Plans That Are Being Done in My Resource
Area?

Gubbins: Good Question.

Ray: That\'s Another Good One. We\'ve Been There, Renee. That\'s
Important, Because a Lot Of ‑‑ Managers Have a Lot of Constraints on
Them, and They\'re Looking at What Their Priorities Are, Getting the
Resource Protection Issues Taken Care Of. It\'s Important to Work with
Our Management Staff as Well and Let Them Know That Interpretation Is A
Way to Accomplish a Lot of Those Goals and to Get Our Other Plans
Working Well Also. So, They Couple up Nicely, and We Shouldn\'t ‑‑ We
Should Be Looking at These Plans on the Same Shelf, and It\'s Important
We Move Towards That.

Gubbins: Earlier We Talked About Getting a Management Buy‑in. That\'s
Very Important. I Think You Are Looking at Building a Relationship and
Communicating with the Manager, And If You Do All That, You Will Have a
Little More Buy‑in on Your Plan and Process.

Ray: You Bet. That\'s What We Need to Be Moving Towards. So to Answer
That Question, We Need to Look at Those Other Plans. We Need to Look at
All Our Opportunities to Get Our Plans Recognized and Make Sure That The
Right People See Them, and Also When We Have a Well‑done Plan Where
We\'ve Involved a Lot Of Different Types of Partners Involved and We\'ve
Got Our Things in Order, We\'ve Identified How We\'re Going to Complete
this Plan, It\'s Going To Grab Some Attention.

Gubbins: Rich, We Also Received a Fax Comment. Here.

Ray: Yes. This Is a Great Comment, and This Is from Karen Miranda at The
National ‑‑ BLM\'s National Applied Resource Science Center, And for
Those of You Who Don\'t Know, That Center Is a Resource That We Can Use
to Help Get Interpretive Plans Done as Well As Interpretive Projects.
They Have a Great Staff of Writer, Editors, Graphic Artists. They\'re
Available to Help Us With Projects. They Also Have Done a Lot of
Interagency Work. So If You Need to Contact Them, I Am Going to Read the
Phone Number Here So That You Folks Can Jot this down and Use Them As a
Resource. They\'re Very Good ‑‑ They\'re out There to Help Us out and
They Do Wonderful Jobs Their Number Is Denver Is 303‑236‑6491. These
Folks Have Had Interpretive Training. They\'re Good at Doing Drafting,
Drafting and Producing Interpretive Projects and They Have a Cadre of
Talented Experts There, Landscape Architects and People like That, Who
Can Help You Get Your Project Done as Well as Help You Plan.

Gubbins: I Have Seen Some of Their Work. It\'s Quality Work. I Haven\'t
Worked with Karen, but I Have Worked with the Landscape Architects down
There. There Is a Lot of ‑‑ a Myriad of Skills There.

Ray: Great. Renee, Did You Have Another?

Straub: Yes, We Sure Do. We Got a Fax in from Cindy on The Angeles
National Forest. She Is Sitting in with the Desert District: How Do You
Adjust Your Environmental Education from Year to Year to Accommodate
Local Schools Who Visit Each Year?

Ray: That\'s a Good One. We Haven\'t Actually Started Looking Here at
Some of the Differences and Similarities Between Interpretive Products
And Our Environmental Education Programs, but They Are Closely Linked,
and It\'s Important to Recognize That. A Lot of Times in Our
Interpretive Plans We Will Plan For Environmental Education. One of the
Ways We Do this Is Contact Those Local School Districts. We Did this ‑‑
My Personal Example Is down on the South Coast of Oregon Where We\'ve
Done A Lot of Work with Our Local School Districts. We\'ve Actually
Built into Our Plan, Our Interpretive Plans, Environmental Education
Sections Where We Deal with That Issue And Try to Make Sure We\'re
Bringing Teachers into the Process and Also Getting Their Opinions and
Their Help with Our Plans and It\'s So Important. So Many of Our Sites,
Interpretive Sites, Are Also Used for Education Purposes and There\'s a
Direct Link There. Very Important to Plan for That As Well.

Straub: Great. We Have a Phone Call. Let\'s Go to Nancy in Worland.
Nancy, Go Ahead with Your Question.

Caller: Good Morning. Are You There?

Straub: Can You Turn down Your Tv, Though? We\'re Getting a Feedback.

Caller: Is That Better?

Straub: It\'s a Little Bit Better.

Caller: Okay. Now, Is That Better?

Straub: Go Ahead with Your Question.

Caller: My Question Is about Developing a Theme for the Specific Site,
and Should You Have One Overall Theme for the Site plus a Theme for Each
Individual Wayside?

Ray: That\'s a Good Question, Nancy, and Actually That Question Came up
‑‑ a Similar Question to That Came up Yesterday from Alaska Where a
Person Called in and Had Asked About Whether or Not on a Byway Project
Whether There Should Be Just a Bunch of Individual Themes Pertaining to
Stops along The Byway or Whether There Should Be an Encompassing Theme.
And My Experience Is That, You Know, it Helps to Have an Encompassing
Theme, and When You Get People Started down That Experience, It\'s Nice
to Tie That Together, Especially If All Those Sites Are Related. For
Example, If You Might Be Talking about Gold Rush Trail, Chances Are
There Is Going to Be An All‑encompassing Theme That These Other Themes
Will Necessary You Will Under, and That\'s Good. That\'s Good to Bring
Up. So, Nancy, to Answer Your Question Again Here Is That ‑‑.

Gubbins: Yes. Ray ‑‑ Yes. You Can Look at an Overall Overall Theme. It
Helps You Guide Planning for Those Individual Sites. It Also Helps You
Tier off of That Encompassing Theme When You Look at Those Sites and How
They Relate to Each Other.

Gubbins: Does That Answer Your Question, Nancy?

Caller: Yes. Thanks.

Ray: Okay.

Straub: Thanks, Nancy. We Appreciate Your Call. Thanks, Everyone, for
the Call And the Faxes. Now, Rich, I Think You Want to Start with Some
Audience Assessment Information for Us?

Ray: We Are Going to Look at The Entire Assessment Process in This next
Segment of Our Planning Instruction. The Assessment Process Is a Very
Important Part of the ‑‑ of Doing an Interpretive Plan. Assessments Are
Those Things That Help Guide Us Towards Making Sure That We\'re Meeting
Audience Needs, Also That We\'re Looking at the Resource Needs, Telling
the Resource Stories, The Most Compelling Stories out There, and Also
That ‑‑ Making Sure That We\'ve Also Looked at Those Management Goals.

Gubbins: Rich, I Think Yesterday Amy Really Did a Good Job on Talking
about Creating Like a Balance Between All the Assessments and Not Having
One More Skewed than Another One as Far as the Management Resource.

Ray: Yes, It\'s Really Another One of Our Fundamental Things We Look At,
Is How to Achieve That Balance, and Assessments Help Do That. The
Assessment Process Is ‑‑ a Lot of People Do a Cursory Thing With this.
They Go in and Say, Okay, Well, We Have Got this and this and This. But
It\'s Really an Opportunity To Take Some Time and Really Find out a Lot
of Good Information, Not Only about Your Audience, but What\'s out There
On Site, and What Opportunities You\'re Going to Be Able to Provide. So
Let\'s Take a Look at Some of The Audience Information. You Can Follow
along on Pages 29 To 31 in Your Workbook and First We Are Going to Look
at this Audience Assessment. Let\'s Look at Someways to Gather Data
about Your Visitor. You Can Obtain Tourism Reports And Chamber of
Commerce Information. Again, Starting on the Audience Assessment Trail,
Start Where Somebody Else Has Already Been. It\'s Always Good to Just Go
Ahead and Look and See What People Have Done in the Past, And Those
People Who Are in the Tourism Business, They\'re in the Audience
Business, and Those Folks Have Already Gone down This Trail to Some
Degree. Look at What They Have. Second Thing to Look at Is Contact
Visitors at the Site, Use Comment Sheets, Or, If Possible, Conduct
Interviews. One Thing, Although We Are Limited in How Much We Can Do,
Interviews of People, We Can Also Work with Private Sector Groups That
Have and Again We Can Look at Interviews That Have Been Done at
Neighboring Sites, And We Can Find out a Lot about How Visitors Are
Using Not Only Our Sites but Other Sites in the Area.

Gubbins: What I Have Used in The Past, Rich, Working with Cooperative
Associations and Friends Groups, If You Have an Area, an Orientation
Point Where You Could Have a Log‑in or a Little Visitor Contact Station,
You Can Get a Lot of Good Information That Way Also.

Ray: Yes. Right. A Register. A Place for People to Put Comments down.
Not Just ‑‑ Not Just Was it a Nice Visit but Also a Place to Be Able to
Say, Yeah, I Would Have Stayed Longer on this Site If You Had Provided
this Opportunity\... So People Enjoy Having That Ability to Give You
Those Comments. It Really Does Work. Let\'s Look at a Couple More Things
We Can Do. We Can, in Addition, Conduct Marketing Studies. These Are
Studies That Look at How People Are Using the Area, How Long They\'re
Staying, What Sort of Things Compel Them to Come to this Particular Area
That Your Site Is In, and Marketing Studies Are Very Valuable.

Gubbins: the Other Day You Were Telling Me about When You Used to Work
at Mount St. Helens There Was ‑‑.

Ray: Actually, We Had Some Marketing Students Come and Do a Marketing
Study for Us. What They Looked at Was Were People Coming Here Because
It\'s A Destination, Were They on Their Way Somewhere Else? We Got a Lot
of Great Information from That Group. So it Was Very Useful and the
Students Got a Lot out of It, Too.

Gubbins: So it Was Way Beyond The Usual Demographic Type Stuff, Where
They\'re From, How Old, How Much Money They\'re Making, Zip Code ‑‑.

Ray: Not to Belittle Demographics, Because It\'s Important to Know Where
People Are Coming From, but Often That\'s as Far as We Go and We Don\'t
Pursue That Any More.

Gubbins: as Far as What They Want.

Ray: Exactly. What Do They Want? As We Mentioned Before, Their Needs,
Expectations. Another Way We Can Do this Is to Look at Data from Similar
Sites In the Region, and this Is Also Part of That Same Regional
Planning Kind of Strategy That We Talked Before. We Don\'t Exist out
There in a Vacuum. People Don\'t Just Drop out of The School and Land at
Our Sites. Although There Are a Few Places Where That May Happen. I Know
a Launch Site, You Know, For Hang Gliders and Actually They Were ‑‑ the
Landing Place, They Did Drop out of the School. But this Is a Good Place
Where We Can Look at What Other People Are Doing Also in the Visitor
Business and See How They\'re Dealing with Their Visitors. So We Can
Look at Their Data They\'re Generating and Use That As Part of Our
Assessment. That Information Is Very Valuable. Another Thing We Can Do
Is Look At Recreation Trend Analysis. Trend Analysis Is Where We Look At
Potential New Trends, What\'s Going On, What\'s Happening, Why Are ‑‑
What\'s the Latest Thing.

Gubbins: We Were Visiting on This Before, and Have You Ever Seen Any of
the Visitor Studies That Have Come out from the ‑‑ There Is like an
Association or Group That Actually Specializes ‑‑.

Ray: Yes, I Have. They Do a Lot of Trend Analysis. There Is a Number of
Different Groups That Do Trend Analysis. So Go out There and Find the
Analysis That You Could Use Potentially in Your Area. A Lot of Times
They Are Done Regionally or Somewhat Locally. So If You Can Find a Local
or Regional Trend Analysis, That\'s Really Valuable. But Also Look at
the Big Trends, What\'s Going on Nationwide, What\'s Fun and Excited
Siting ‑‑ Roller Blading with a Jet Engine Or Something. You Be.

Gubbins: You Know, I Was Sharing with You the Recreation Roundtable
There Is a Lot of Information on What\'s Going on From an Interpretation
Level, And it Did Have Interpretive Aspects Tight, Ramifications, a Lot
of Good Information. And It\'s Public and Private‑sector Groups.

Ray: Yes, Get with Other People Interested in the Same Kind of Data and
Find out What\'s Going On. It\'s a Great Way to Do It. Another Thing Can
You Do on the Site Is Observe and Shadow Visitors. You Got to Be a
Little Discreet About This, Obviously. You Know, You Don\'t Want to Get
Arrested. You Don\'t Want to Go Hire a Private Detective. You Want to Be
Discreet, but It\'s Good to Observe Visitors on Site. How Are People
Using the Site? What Are They Doing When They Get There? You Know, You
Can Use Learn So Much from Observation, and When I Used to Do a Lot of
Roving Interpretation, I Wander Around And Part of the Job Was, of
Course, Contacting People and Finding out What ‑‑ If They Were Having a
Good Visit, a Good Experience and I Learned a Lot That Way, but We Also
Learned a Lot Just by Observing People, How They Use a Site, What Kind
Of Interests They Had.

Gubbins: and You Want to Do This and Not Be in Intrusive to The
Experience of the Visitor.

Ray: Right. You Don\'t Want to Scare Them. Or Make Them Think They\'re
under A Watchful Eye. So It\'s Something You Should Do Carefully. But it
Is a Good Idea and Gets You Some Good Data. Also You Can Contact Local
Recreation Clubs, Organizations For People with Disabilities, Schools
and Other Users. These Are ‑‑ Any Kind of Local Group You Have out There
That Might Be Interested in Coming Out to Your Site or Might Be
Interested in the Resources, the Particular Stories You Might Have to
Offer, Contact Those Groups. Work with the Folks ‑‑ Work with People
with Disabilities. They Are Looking for Opportunities to Get out on
Public Lands and They\'re Looking More and More at What We Offer On Our
Sites. They\'re like Any Other Group. They Want Choices. They Want to
Get out There and Use Our Sites.

Gubbins: I Am Glad You Brought That Point Up. Because They Know the
Areas Often Better than Us, the Folks That Are Using it Day in and Day
Out and I Found That with Trail Users, Equestrian Groups, Snowmobilers,
Developing like Interpretive Offerings on Trail Systems.

Ray: and Birding Groups. That\'s Valuable. They Know So Much about Our
Sites. We Could Learn So Much Just by Talking to Those People. And after
You Gather Your Data, This Is What You Do: So You\'ve Gathered All this
Data. What\'s it Going to Tell You? Some Things That this Data Is Going
to Help You with Is Understanding Those Current and Future User Trends,
What Are People Doing out There Now and What Are They Going to Be Doing
Tomorrow. Also, You Are Going to Be Able To Look at New Opportunities
for Your Site. What Kind of Things Aren\'t We Doing Now That We Could Be
Doing That Will Either Help People Have a Better Time out There or Keep
Them Longer or Just Make, You Know, Make Their Stay Pleasant. Another
Thing We Will Find out Is We Can ‑‑ We\'ll Find out a Profile of Users
and Their Preferences, You Know, What Do They like to Do When They Get
Out There? That\'s So Important. Okay. Pat, I Think We\'re Just about
Ready to Get into Resource Assessment.

Gubbins: Well, It\'s Really, To Me, So Much Easier ‑‑ I Don\'t Know
It\'s Easier Dealing with Audience Because You Can Almost Ask the
Question of People and Get a Response. It Sounds a Little Corny, but
What If the Resources Could Talk To Us and Actually Tell Us What They
Want.

Ray: I Have Thought about That. What If You Could Go out There And
Interview the Resource.

Gubbins: I Wonder What it Would Be like.

Ray: Let\'s See.

Ray: Wow, this Is Great! All Kinds of Signs of Wildlife Here. I\'ve Seen
an Old Game Trail, Some Bird Nests, Scat, Beaver Tracks, Even the Smell
of Beaver Musk. This must Be Active in Here. This Is a Great Place. Some
Old Trees with Cavities. Signs of Critters Nesting. This Ol\' Guy Has
Seen Some Days.

Tree: If Only These Humans Could Hear Us I Could Tell Them About the Old
Days, When Water Flow Ed Through Here Year‑round. In the Spring Birds
Filled the Trees like a Second Set of Leaves. Now Some of the Animals
Are Long Gone. As I Recall, There Were a Lot More Bobcat and Lions
Around These Parts.

Ray: Yeah, the Wildlife Biologists Are Right. This Is a Great Place to
View Wildlife, and the Beauty of this Place, and to Understand What an
‑‑ What an Opportunity to Understand the Conditions That Brought this
Place to Be like it Is.

Tree: I Sure Hope These People Are Interested in Protecting the
Resources. It Seems like There\'s More and More Traffic Year by Year.
More People Trampling down the Plants and Scaring the Animals. I Don\'t
Think They\'re Doing it Intentionally, Though. But the End Result Is the
Same.

Ray: Boy, According to My Notes the Archaeologist Found Signs of an Old
Indian Encampment Just Close to Here. That must Have Been Something. 150
Years Ago down by the River, Those Early Hunting Camps. I Bet this Tree
Could Almost Remember Them. I Wonder If He Could Talk.

Tree: Oh, Yes, How I Remember, the Smell of Cooking Fires, the Glow of
Embers at Night and the Sounds after Successful Hunt. They Used to Camp
Right under Me. That Was Before the River Channel Changed. I Do Miss
Those Days.

Ray: You Know, from the Old Land Records, it Shows There Was An Old
Homestead Not Too Far From Here. Just up River. Now, That must Have Been
Something, Trying to Eke out a Living in this Valley at the Turn of the
Century.

Tree: Hey, I Remember Those Homesteaders. They Did Okay for a While, and
Then the Drought Came. Those Were Hard Times for All The Residents
Around Here. Plants, Wildlife and People.

Ray: You Know, I Bet I Could Find out a Lot More about the History of of
this Area. I\'ll Go Back and Talk to the Geologist, Too. I Am Going to
Find out about Those Old Volcanic Hills and About These Cycles of
Climate Change, the Dry and Wet Cycles That Seem to Change this Valley
So Much over the Years.

Tree: Boy, I Hope These Planners Are Careful to Protect The Trees and
Wildlife. This Is Such a Fragile Place. And I Hope They Protect Me.
There Are So Many Animals That Depend on Me. I Mean, after All, I\'m
Their Home.

Ray: You Know, as Nice as This Place Is, I Start Worrying About All
Those People Coming Down Here and Trampling the Vegetation and Scaring
Away the Wildlife. I Think I\'m Going to Bring the Team down and We\'ll
Look at this Some More and I Think I\'ll Recommend That We Put the Trail
Up on That Ridge over There, up By the Wayside. That Would Be Perfect.
It Would Also Allow People with Disabilities to Get into That Area and
to View What Other People Are Seeing, Too. So Many Opportunities.

Tree: Even Though Trees Can\'t Talk, a Good Observer Can Learn So Much
from the Resource.

Ray: You Know, I Could Swear I Heard Voices.

Gubbins: It\'s Good to Get out Of the Tree Outfit. That Was One Hot
Costume.

Ray: it Was Fun, Though, it Was Fun. Kind of Reminded Me of Old Times,
the Old Animal Stuff.

Gubbins: the Point to Be Made Is You Have to Go out in the Field and Do
Your Resource Assessment, Folks, You Have to Be There to Do It. We Are
Going to Go to the Hassayampa Team Now and See How They Did Their
Resource Assessment.

Ray: Let\'s See the Real Thing.

Gubbins: Okay.

Guys, Let\'s Gather Up. Thanks for Coming out Today. Welcome to the
Hassayampa. Remember Our Mission Today Is to Look Around, Find Some
Stories, Some Theme Ideas, Some Issues You Want to Share with the
Public. Jack Couldn\'t Be with Us Today So He Is Going to Be Mailing in
His Assessment of the Area, but Ron, Our State Riparian Specialist, Is
Joining Us Today. We Appreciate You Being Here Today. Before We Get
Started, Let\'s Ask Kathy to Share Some of Her Insights about What Will
Be Put Here and What Will Be Put Here As a Visitor Rest Area.

Welcome to the Hassayampa Rest Area. Adot\'s Planning on Developing This
Area That You Can See Here As Our Rest Area, and There Is Lots of Nice
Vegetation, a Tree Canopy That Will Be a Relaxing Area for People to
Stop While They Are Traveling along the Highway. We Plan on Having it Be
about 100 Yards in Length with Space For 35 Cars or Rvs, No Plans Are
Being Made Now for 18‑wheelers Or Large Trucks to Pull in Here.

Are There Any Other Facilities Besides Restrooms.

in Addition to Restrooms, We Would like Areas Where People Can Get out
and Stretch. We Have, We Think, about 300, to 350,000 People a Year Stop
this Rest Area Now and We Would like Them to Get Out, Have a Picnic Area
to Relax at and Maybe Enjoy The River and Learn Something About It. So
One of Our Goals Today Is to Try to Get Some Ideas for Interpreting That
Area for the Visitors.

Thanks, Kathy. Anybody Have Any Questions? If Not, this Is the Plan:
We\'re Going to Spread out for about an Hour, You Are Going to Look
Around, I Am Going to Visit with You, Try to Find out What You Are
Coming up With, We\'ll Meet Back, Share Our Ideas and Then We\'ll Head
Back Home. Any Questions? So Let\'s Get Started.

Okay.

Okay.

Hey, Ron.

Hi, Don.

Thanks for Coming out Today. I Appreciate It. This Area Has So Much
Vegetation And Water and I Thought You Would Be the Perfect Person. Tell
Me a Little about What You Are Finding.

There Are Some Things That Are Interesting. We Could Talk about All the
Vegetation Coming In. You Can See Cattails and Rushes And New
Cottonwoods and Willows Along the Creak. We Could Talk about Flooding.
And Maybe Just How the Water Behaves along the Hassayampa Here, Meaning
at Some Points it Goes below Ground and Then Comes Back up and Flows.
That Might Be Real Interesting.

Ron, Those Are All Good Points, but Are There Any Problems Here?

Sure. We\'re Standing Right Here next To this Tamarisk Which Is a Real
Problem. It\'s an Exotic Plan. It Tends to Get into Riparian Areas and
Take over and Dominate Them. We Can Talk about That.

That\'s an Interesting Point. I Think We Can Use That in Our Story
Lines. Take a Little More Time. I Am Going to Go See the Other Folks and
Be Back with You in a Few Minutes. See You Later.

Okay.

Hey, Don. How\'s it Going?

Pretty Good, Lori. Tell Me a Little Bit about What You Are Finding.

We Have a Small Wetland Developing Right Here, and Water Flowing on the
Surface, Which Is Very Unusual in the Desert.

I Understand the Loss of Wetlands Has Been a Critical Issue in the
Southwest. With a about the Wildlife? Well, this Is a Cottonwood, Willow
Riparian Area and One of The Most Endangered Habitats in The Southwest,
but it Supports a High Diversity of Wildlife. What of the Problems We
Are See Something Invasion of Exotic Species like Starlings.

What Else Is Unusual about The Area?

Was Riparian Areas Are Important for Areas like Bats And If You Look at
the Cave, That\'s a Great Place for Bats as Well as These Cottonwood
Trees Also Supply Habitat for Bats.

Well, Bats Would Be an Interesting Story but a Lot of People Have
Phobias about It. We Would Have to Find a Good Way To Make it
Educational and Informative to People and So I Think We Might Be Able to
Play With That a Little Bit.

Right. I Think If People Realized How Many Insects Bats Ate per Night
They Would Have a Different View Of Bats.

That Would Be an Interesting Point to Bring out. I Need to Run. So I\'ll
Be Back with You Later. Keep up the Good Work.

All Right. Thanks a Lot.

Hi, Rich.

Hello, Don.

Listen, from a Recreation Planners\' Standpoint, What Are Going to Be
the Opportunities in This Area.

I Think the Best Opportunity Is Going to Be Birding. This Is a Virgin
Riparian Area Of Cottonwood Trees and Birding Opportunities Are
Fantastic.

Who Do You Think Our Audience Is Going to Be.

Several Audiences. One Will Be the Highway Behind Us All the Metro to
Las Vegas Traffic. Second, this Is the Best Birding Area in Arizona and
I Think Schools and Outdoor Education Programs.

There Are Many School Groups In this Area.

Not Locally but Within 45 Miles of the Metro Area There Is A Lot of
Schools.

That Should Be a Pretty Good Audience, Then. Those People Coming on the
Highways and Stopping Here, Are You Worried about How Long They Will
Stay.

Well, the Average Is about Four to Five Minutes for a Visit To a Rest
Stop. We Will Have to Do Something Really Special to Keep People Here
Longer than That.

Rich, Those Are All Very Good Points. Make Some Notes of Those and I
Will Get Back with You Later On. I\'ll See You in a Bit.

Hi, Kathy?

Hi, Don.

Listen, Everybody Is Doing a Great Job. They Found a Lot of Neat Things
We Ought to Talk About, but I Have a Question. All this Mesquite, Are
You Going To Use it in Your Design?

Yes, We Are. These Mesquites Are a Very Good Shade Cover Tree. They Are
Adapted Well to the Desert Environment Here. And We\'re Planning on
Using Them To Shade the Picnic Areas and Some of the Sidewalks in the
Area. We Do Have a Concern with These Trees, Though, That a Lot of
People like to Use Them for Barbecuing, So We\'re Hoping They Don\'t Cut
Them down and Take the Wood Home.

That\'s an Interesting Point I Hadn\'t Thought about. Maybe We Can
Address That in Our Interpretation. Well, What about the Design of The
Facility? What Theme Are You Going to Use?

as You Can See on the Design Plans, We\'re Planning on Using a
Southwestern Theme for the Restrooms and Some of the Fence Areas Here.
We Would like to Do That Because The Native American Peoples Were Here
Prehistorically and We Would like to Continue That Theme.

That Sounds Good. It\'s Getting Time for Us to Get Back. I Will Give You
a Few More Minutes and Then Join Us Later On, Okay?

Okay. Great.

Okay, Guys. Thanks for the Effort Today. I Do Appreciate It. I Think We
Came up with Some Ideas That We Didn\'t Have Before. I Think We\'ll Have
Some Good Topics for Interpretation. I Want to You Write down Your
Assessments, Give Them to Me in About a Week, I\'ll Set up a Meeting and
We\'ll Discuss Possible Themes and Topics for The Area. Now We Want to
Thank Everybody For Being Here Today and Look For Notice of a Meeting in
about Two Weeks.

Gubbins: Some Pretty Good Points in That Video, I Thought.

Ray: I Thought So, Too. They\'re Well on the Way to Do ‑‑ They\'re Doing
a Good Field Assess Ment and Really Showing How to Do It.

Gubbins: Absolutely. What We Saw Them Do Was They Went out into the
Field, Obviously. People Took Time out There. They Look Around, They
Smelled, They Recorded What They Saw. I Mean, They Weren\'t Just Relying
on Memory. They Talked about What They Thought the Visitor Should Get
Out of this Site, What Type of Experiences. They Also Looked at like
What The Best Stories or Potential Stories Could Be Shared Would Be At
That Particular Site.

Ray: and They Brought in Planning for the Site Itself and How Those
Visitor Experiences Could Be Enhanced by Making Some Improvements on the
Site.

Gubbins: So the Resource Assessment Allowed Them to Identify Features
and Determine The Resources Which Were Assessable.

Ray: and They Picked up Some Stories That May Not Have Been Obvious to
Most Observers, like The Thing about Bats. I Thought That Was Really
Good.

Gubbins: That\'s a Good Point. That\'s a Highway Rest Area. People Are
Going to and from Las Vegas to Phoenix. You\'ve Got People Just from All
Over the World, Probably, on That Road, and Not Used to the Desert
Ecosystem or Riparian Ecosystem at That Point.

Ray: Yes, and What an Opportunity. I Mean, It\'s a Beautiful Site And
Here Is a Chance to Stop and Not Only Do What You Normally Do At a Rest
Area, but Be Able to Learn a Lot, Too, and That\'s ‑‑ That\'s Just
Excellent. We\'re Going to Look at the Resource Assessment Process Now,
And We\'re Going to Look at Someways to Learn More about the Resources
out There and Do an Assessment of That. Let\'s Look at a Few Different
Ways That We Can Learn More About the Resources at Your Site. Interview
Your Resource Specialists. These Are Your People, of Course, Who, as You
Saw in the Hassayampa Plan Process, These Are the People Who Know the
Site Well and Also Who Have Resource Concerns. They Have Those ‑‑ They
Come With That Background in Knowing How to to Protect the Resource And
How to Look and Find Opportunities out There.

Gubbins: Absolutely. And a Lot of Times You Find the Biologists Have
Done like Years Of Resource If They Have Been Working in the Same Area.
They Are Very, Very Familiar With the Site. And It\'s Recorded
Information You Can Use.

Ray: and They Often Know Why This Site Is Different than Other Sites.
Uniqueness Is an Important Thing That Will Come out from a Resource
Assessment.

Gubbins: Definitely.

Ray: Also What You Can Do Is Contact Your Local Interest Groups That
Might Have Information about Your Site. Look at Those Folks out There
Who Have Been Using the Site, Those Birding Groups, as We Mentioned
Before, It\'s So Key, Not Only to Find out Information From These Folks
about How to Do Good Audience Enhancements. It\'s Also Good to Bring
People Out and Look at Those Resource Opportunities That They\'re Aware
Of, and the Reason They Get out There. Another Point Is to Make an
Observation Journal of of Daily, Seasonal Changes at the Site. This Is a
Great Opportunity to Spend Some Time ‑‑ Spend More Time than You
Normally Would out At the Site, and I Think That\'s Important, Because
We\'re Often So Busy That We Get out to Our Site, We Spend a Little Bit
of Time, We Make Some Notations on What Kind of Things That We Need To
Do When We Get Back There Again and We Take off.

Gubbins: and It\'s Enjoyable To Get Outside. You Are Getting out into
the Field and I Think That\'s a Benefit Just from That.

Ray: Yes, It\'s Valuable to Get out There, and I Knew a Guy Once Who
Actually Would Go out And Camp out on the Site and Spend Several Nights,
There and He Would ‑‑ He Would Get a Different Perspective of the Site
Because of That. He Would Find out What Goes on At Night, Nocturnal
Animals, Wildlife Activity, Also Early in The Morning, Which Is Where He
Would Meet a Lot of the Local Birders and Get Information from Them. So
it Was a Great Thing.

Gubbins: So He Actually Got To Discuss Things with Maybe a Different
Audience That He Might Not Have Met as a Result of That.

Ray: Right, as a Result of That He Increased His Perspective of What Was
Going on Out There, and That\'s Important, Too, and That\'s Part of That
Whole Process.

Gubbins: Very Valuable.

Ray: There\'s a Couple More Things That We Can Do. We Can Assemble
Reference Papers About Resources at or near the Site. So Look at What\'s
Been Written Out There. Chances Are There Are Current Assessments That
Have Been Done Of Some Sort or Another. Often People Who Have Done
Area‑wide Reference Materials on The Site, There Are People Who Have
Done ‑‑ Already Gone out There, Students, for Instance, Who May Have
Looked at the Site And Have Done Research Papers For Class Projects. Go
out and Find out as Much as You Can. Hit Your Local Library, Too. Look
at Those Interest Groups And See What Kind of Materials That They Might
Have.

Gubbins: Another Point on That, Maybe It\'s ‑‑ and I Have Done this. I
Am Sure You Have. Where You Actually Can like Solicit Help from a
University, Have a Class of Students Maybe Take on a Project for You and
Gain That Information for You. If You\'re Shorthanded.

Ray: We Did That at a Project In Eastern Oregon Where We Had Some
Students Do a Lot of the Background Research for a Particular Site for
Us, and it Was Very Valuable. The Site ‑‑ Their Assessment Was Done in
1988, but it Was Still Valuable Some Years Later Because When They Went
Out, They Interviewed People on Site, Some Of the Old‑timers, Learned
about The Cultural Resources out There, Also Talked to a Lot of The
People Who Were Involved in Management at That Time, and They Not Only
Gave Us a Good Glimpse of What Was Going on at That Time, but Some
Really Good Background Information to Build On to Do Good Resource
Assessment. We\'re Also Going to Look at Management Assessment. We Have
One Last One Here. Interview Long‑term Residents or Visitors to the
Site. That\'s, Again, Kind of Similar To What We Have Been Talking About
All Along, Especially in Doing Our Audience Assessments Where We Look at
Regular Users, People Who Come Frequently to The Site. We Can Also Look
at Those People Who Live Around There. This Is a Great Opportunity to Go
to the Ranch or the Farm or Whatever it Is That\'s Close by And Say, You
Know, What Do You Remember of this?

Gubbins: That\'s a Good Point, Rich, and Actually I Have Seen Like by
Doing That People Wanting to Volunteer Their Time. They\'re Appreciative
of the Fact That Are Taking the Time to Talk To Them, That You Value
Their Opinion, and as a Result I\'ve Actually Signed Volunteers up That
Way.

Ray: Yes. See, You Never Know as Part of This Assessment Process When
You\'re Going to Find Some Other Part, Some People Who Are Going To Help
You Out, Not Only with The Assessment, but Maybe with Long‑term Issues.

Gubbins: Right. An Added Benefit.

Ray: So It\'s Great. We\'re Also Going to Look at Some Management
Assessment Issues. How Do We Deal with That Management Assessment.
That\'s That Opportunity to Look At Resource Protection, Safety, All
Those Overriding Issues and Policy Things That\'s Going to Help You Help
Guide the Development of Your Site. I Think We\'ve Got One, a Little
Thing Here on ‑‑ Here We Go. Management Assessments Help You Plan for
Safety, Ease Every Access, Is Your Site Accessible? This Is Something We
Need to Look at More and More with Sites. Are We Providing Accessible
Opportunities out There? Appropriate Levels of Visitor Services. Is What
We\'re Doing out There, Can We Budget for That.

Can We Handle That Within the Operating Constraints or Parameters That
We Have for the Site? And the Immediate and Long‑term Operations and
Maintenance of The Site, How Are We Going to Deal with Those Issues, and
We Can Look at Those as Part of Our Interpretive Plan. Very Good Point.
For the Folks Following along With Us, I Believe We Are on Page 31 of
the Workbook. If You Want to Check That out.

Ray: as You Can See, All These Assessments Are Very Important, and
We\'ve Had this Opportunity Now to Look at the Assessment Process and
Also We\'ve Followed along with Our Case Study a Little Bit.

Gubbins: Yes, Before We Get Into Seeing How the Hassayampa Team Is
Doing, I Thought Sam\'s Presentation on Themes and How To Take a Topic
to a Theme Was Excellent Yesterday. Didn\'t You?

Ray: Yes, it Was. And it Was So Key to What We\'re Doing, and So Here\'s
a Chance, Really, to Start Looking at How We Tie the Assessment Process
Into Themes.

Gubbins: Why Don\'t We See How Our Hassayampa Project Team Is Doing and
How They Took That on And Started Developing Their Themes.

We Had a Great Day in the Field Last Time. I Appreciate You Sending Me
Your Assessments. I Have Taken the Assessments You Have Done, Shared
Them with Everybody and Put the Topics on The Boards up Here. Today What
We Are Going to Do Is Melt Those into Some Themes, Some Story Lines We
Might Be Able to Use as Messages to the Public. But Before We Do That, I
Want to Take a Review of What You Found In Your Specific Areas. So
Let\'s Start With, You Rich, What Did You Come up with?

I Think We\'re Going to Have Three Principal Audiences. One Will Be the
Highway Travelers Going Through the Area And Stopping Briefly at the
Site. The Second Group Will Be School Groups, Outdoor Education. And the
Third Group Would Be Bird Watchers. Bird Watch Something a Great
Opportunity.

I Remember Seeing a Lot of Birders out There and I Think That Might Be a
Good Topic. But We Need to Melt That into Some Type of Theme. Lori, You
Are the Wildlife Biologist. Tell Me More about Your Topics And Your
Issues.

I See Several Issues We Could Discuss. One Is That this Area Floods on A
Regular Basis. Another Is That There\'s a High Diversity of Wildlife and
Vegetation. But We Also Have Some Encroachment of Exotic Species. Then a
Third Issue We Could Discuss Would Be There\'s a Large Number of Bats
That Utilize the Area.

Those Are Good Points. What about You, Kathy?

Thanks. I Have Several Things I Would Like to Bring Up. First of All,
the Site Is Going To Be Open for 24‑hours a Day, But We Aren\'t Planning
on Having Any On‑site Security There. This Could Pose a Problem. We Are
Going to Have 800 to a Thousand Visitors a Day Coming Through There.
This Is Something to Consider. The Other Thing Is That I Brought the
Preliminary Site Designs Here for You to See. You Might ‑‑ There Are
Several Different Settings That We Have Come up with Here. You Might
Want to Study These in Part of Our Discussion.

Thanks, Kathy for Those Points. Jack Wasn\'t Able to Be with Us Last
Time. It\'s Important We Listen to His Topics. We Appreciate You Sending
the Assessment In. What Are Some of the Issues for Your Group?

I Just Want to Reinforce the Fact That this Is a Sensitive Resource
That\'s Rapidly Disappearing. The River Has a Lot of Unique Biological
Characteristics That\'s Associated with It. It\'s Being Threatened by
Many Types of Encroachment, and That Includes People. But I Am Impressed
by the Site Design, and There\'s an Opportunity That Might Be Able To
Get the Foh Story Across.

Thanks, Jack. Those Are All Very Good Points And We Will Try to Keep in
Mind The Sensitivity of this Area as We Go Forward and Develop the
Themes. That\'s the next Step. We Need to Take These Topics, Start
Talking Amongst Ourselves And See What We Can Came up With. Kathy, You
Have to an Idea for a Theme Would That Tie All this Together?

Straub: Before We Go Back to Pat and Rich to Review the Key Points from
the Video, I Want to Remind You We Will Be Taking Your Phone Calls and
Faxes in a Few Minutes. If You Have Any Questions for Rich and Pat,
Phone or Fax Us Now. Pat?

Gubbins: Thanks a Lot, Renee. Once Again, Very Good Points in That, I
Thought, Rich.

Ray: I Thought So, Too.

Gubbins: We Saw That the Team Did a Written Assessment. They Weren\'t
Relying on Memory On That. We Saw That a Team Leader Has to Have
Excellent Facilitation Skills to Keep Things Moving. And Related to What
Sam Had Shared with Us, the Themes Have To Relate to the Audience.

Yes, and We Started to See Now How the Assessment Process Ties into this
Theme Development, and That\'s So Key. So Now We\'re Starting to Get to
That Point in the Planning Process Where We\'re Seeing These Messages
Come Out, Not Only Themes, but the Overall Messages That Are Going to Be
Conveyed to The Visitors on Our Interpretive Panel or Whatever Approach
We Take out There.

Gubbins: We Were Visiting Earlier in the Week, Rich, and I Was Sharing
with You a War Story On a Project I Was Working On. We Had Our Core Team
and this Is A Concern of Mine, You Know, When You Bring the Other People
Into the Process and Make Sure It\'s Not Disruptive. What Happened Was
People Did Come into Our Process Later On, And All of a Sudden They
Started To Bring New Ideas That Was Starting to Change Our Themes, And I
Found That to Be Very Disruptive. Do You Have Any Tips on How You Maybe
Deal with That?

Ray: Well, That\'s Where Good Facilitation Helps, for One. Also it
Helps, Too, When You Bring People into Process, Just Let Them Know Where
You\'re at And What You\'ve Done to this Point and Why You\'ve Gotten to
The Stage That You Have. That\'s Important to Do. Some of These Folks
Won\'t Be Familiar with All the Things That You\'ve Done. So Take a
Little Bit of Time and Do That.

Gubbins: and Once Again, the Theme Has to Relate to the Visitor. It\'s
the Big Picture. Otherwise It\'s All for Naught, In Essence.

Ray: That\'s So True.

Gubbins: We Would like to You Turn to Page 32 in Your Workbook, Where
You Will Find an Exercise to Be Completed over Your Lunch Break, and
What We Want You to Do, Based on the Hassayampa Team, What They Have
Done, It\'s Time for You to Identify Some Themes That You Might Think
the Hassayampa Team Might Come up with. If You Would Fax Your Responses
To Us, We Would Appreciate Your Work on the Exercises.

Ray: Renee?

Straub: Thanks, We Got Some Information and Got a Couple Faxes In. The
First One Is, I Think, from Wyoming: Do the Steps in the Interpretive
Planning Have to Be Done in a Particular Order?

That\'s ‑‑.

Ray: That\'s a Real Good Point. We Mentioned Real Briefly Toward The
Beginning, but It\'s Important to Know Appear Lot of These Things
Happened Concurrently. For Instance, Your Assessment Process Doesn\'t
Need to Be Done In a Particular Order. You Don\'t Have to Start with
Audience and Then Do Your Resource and Then Do Your Management. We Just
Put Those in That Order To Give a Presentation Here. So That the
Important Thing to Notice Is ‑‑ to Note Is That You Will Be Doing These
Kind of Assessments Throughout the Process, and You Will Be Gaining More
and More Information. Sometimes You\'ll Know When You\'re Finished When
You\'ve Really Worked That Through and You\'ve Seen ‑‑ You\'ve Gotten to
The Point Where You Have Looked At All Your Resources, You Have Gotten
Your Materials Together, You Are Starting to Compare Your Assessments
and Start Stew Bring Them Together. So It\'s More Important to Know That
Doing a Good Process in This Plan and Getting That Process Going Is More
Important Than Exactly What Order. Another Thing I Want to Mention Real
Briefly on That Is That Goals and Objectives Work like That, Too. Even
Though We Identify Goals And Objectives up Front in the Planning
Process, We Come Back And We Visit Them Later and Make Sure That They
Still Apply after We\'ve Discovered Information on The Resource, the
Audience, and Looked at All Those Management Parameters Some More. So
Those Are Important Things.

Gubbins: That\'s a Real Good Point. So You Have Evaluation Built Into
the Interpretive Process And Throughout the Process. It\'s Not like Just
Something That\'s Done at the End of a Planning Project or Something
Like That. You\'re Doing a Self‑evaluation, Or the Team Is, Throughout
the Whole Process.

Ray: Right. You\'re Taking a Check, Every Once in a While, Through the
Process and Making Sure That You\'re Doing Those Things You Need to Do
to Put Good Plan Together, and Bottom Line There Is It\'s Important
Moore to Do That than Necessarily Put Things In a Prearranged Order.

Gubbins: I Thought That Was a Good Question.

Straub: Okay. Let\'s Go to Our next One. A Question from Oregon: What Is
An Interpretive Prospectus, and Is it Different from a Plan?

Ray: That\'s a Good Question. We Hear a Lot of Different Titles for
Interpretive Plans, Interpretive Strategy, Interpretive Prospectus,
Interpretive Summary. I\'ve Seen Some Other Ones That Were Interesting.
Mainly All of Our Plans Have a Lot of the Same Components to Them, but
How We Use Them Can Sometimes Be Different and in a Prospectus, We May
Have the Opportunity ‑‑ May Be Looking at The Opportunity to Market Our
Site More. We May Be Looking at Ways to Interest New Groups into Joining
Us, and So a Prospectus Is One Of Those Documents That Can Help You Do
That. But it Also Has Many of the Same Components. So I Wouldn\'t Get
Hung up Too Much on Those Titles So Much. But it Is Important to Look at
How You\'re Going to Use Your Plan. Are You Going to Use it Beyond Just
Planning for Your Site? Is it Something You\'re Going to Go out There
and Help to Try to Find Funding for or New Partnerships? And If So, Make
Sure That You Have Something in That Plan That Addresses Those Things.

Gubbins: I Agree with You, Rich. Don\'t Get Hung up on the Titles.

Straub: Okay.

Gubbins: Stick with the Process.

Straub: Let\'s Try Another One. We Got One from Palm Springs and This
May Be One We Didn\'t Quite Get to Yesterday: Do You Have Any Advice for
Solving Management Problems with Interpretation? Sometimes It\'s Complex
with Many Elements Contributing to Several Problems. Themes Tend Sue
Simplify. How Can We Solve More Complex Situations? Any Ideas?

Ray: You Want to Take That, Senate.

Gubbins: I Can Start off. Once Again, Another Great Question. Ha for
Sending it In. I Think it Is an Integrated Approach. As We Saw When We
Were Doing Our Assessments, There Is a Relationship Between Audience And
Management in the Interpretive Assessments. So There\'s All this
Interrelationship Going On. Now, in Rich\'s Example, Where He Was
Talking about the Viewing Area for Birding, and it Culminated as a
Result of Like, Okay, Let\'s Have this Viewing Area, Let\'s Set it Back
from the Cliff. You Know, a Real Nice Touch. You Don\'t Want the Birder
Falling over the Cliff. I Think It\'s a Little Counterproductive Here. I
Think That Also Would Get into The Management Issue or Concern At That
Point, Too. You Are Looking at Safety, Visitor Safety. I Would Think a
Manager Would Be Interested in That.

Ray: It\'s Important to Realize That the Interpretive Products You Put
out There Aren\'t Going to Solve All Your Management Problems.

Gubbins: Not at All.

Ray: as a Matter of Fact, Sometimes What Your Process of Your Do ‑‑
Doing Your Management Assessment, Resource Assessment, Identify Site
Issues That You Should Deal with out There When You Design the Site, and
That\'s So Important, as Opposed to Looking at Just Putting up Something
That Says, You Know, This Is a Sensitive Area. Sometimes You May Have to
Avoid That Area as Well. So You Can Couple Interpretive Messages with
Management Applications out There on Site, And That\'s an Effective
Thing to Do. But Just Trying to Solve it by Giving a Message Can
Sometimes Be Difficult to Do. We Found That, You Know, People Don\'t
Always Process Those Messages the Same Way, Too. So What We Need to Do,
in a Case Like This, Is That Look at it as ‑‑ Look as Interpretation as
One Of Those Tools That You Can for Dealing with Management Issues And
Look at the Opportunities That it Can Provide and How It\'s Going to Fit
in with the Other Strategies That You Are Going to Use There on Site to
Solve That Problem or to Mitigate It.

Gubbins: Good Point.

Ray: Do We Have Another One?

Straub: We Have Another One Here. A Comment from Karla Rogers from Narcs
about Conducting Marketing Studies and Understanding Customers. She Is
Proceed Providing Us More Information. Narsc Also Has a Resource
Economist Can That Assist with Marketing and Social Science Analysis,
Including Trend Analysis, and She Also Wanted Us To Know That the
Colorado State Office Has a Visitor Expectations Benefits Survey Which
Is Undergoing Omb Approval For BLM to Distribute. It Will Help You to
Understand Visitors to Public Lands, Which Is Important for Being Able
to Do Some Planning. So That\'s Some Good Information. Thanks for
Sending That into Us, Karla.

Gubbins: I Heard about That, That Study That Was Going On.

Straub: I Hadn\'t Heard about It. It Will Be Good.

Ray: That\'s Great. That Will Be a Great Resource.

Straub: the Question: How Can One Best Use a Plan to Get Support and
Funding?

Gubbins: These Are All Excellent Questions. Like I Said, When I Was
Snooping Around in Some of the Directories, the Foundation Directories,
What it Tells You In These Directories and I Know You\'ve Looked at
These Also, Rich, You\'ve Got the List of the Foundations, Who They
Funded, What Their Interests Are, et Cetera, et Cetera. In That It\'s
Going to Have Information on Whether They\'re Interested in Seeing a
Plan.

Ray: Yes, and You Talked Earlier about How Some, for Instance,
Organizations Who Give Grants or Additional Funding Require You to Have
a Plan Now. They Need to Look at Something Up Front Before They\'re
Going to Be Interested in Really Giving You a Plan.

Gubbins: the Helena National Forest Is in a Final Stage of Possibly
Getting a Grant Through Exxon and They Submitted an Interpretive Plan
for That. They Should Hear Pretty Soon. This Is for like an Interpretive
Center, Environmental Education Center Outside of Helena, Montana. In
That Case They Wanted to See It.

Ray: Great. I Think That\'s Important. Another Good Thing to Do Is Take
A Grant Writing Course. Sometimes You Can Tier Your Plan To a
Well‑written Proposal for a Grant and Use ‑‑ Couple Those Together, and
‑‑.

Gubbins: That\'s Plug the BLM Team That\'s Doing That. We Have a ‑‑ We
Had Them Come up To Montana. We Learned a Electric Heck of a Lot. ‑‑ a
Heck of a Lot. If You Want Information on That, Call Us. The Folks Are
Super and Very Good Information on How to Gain Alternative Funding and
Grants.

Straub: There Was Kind of a Second Part to That Question. Is it Better
to Get Support and Funding Before Entering the Planning Process?

Ray: If You Can, it Certainly Is. You Know, You Shouldn\'t Just Count on
Your Plan to Magically Bring You in Dollars and Support. When You Get
into the Interpretive Planning Process, You Really Should Have a Few
Things in Order and One of Those Things, as We Mentioned Before, Is
Management Support. Make Sure That You\'ve Got That Buy‑in. Also Look at
Whether or Not You\'ve Got the Type of Budget Support That You Need up
Front, At Least to Get You Started with Some of Those Improvements. And
Then Figure out Where You Need to Go from There and Identify That up
Front So That You\'ll Start Getting That Additional Kinds of Support
That You Really Need to Get.

Gubbins: Anything Else?

Straub: Sure. How Big of a Plan Should I Do For a Small Watchable
Wildlife Area?

Ray: That\'s a Good One, Too. You Want Me to Take That or Do You Want to
Take That?

Gubbins: We Were Talking About That. We Weren\'t ‑‑ We Aren\'t
Suggesting You Do like a Thesis For like a Small Watchable Wildlife
Area. We Are Suggesting That a Plan Is A Process and That You Go Through
This, and It\'s ‑‑ You Know, It\'s a Dynamic Type of Document as a
Result of That. So ‑‑.

Ray: in My Experience in Oregon, Working with Watchable Wildlife
Programs There Where We Identified Almost 50 Sites and Then Did Some
Enhancement and Interpretive Work on about 30 of Those Sites, We
Actually ‑‑ We Went Through a Lot of These Same Steps to Identify the
Themes and Develop the Site So That We Knew ‑‑ Knew What We Were Doing,
but We Didn\'t Necessarily Come up With Elaborate and Large Plans. In
Some Cases We Did When That Site Was Tied to Other Features Or If it Was
a Particularly Large Site with Lots of Other Opportunities, When it Was
a Smaller Site We Produced a Smaller Plan, Essentially, and It Took ‑‑
it Didn\'t Take Quite As Much Time to Do It, and We Had More of a Focus.

Gubbins: and You Have Done a Lot of Contract; Is That Correct?

Ray: Yes.

Gubbins: Where You Are Contracting a Lot of Your Work Out?

Ray: Don\'t Tell Anybody, Though.

Gubbins: All Right, I Won\'t. But I Mean, it Would Be Very Productive to
Have Your Plan in Place Before You Go Looking for Contractors ‑‑.

Ray: Again, That\'s Another Good Point. Before You Look out There for a
Contractor, Make Sure That You\'ve Completed Your Planning Process and
That You\'ve Identified Some of Those Things That You Are Going ‑‑ Those
Products That You Are Going to Use out There on Site. So Getting the
Planning Process Through to the Point Where You\'re Looking at Those
Interpretive Products and a Strategy to Deliver Those Is What You Need
Really Before You Start Approaching a Contractor To Get Those Done.

Straub: All Right. We Have One More Question. I Think it Might Be One
Left Over from Yesterday We Didn\'t Quite Get To. It\'s Regarding
Interpretation And Children. Is There a General Rule of Thumb About the
Age Level or Grade We Should Be Addressing on BLM Way Sides?

Ray: Ooh, That\'s an Interesting One. Well, What I Would Say There and I
Have Worked a Lot with School Groups over the Years at BLM Sites, and as
Amy Mentioned Yesterday, One of the Fundamental Things We Need to Do
When We Plan Interpretive Sites, We Know That We\'re Going to Have A Lot
of Use by School Groups or Children or Families with Children. Plan for
It. Look at Opportunities to Provide Separate Programs, If You Can. Do
Some Things That Might Assist You like Adding More Tactile Features,
Even Adding More Graphics. Some of Those Things Are Really Going to Be a
Draw for Families And Kids and They\'re Going to Increase Your Work with
Accessible Audiences as Well Who May Need Those Additional Things Also.
So ‑‑ Planning for Kids Is Important. Very Important.

Gubbins: I Think it Is. I Just Wanted to Add or Concur With You What You
Are Say Because What I Have Been Seeing Is We Are Looking at a Whole New
Generation. We Are Talking about Children Growing up with Computers and
Are Very Literate with Computers And the New Technologies That Are out
There and I Think We Need to Be Aware of That.

Ray: Yes, and That\'s Why We Have a Higher Demand Now for Interactive
Products and One of The Reasons for That, Not Just In Visitor Centers,
but For, You Know, in Way Sides, and it Could Be Simple Lift Flaps or
Something like That That Could Be Built Very Durable for Outside Use,
but Those Things, That Interaction, Is Really Good For Children. So
Planning for That Is Part of The Game.

Gubbins: and the Children Generally Get the Adults Involved Also.

Ray: I Think We Covered Part Of That Question at Least.

Straub: Thanks, Pat and Rich. That\'s the End of Our Questions, Unless
You Have Something Else You Would like to Provide Folks About Any of
Those Questions That We Had.

Ray: I Think They Are Great Questions and as We Come Back From Lunch,
We\'d Love to Have an Opportunity to Answer Some More Questions. So
Please Don\'t Hesitate Sending In Your Questions or Faxing Them Or
Calling.

Straub: Great. A Great Morning Session. Thanks, Pat and Rich. This
Concludes the First Half of Today\'s Introduction to Interpretation
Telecast. During the next 90 Minutes You Should Have Lunch and Work on
The Themes Exercise Rich and Pat Have Just Gone over. We\'re Going to
Lunch a Little Early Today. Fax in Your Answers as Soon as You Can to
the Exercises as You Finish It, and When We Go over Your Responses When
We Come Back On the Air. Once Again, When We Come Back, We Will Be Here
on Galaxy 3 Transponder 21, and Just like Yesterday We Will Give You a
Short Two‑minute Test Signal Before We Restart Our Program. Have a Good
Lunch and Good Luck On Your Exercises. Fax Them In.

Straub: Welcome Back to the Second Half of Today\'s Program On
Interpretation. The Fax Machines Have Been Humming During the Midday
Break As Your Answers to the Exercises Have Come In. Thanks. We Have a
Lot of Great Faxes. Pat and Rich, What Have We Got So Far?

Ray: Boy, We\'ve Got a Ton, a Ton of Faxes. We Selected a Few from the
Wheelbarrow That They Brought Out, and So We\'ve Got Some to Look at
That Will Tie Back to What Sam Ham Presented Yesterday About Writing
Themes. There\'s Some Very Good Examples Here of Using Different Types
of Theme Techniques to Put Together Very Effective Themes. So We\'re
Going to Go over Some, And Comment a Little Bit on Them.

Gubbins: Okay, Rich. You Want to Take the First One?

Ray: Let Me Take One. I Have One Set up Here. This Is from Nevada, Ely,
Nevada, and We Have a Theme That Reads, Native Plants in the Desert
Wetlands Are Fighting for Their Lives. Need Your Help to Prevent a
Hostile Takeover from Exotic Invaders. Stroke a Native, Yank a Weed.
And, You Know ‑‑.

Gubbins: That\'s Good.

Ray: What\'s Kind of Need About That Last Part, Stroke a Native and Yank
a Weed, That Could Be Used as a Catchy Title. Remember How Sam Yesterday
Talked about Looking at How Your Theme Could Be Incorporated into A Good
Label or a Title for Your Interpretive Panel.

Gubbins: It\'s a Lot of Action And Energy Exuded in That. That Would
Make a Wonderful Label.

Ray: If You Look at That Particular Theme, You Will Notice Could You
Actually Shorten this a Little Bit to \"Native Plants in the Desert and
Desert Wetlands Are Fighting for Their Lives. That in Itself Is a Good
Theme And May Not Need this ‑‑ this Additional Part Could Become Part of
the Body of the Text That You Incorporate this into. So It\'s a Great
Theme, a Really Good Example of Using Good Technique. You Got One,
Don\'t You?

Gubbins: Yes, Rich. We Have One Here from Needles Resource Area, Leslie
Smith. Thanks a Lot, Leslie. Leslie Has One. Our Water Resources Are in
Danger. Exotic Species like the Tamarisk Drinks 20,000 Gallons a Day.
That\'s a Good One. Do You Want to Put on That the Elmo So People Can
See It? Again, Here Is One Much Actually Has a Big \"So What\" in It.
Remember Yesterday Sam Really Hammered in That Point That Your Theme to
Have Something That Really Catches People, a \"So What\" to Them, Kind
of More than Just, You Know, That\'s a Nice Site, the Trees Are
Beautiful. Let\'s Say Something Beyond That.

Gubbins: by Doing So, it Makes it Relative to the People It\'s Relating
to the Audience.

Ray: It\'s a Hook. It Works as a Good Hook. That\'s an Excellent,
Excellent Title. So 20,000 Gallons a Day. Isn\'t That Amazing?

Gubbins: That Is!

Ray: We Have Another One Here From Fairbanks, Alaska. Let\'s See If I
Can Bring That in Here. Okay. Might Be a Little Hard to Read So I Will
Read One of the Ones We Have Marked Here. The Hassayampa River Is the
Lifeblood of Plants and Animals. Here Again the Technique, the Vehicle
That\'s Used, Is this Lifeblood Idea. So We\'re Using a Metaphor for
What a River Does, How a River Provides Important Habitat and Structural
Components, Water, All Those Necessary Things That Plants Need. That\'s
a Very Good Theme. What Do You Have, Pat?

Gubbins: We Have One from Grant Hill from Escalante National Monument in
Utah. The Amazing Underground River Surfaces Here and Provides You And
Many Native Species with a Special but Fragile Environment. That\'s a
Good ‑‑ We Talked about This Particular Site and Folks Coming to and
from Las Vegas. This Would Be Something That Might Not Be Common to
Them. So I Really like this One. What Do You Think?

I Think It\'s Great. The Hassayampa, You Know ‑‑ the Fact That That
River Goes Underground for Much of its Length and Comes up Is Amazing
Thing in Itself. But Then You\'ve Got this Fact That It\'s out There in
the Environment That It\'s In, out in The Middle of a Desert, Desert
Landscape, Very Dry, Very Arid, And That Theme, When It\'s Used On the
Site, Creates a Powerful Image for People. I Mean, There\'s Where You
Get That ‑‑ Those Extra Things You Get out of Themes That Appreciation
‑‑ You Leave People That Come to the Site Something To Take Home with
Them. Wow, I Saw this ‑‑ it Was Amazing, out of Middle of this Desert
Here Is this Incredible River, Surfaces and Goes Through This Site.

Gubbins: a Little Bit Different than the Mississippi.

Ray: That\'s Right. We\'ve Got One from Tucson. Let\'s See. I\'ll Zoom
out Here.

Gubbins: from the Fish & Wildlife Service in Tucson.

Ray: I Will See If I Can Bring into That Folk Us a Little More. The
Hassayampa Is a Wayside Rest For Weary Feathered Travelers, Too. And
There Is a Little Bit of Alliteration at the End. It Could Be Tied into
the Other Things That the Hassayampa Is. So in a Sense it Not Only Tells
You ‑‑ Gives You a Theme, it Also Tells You That it Ties to Other Themes
as Well. So That\'s a Very Good Use of a Theme. And \"Weary Feathered
Travelers.\"

Gubbins: it Paints a Picture.

Ray: If You Are a Migratory Bird Flying up to Southern Arizona from
Costa Rica, and You May Be Bedding Farther North up To ‑‑ Well, up to
Oregon, Which Happens, They Rely on Those Rest Areas along the Way and a
Place Like the Hassayampa Would Be Just a Magnet for Birds. So That\'s a
Fascinating One. It Gets You Involved. Makes You Want to Know More About
the Birds.

Gubbins: Rich, I Think We Have Time for One More. We Have Got to Do this
One. Okay? We Have Got to Do this One. Jeff from El Centro, Thank You,
Jeff, I Really like this One: Bats, Bugs and Bubbling Brooks Bring the
Night to Life.

Ray: Another Outstanding Theme. \"Bats, Bugs and Bubbling Brooks\...\"
What Do You Notice About That?

Gubbins: I Notice We Have a Little Bit of Alliteration. We Have Four
Words in Succession That Start with the Same Letter, Alliteration,
Almost a Rhythmic Tone. It Creates an Interest, at Least For Me.

Ray: Does it for Me, Too. Not Only Using Alliteration, but Focusing on
Those Several Different Things out There and Tying Them Together,
Putting Them into the Context of the Site. So It\'s Outstanding.

Gubbins: Kind of a Cohesive Approach Once Again Relating. All Good.
Thank You Very Much, Folks. Renee?

Straub: Those Were Some Great Faxes. I Wish We Had Time to Read All
Them. That\'s All the Time We Have for Faxes Now. Let\'s Take a Look at
the Hassayampa Team, the Themes They Identified for Their Project. Rich?

Ray: We Are Going to Actually Compare What We Have Just Gone Over on Our
Faxes to What the Hassayampa Folks Were Able to Do And Actually You\'re
Going to See Some Amazing Similarities. So Let\'s Take a Look at What
They Did. We Are Going to Move into the First Topic That. The Topics ‑‑
the Topic Is Floods. They Also Used ‑‑ They Changed This Topic Slightly
to Also Consider a Topic Title or What You Might Call a Label, Label
Here Being High Water, Something Catchy That Would Draw People In. And
the Theme That Was Developed: High Water Flows and Quickly Changing
Water Levels Are Natural Events Which Help Build Healthy Riparian Areas.
Again, Here\'s ‑‑ We Saw Some of This in the Themes That Were Just
Presented. Floods Are Good for the Landscape out There. It\'s a Good
Thing to Interpret, Nice to Tie That In. Let\'s Take a Look at Another
One. What Do You Think?

Gubbins: I Agree.

Ray: Topic: Wetlands. Wetlands, and Here Again the Catchy Title Is
Desert Oasis, And the Theme That Was Developed For That Topic:
\"Arizona\'s Sonoran Desert Wetlands Serve as Oases for Desert Animals
by Providing Food and Shelter as They My Great Across the Land.\" Again,
There, If You Look at That Theme, it Tells You That Several Things, That
Those Wetlands Are Critical, Desert Animals Need That Food and Shelter,
and It\'s a Very Important Stop for Migratory Animals, Not Just Birds.
Great. Let\'s Take a Look at the next Topic. Bats. This Was a Popular
One on the Faxes. We Had a Lot of Ones That Talked About the Bats. So
People Were Really Catching That Bat Part When They Looked Over the
Video There. \"Nature\'s Pest Controller.\" Again, Pat, I Think We Saw
Some Good ‑‑ There Was a Few People Who Sent in Labels as Well That Used
Catchy Titles. So We Saw Some Similar to That.

Gubbins: this Is Very Good With the Misunderstanding of Bats and Some
People Having Phobias Regarding this Particular Animal.

Ray: it Sure S Let\'s Look at The Theme That Was Developed From That
Topic. \"Bats Are Beneficial to People And to Maintaining a Balance in
Nature by Eating Large Numbers Of Insects.\" So Not Only Do We
Understand That Bats Are Beneficial, We Understand Why They\'re
Beneficial. So it Tells Us a Couple of Different Things There. It Tells
Us They\'re Beneficial For People. It Tells Us They\'re Beneficial In
Nature and Tells You a Little Bit Why, Keeps the Insect Population under
Control. It\'s Great.

Gubbins: Yes.

Ray: I Think We Have Another One Here. The Topic Is Desert Rivers.
Here\'s Another One That Came up On the Themes Quite a Bit, and The
\"Upside down River\" Idea, Which, Again, Taking a Topic and Turning
into it a Catchy Label. Upside down River. Let\'s Look at That Theme.
\"The Native American Word Hassayampa Translates as Upside Down River
Which Helps Us Visualize the Fact That Desert Rivers Often Flow
Underground.\" If I Was Coming to this Site, I Would Want to Know What
\"Hassayampa\" Meant. That Was a Good One. Is That Our Last ‑‑ That Was
Our Last Theme from the Team. So Let\'s Go into the Last Part Of Our
Teaching Here. We Had this Wonderful Exercise About Teams. So We\'ve
Taken Us Through the Process Where We Learned about How to Do
Assessments, How to Come up with Materials to Form Themes, the Topics
That We Turn Into Themes, and Now That We Have Those Themes, What Do We
Do With Them? Obviously That\'s Not Where We\'re Going to Leave You. So
What We\'re Going to Do Is We\'re Going to Take You Through Into
Strategy at this Point. So Interpretive Planning Process Takes Those
Themes, Develops a Strategy as to How to Apply Those Themes in the
Field. If You Turn to Page 33, There\'s A Section in Your Book That Will
Talk a Little Bit More about Delivering the Message and We Have Put this
in the Planning Section, and Then Tomorrow We\'re Going to Have an
Opportunity to Get into Details about Delivery Strategies, How the
Strategies Are Devised and How We Use Them. So We\'re Going to Have a
Full Agenda Tomorrow in Looking at Delivery Strategies and So It\'s Both
an Important Part of the Planning Process and It\'s an Important Part of
Determining The Most Effective Interpretation out There. Renee?

Straub: in a Few Minutes We\'ll Be Taking Your Calls. So If You Have Any
Questions or Comments for Rich and Pat, or Any Firsthand Experiences
with Interpretive Planning That You Would like to Share with Everyone,
this Would Be a Good Time to Start Dialing In. Rich?

Ray: Thank You. We Would like to Take a Couple Of the Questions. What
We\'re Going to Do Is Summarize Here So That We Can Go Back over What We
Covered Today So We Give You Some Closure to This Session. We Looked at
How We Form a Team, And, Again, We Saw the Case Study Example That Took
Us Through the Process of Forming a Team, Bringing People Together, How
That Team Starts to Interact, Which Becomes the Collaborative Approach
to Planning. This Is the Interaction of the People That Form the Team.
Then at That Point They Start Looking at Goals and Objectives Based on
Their Issues and Concerns That Come out During The Planning Process.
Then We Get into Assessments, Assessing the Audience, the Importance of
That, Why It\'s So Essential to Know the Audience, Assessing the
Resource, Knowing As Much as You Can about the Resource and How It\'s
Going to Contribute to Your Planning Process, And, Finally, the
Management Objectives, Assessing Management Objectives, Assessing The
Management Issues out There, And Coming up with Some Good Management
Strategies. So These Things Bring You to the Point Where You Can Develop
Interpretive Themes and Then Develop a Strategy and Start to Test Your
Messages. Do We Have Some Faxes?

Straub: Yes, We Do Have Some Faxes and Some Questions That We\'ll Start
off with. We Got One from South Dakota Here. They Want to Know about Our
Project Area: since the Rest Area Is Going to Undergo Radical Rebuilding
Anyway, and it Is in A Sensitive Area, Why Rebuild There? There Is Kind
of a Second Part To It: Why Not Leave the Site As an Environmental
Burning Site And Build the Rest Area in a Place Where the Damage Would
Be Less?

Ray: Well, That\'s a Good Point.

Gubbins: I Think That We Saw The Team ‑‑ Well, Maybe They Didn\'t Go
into it in the Film Clips, but the Team Did Discuss This, and What it
Was Was That Basically the Area Was Really Heavily Impacted. There Was a
Real Minute Portion Of It. It Wasn\'t like the Whole Ecosystem Was
Negatively Impacted with the Original Waste Site. There Was a Small
Area. There\'s a Need for a Rest Stop Area When You Look at the Distance
That People Are Traveling and What the Facilities ‑‑ or Lack of
Facilities Are. That\'s a Conscious Decision. You\'ve Got to Provide
Those Facilities for the Traveling Public.

Ray: Right, and That\'s Why That Rest Area Was There. There Was a
Purpose There, and It Was a Good Site and it Provided Some Interpretive
Opportunities. So, Really, There Was a Good Combination of Things That
Led This Team to Want to Restore That Site and Put Interpretation On the
Ground.

Gubbins: and in That Particular Area There Was a Lot Of Private Land in
That Area. So There Wasn\'t a Lot of Alternative Opportunities.

Ray: Right.

Straub: Ready for Another Question? All Righty. This Is from Chris in
Farmington: in Assessing the Audience, You\'ve Mentioned Conducting
Interviews and Marketing Studies. Will You Discuss Omb Clearance For
These Activities?

Ray: Why Don\'t You Take That, Pat. You\'ve Done ‑‑.

Gubbins: Chris, That\'s a Good Question, Because I Think It\'s Creating
a Lot of Confusion for Our Folks in the Field, and the Latest
Information, at Least My Understanding, I Hope I Am Not Misinforming
You, There Is a Criteria If You Go over about a Dozen Questions One
Should Go Through Omb for a Review. Now, That in and of Itself Is Not ‑‑
It\'s Not Going to Kill Your Project by Any Means. It\'s Something That
You Would Have to Be Cognizant Of, However, and Build That into a Time
Line. Now, There Are Other Ways to Do Surveys. Other Groups Where it Be
Mutually Beneficial, but I Am Not Suggesting Would You Circumvent the
Policies and Procedures, But, However, Rich, I Have Had like
Opportunities With the University of Montana Folks out of Missoula and
That\'s Where the Recreational Interpretive Programs Are Offered At,
Have Actually Approached BLM or Other Agencies For Projects to Do. So
It\'s Really a Partnership Type Situation.

Ray: and I Have Seen That Happen as Well. As I Mentioned Before When We
Were Covering Some of This, We Have Actually Use ‑‑ Occasionally Used
Other Groups To Help Do Surveys in the Area, Not Particularly at Our
Site but Actually Hit Some of Our Same Target Audiences and We Have
Found Some Things That Really Did Apply to Those People Who Were
Visiting Our Site. So There Are Some Good Ways to Collect Data. It\'s
Also Amazing to Find out How Many Other Surveys Have Actually Been Done
by Other Organizations in That Area.

Gubbins: That\'s True. Thanks a Lot, Chris. That\'s a Very Good Question
and Something That We Really Need to Be Cognizant Of. Do You Have
Anything Else?

Straub: Sure. We Have Kind of a Two‑part Question from Tina in Lake
Wood, Colorado. First Part of That: Are There Standard Elements or
Headings That Are Including in an Interp Plan? The Second Part Is: What
Other Elements Could Be Included?

Ray: Let Me Take That One. There Are Some ‑‑ of Course, We\'ve Gone over
What We Feel Are Some of the Standard Elements That You Would Use in an
Interpretive Plan. That\'s Been Part of Our Teaching Course Here. How
You Organize That, I\'ve Seen Some Very Different Approaches To It. Some
People Put Their Assessment Data up Front along with Their Existing
Conditions, That Sort Of Thing. Other People Put That Towards The Back
of Their Plan and Focus More up Front on What Their Findings Were, on
Their Goals And Objectives and Also on Their Themes So That You Hit That
Right Away. There\'s Not Necessarily One Particular Way to Do It, but
You Could Look at Some of the Plans That Have Been Very Successful And
Take a Look at Ones That Are Done, and Look at How They\'ve Done and Do
What Feels Comfortable for You Organizing Your Data.

Gubbins: Yes, Good Point. There\'s No Textbook Definition That You Have
to Do it this Way.

Ray: No. Renee ‑‑.

Straub: We Have One More Here And It\'s from Tucson and They Want to
Know How They Can Acquire One of the Foundation Directories We Have
Mentioned or Maybe Even an Foundation Directory for the Area If You Know
of Any.

Gubbins: I\'ll Take That One. Very Good Question from Tucson. There\'s
No Name on That One. Contact Don Sharpio at Your Arizona State Office. I
Want to Give Him a Plug. He Taught Me What I Know about Foundations.
Having Said That, Usually There Is a Library That Houses Foundation
Directories, Oftentimes the University Libraries, but Once Again, Call
Don. He\'ll Get You Set Up.

Ray: You Can Also Find Information over the Internet. Look Categorically
in the Internet for Those ‑‑ for Grants, under Grants or Foundations,
and You\'ll Find Quite a Few References There.

Gubbins: Good Point.

Straub: Thanks for All Those Questions. Pat, Do You Have Any Closing
Comments You Would like for ‑‑ To Make for Today\'s Session?

Gubbins: I Have One and It\'s Like Being a Cheerleader. I Want to Thank
Everybody, All Our Participants for Sending the Faxes In. I Think That
Really Makes an Interactive Program and I Really Enjoyed Being Here.

Ray: I\'ve Got Something to Say, Too. I Want to Thank People for the
Participation We Had on the Themes. It Was Outstanding. The Questions We
Had Were Great. The Comments We Got Back Were Also Excellent. So We\'re
Really Looking Forward To Tomorrow\'s Broadcast Where We\'ll Cover
Delivery Techniques. So Stay Tuned for That, and Also For Ron Russo\'s,
Which Is the Section on Writing, Which Is Coming up next. So If You\'re
Still Have Gone Trouble Writing Those Themes, or If You Want to Know
about Interpretive Writing, Hang in For Some of the Best Stuff You\'ll
Catch Anywhere.

Straub: Okay. Thanks. Those Are Some Great Things We Got and If People
End up Having More Questions, There Will Be Other Time Periods Late
Tomorrow Afternoon That You Can Send in Some Faxes, and Rich and Pat
Will Be with Us and They Can Answer Those for You. At this Point, We
Would like to Shift Our Focus to the Topic of Writing Skills for
Interpretation. In Order to Communicate Your Interpretive Themes to
Visitors, You Need to Write Clearly, Concisely and Creatively.
Interpretive Writing Is a Special Skill That Requires the Author to Hook
the Reader into The Material and Hold Their Attention. Ron Russo Is
Chief of Interpretation for East Bay Regional Park District in Oakland,
California. He Teaches Widely and Has Published Several Field Guides And
over 30 Papers. Ron Manages a Small Publishing Company and Is a Noted
Expert on Interpretive Writing. Ron Is Currently out of the Country and
He Is Not Able to Join Us in Person. He Did Prepare His Instructional
Segments and Exercises for You On Videotape. So Here Is Ron\'s First
Segment On the Art of Interpretive Writing.

Russo: Hi, Everyone. I\'m Really Glad to Be Here Today To Talk to You
about a Subject That\'s Really Dear to My Heart. I Wish I Could Meet
Each of You, But You Know You\'re out There And I\'m in Here and I Guess
this Is the Way That Interpretation Is Influenced by Modern Technology.
Well, Today We\'re Going to Talk About How to Effectively Communicate to
People in Written Form. Have You Ever Read the Back of a Mortgage Loan
Statement? Application Form? That Back That Seems to Be Faded? It\'s in
Small Type, 6 or 8 Point Type. It\'s Very Difficult for You to Read it
and Get Through it Because It\'s Really Congested And Jammed, and You
Wonder Who Was it Written for? Well, Actually it Was Written by A Lawyer
to Present to a Judge In a Court of Law. It Was Not Intended to Be
User‑friendly, Even Though You\'re Held Responsible for the Contents of
That Document. Unfortunately, That\'s the Way Some Things Are Produced
These Days in Written Form for Consumers. It Indicates a Place Where the
Writer Doesn\'t Take into Consideration the Reader\'s Needs. How about
Assembly Instructions\... Have You Ever Picked up an Assemblyman Annual
On How to Put Together a Tricycle or a Lawn Mower or a Work Bench or Any
Other Number Of Other Household Items and Shortly after You Get into it
You Begin to Think That the Writer Has Never Put One of Those Things
Together Himself or Herself? They End up Being Terribly Confusing. You
Waste an Inordinate Amount Of Time. I Inherently Now Disregard Them. In
Fact, I Always Get Kind of Yacked at That I Should Read the Instruction
Manual and Then I Would Spend less Time. But the Classic Example for Me
Was When I Bought a Prefab Solar Greenhouse, Got this Thick Instruction
Manual, Took Me Three Weeks to Build It. All the Numbers in the Manual
Referred to Items That Were Not On My Side of the Planet. They Were
Someplace Else on Earth. I Couldn\'t Find Them. And Even after Repeated
Phone Calls and Repeated Back Orders Of Items Numbered, Using the
Numbers in Their Instruction Manual, I Still Got Duplicates Of What I
Already Had. So it Was a Nightmare Experience From the Beginning. The
Challenge Is How Do You Write in Written Form Messages That Make Sense,
That Are Understandable, That Communicate In Their Cleanest Forms? This
Is the Challenge of Today. Writers Typically Want Their Stuff Read. They
Want it to Be Understood. They Want to Be Able to Touch People and Move
People. But it Doesn\'t Always Happen. Certainly Not Automatically. You
Can\'t Assume That People Will Read it or Understand it or Be Moved by
it Simply Because You\'ve Written It. You Have to Look at it from the
Perspective of the Reader. Our Objective Today Is to Talk About How We
Can Attract and Hook the Reader\'s Interest, How We Can Communicate in
Succinct And Clean Ways, How We Can Implant Understanding, Changes In
Perspective, Feelings, Calls To Action. That\'s Our Challenge.
Unfortunately, Communicating Isn\'t Easy. Look at How We Talk to Each
Other. We Misunderstand Each Other All The Time. Communicating Is the
Heart of Most of Our Disagreements, Most Of Our Arguments. Many of Our
Stressful Problems. When You Are Able to Talk to Each Other, at Least
Face‑to‑face, You\'ve Got the Advantage of Seeing Facial Expressions and
Eyes, and You Know Something about the Emotions of the Person Telling
You What it Is They\'re Telling You. But When You Convert it to Written
Form, You Don\'t Have Those Advantages. So You\'re Even More Pressed to
Interpret What Is Being Said Correctly. Written Messages, Unfortunately,
Are Often in Come Burred with Misinterpretation, Misunderstanding. Leads
the Reader to the Wrong Conclusion. Leads Them Astray. Or, Frankly, Gets
Them Lost and Causes Them to Lose Their Interest. On the Positive Side,
However, Have You Ever Picked up a Magazine Article or a Newspaper
Article or Even a Book and You Haven\'t Been Able to Put it down From
the Start Because it Was So Engrossing, So Captivating, it Had You
Hooked, and You Read it From Front to Back? I Know That it Happens and
That Is the Evidence That I\'m Talking About. Clearly in Those Cases the
Writer Carefully Thought about How the Reader Would See the Work and
Crafted It, Crafted the Work, with That in Mind. One of the Most
Important Elements in this Process Is Leading Readers to the Story. You
Can\'t Expect People to Just Jump Right into the Heart of It. I Think
this Is Developed in a Five‑step Process. These Five Steps I Call the
Phases of Effective Written Communication. These Include a Catchy Title,
Fairly Large, Bold Type, That Somehow Instantly Connects to The
Reader\'s Base of Familiarity. Followed by a Great Subtitle. It\'s in
Smaller Type. It Gives Just a Little Bit More Information, but It\'s
Designed To Lead You Further down into The Article. The Third Step Is
Really Crucial, the Third Step Involves Lead Sentences That Are in a
Larger Type than the Rest of the Text, but These Lead Sentences Function
to Seduce You, to Draw You in to the Body of the Work. At this Juncture
Where You Lose Some of Your Audience If Those Lead Sentences Don\'t
Create Some Air of Mystique, If They Don\'t Create Some Drama, If They
Don\'t Somehow Touch the Reader Personally. But It\'s at this Point
Where I Make All My Decisions about Whether or Not I\'m Going to Read
The Rest of the Text. Finally, There\'s the Body and Conclusion. The
Body must Be Written in an Interesting Way, but it Also Must Be Written
Succinctly. Written Messages Don\'t Need to Be Laborious. They Don\'t
Need to Be Hard Work. They Should Be Fun and Informative. Finally, the
Conclusion Is Our Fifth Step. It Needs to Draw the Message, The Whole
Message, Together. It Needs to Somehow Relate Back To the Title or
Perhaps to the Reader in a Personal Way. One of the Ways You Can Do this
Is to Create Some Messages, Some Feelings about How it Influences Them
Personally, or Perhaps It\'s A Call to Action, or Perhaps It\'s a
Question That You Leave Them With, but the Conclusion Is As Important as
the Beginning, As the Introduction. It\'s the Last Thing You Leave Your
Reader with. It\'s the Last Opportunity You Have to Drive Home an
Important Point, an Important Element. Now, in Your Workbook There Are A
Number of Helpful Hints. We\'re Not Going to Spend Time Today to Look at
All of Those, But They\'re Designed to Help You In the Process of
Conception and Development of Your Text. I Suggest That You Look at
Those Very Carefully, and Each Time You Tackle a New Project You Refer
Back to Those and Ask Yourself Some of Those Questions And Take into
Consideration Some Of Those 24 Points. For Now, What I Would like to Do
Is to Focus in on Leading People To Your Text. As I Mentioned Earlier,
There Are Five Steps. The First Step That We\'re Going To Look at Is
with Catchy Titles. This Is Your First and Maybe Your Last Opportunity
to Get the Reader\'s Attention. If the Title Doesn\'t Grab the Reader,
If it Doesn\'t Somehow Connect to the Reader, If it Doesn\'t Raise a
Question, If it Doesn\'t Hit a Nerve of Curiosity, If it Doesn\'t Tweak
Something That\'s Familiar to Them, They Will Simply Skip it And Move on
to Something Else. So this Is Your First Chance to Grab Them, to Hold
Them, to Propel Them Further into the Work. There Are Some Marvelous
Examples of this in Some Things That We Have in Your Workbook. On Page
Frontally We Have a Commercial Milk Company in Solano County in
California Whose Advertising Campaign Is Based on a Holstein Cow as
Their Mascot. They Call this Cow Clo and What They Do Is They Have
Created a Series of Billboard Ads along The Freeway That Have These Huge
Pictures, Large Graphics, of Their Mascot Clo. In Some Kind of
Circumstance. And in Each One of These Cases, They Have a Statement.
These Four Statements You See on The Screen Advertise Their Milk. So in
\"Splendor in the Glass,\" You See a Cow Lying in a Meadow Drinking a
Glass of Milk, Relaxing. The \"The Supreme Quart\" Is a Cow Dressed up
in a Judge\'s Uniform With a Barrister\'s Wig Holding a Quart of Clover
Milk. \"Christopher Cowlumbus in the Moo World\" Is a Cow Standing on
The Bow of a Ship Gazing Across The Horizon of the Ocean Holding A Glass
of Milk. And Finally, in this Series, \"Tip Clo Threw Your Two Lips\" Is
A Graphic of this Cow Standing In a Pasture of Tulips Holding a Glass of
Milk and Tipping it up To Her Mouth. Clover Milk Has Also Created
Another Series. I Am the Guy That Stops along The Freeway at Each One of
These To Write Them down Because I Can\'t Remember Them from One Stop to
the next. But the next Series Includes These Particular Messages.
\"Behind Clo\'s Doors.\" Here Is a Cow Peaking out from Behind a Door.
\"It\'s Not over \'Till the Fat Lady Sings\" Is this Huge Viking Cow
Almost Pretend to Go Sing an Opera Holding a Glass of Milk. \"Moona
Lisa\" Is this Cow Dressed In a Robe, a Smile on its Face, Peering from
Behind a Picture Frame Drinking a Last of Milk. \"And Mooey Bueno,\" the
Cow Has Has a Sombrero Wrapped in Serape Drinking in a Class of Milk.
There Are a Number of Companies That Have Gone to Creative Ends To
Advertise Their Products N a Series of Cases I Found Again Along the
Highway, We Found a Company Advertising its Plumbing Services Called
Kane Is Able. That Was the Line. Kane Is Able to Provide Your Plumbing
Needs N Another Case, Big Ol\' Truck Passed Me up Advertising Their Rug
Cleaning Services, and in this Case They Touched a Nostalgic Chord by
Using Their Name Stanley Steamer, Referring Back, of Course, to the Turn
of the Century, One of the First Automobiles That Showed Up. And Then in
Relationship to One Of Our Old Statements That We Use in Our Culture
\"We Have Ice Only for You\" Advertising the Services of an Ice Company.
There Are, You Know, Lots of Ways to Do this. I Was Once Very Fortunate
to Grab a Copy of Natural History Magazine, and I Laughed the Whole Time
Because in Each Article in the Magazine, Including the Editor\'s
Comments, It Was Clear That the Editor and The Authors Had Collaborated
to Create in Each Case a Creative Title That Would Stimulate Your
Curiosity, Hook Your Interest, Draw You into the Work, and this
Particular Magazine Was Devoted To a Series of Articles on Whales, and
in Whale Communication. So as You See on the Screen, One Of the Articles
Was Called \"Moving with the Heard.\" We\'re Not Talking about the Heard
of Cows, but That\'s the Play on the Word. It Was \"Heard\" Meant in
Terms of These Animals That Are Able to Communicate and Talk with Each
Other Underwater. \"Talking Heads,\" While it Might Sort of Suggest a
Play on the Name of the Musical Group That\'s Out There in Our Society,
It\'s Actually More of a Play on Your Mental Picture of What a Talking
Head Means. Another One, \"A Change of Tune.\" A Phrase That We Use All
the Time in Our Normal Communication. They Used it in Talking about How
Whales Communicate by Different Messages That They Have in Their
Vocabulary, Different Sounds That They Produce Underwater. Finally ‑‑ or
near Finally, One Of the Phrases Used in Our Studio \"Testing\...
Testing,\" Something That We\'re Quite Familiar With, Suggests Somebody
Is Getting Ready to Communicate Something but as a Draw into an Article
about Whale Communication. And Finally, on this Series, \"The Heard Shot
Round the World,\" an Article Talking about Long‑distance Communication
Between Whales That Might Have Been Two and 3,000 Miles Apart In the Old
Days Before Submarines and Ships with Their Loud Propellers and Engines
Plied the Waters of the Oceans. So Here We Was a Way That There Was a
Collaboration Between Editor and Author to Really Do Something
Different. They Could Have Gone to Some Standard Titles, and What I
Would like to Do Is Show You What Some Alternative Titles Might Have
Been like If They Really Weren\'t Carefully Paying Attention to the
Reader. Look at \"Whale Communication.\" Okay. Fine. That Says It. But
it Doesn\'t Appeal to Me. It\'s Not That Very Interesting. Look at this
One, the \"Thermodynamics of Echo‑location.\" Oh, My Lord, it Almost
Puts Me To Sleep. How about \"Cetacean Vocalization.\" That Doesn\'t
Appeal to Me at All. I Don\'t Know How it Feels to You. Now, Certainly
If You Are a Scientist or You\'re a Marine Mammal, Expert, You Might
Look At Those Titles and Go, \"Yes, That\'s What I Want to Read About!\"
But for the Average Person \"Thermodynamic Echo‑location\" Is
Gobbledygook Has No Meaning or Relevance to Them at All. So Why Use it
Unless You Are Write to Go a Scientific Audience? In Another Series of
Articles, The Editors Used, Again, Some Creative Titles to Pull You into
The Piece. How about \"This Bug\'s for You\" a Play on the Beer
Advertisement \"This Bud\'s for You.\" How about the \"Lifestyles of the
Huge and Famous,\" an Article That Was Targeted on Some Fossil Reptiles
That Dinosaurs That Lived Here Millions of Years Ago And Sort of a Play
on \"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.\" They Used That Fairly Familiar
Phrase as a Way to Hook Your Interest, to Tickle Your Bones Perhaps in a
Little Humor. And What about \"The Cold Facts Of Winter,\" When You Hear
That Doesn\'t it Suggest Icy Cold Wind, Snow, Freezing Temperatures?
Immediately it Helps You to Relate to the Subject of the Article. Very
Creative Way, I Might Add To Get You There, and That\'s What I\'m
Suggesting You Do, Is Just Think of a Different Way to Appeal, Again,
Titles Are Your First Opportunity to Grab Your Audience. Take Advantage
of That Opportunity and What You Know That They Know to Hook Them in To
the Process. Our next Area Is Subtitles, and We Want to Look at the
Importance of Creating a Good Subtitle That Is a Smaller Type Size under
Your Title That Gives Just a Little Bit More Information, but it Really
Is Designed to Take You One More Step Closer to Reading the Article, to
Draw You Just a Little Further in to the Heart Of the Written Work. This
Is an Important Step. Don\'t Dismiss It. Pay Attention to It. Because
Here\'s Where You Can Paint the Idea, an Idea Beyond The Title of What
the Subject of Your Article Is Really Going to Talk about. The next Step
in this Process Is The First Part of Your Article, What I Call the Lead
Sentences. The Lead Sentences Are Important Because this Is Really the
First Opportunity That the Reader Has To Get an Essence of the Meat And
Potatoes of the Article. This Is a Part at Which You Get To Touch Them
Emotionally, to Hit a Fear, to Create Some Drama, to Stimulate Some
Curiosity, to Raise a Memory, to Ask a Question, to Create Some Mystery
Around the Subject of The Moment. This Is the Place Where Most Readers,
Including Me, Make Decisions about Whether or Not They\'re Willing or
Interested in Reading On. Inherently this Is Where I Either Get out of
the Article, Whether It\'s a Newspaper Article Or a Magazine or a
Technical Article in a Journal, or I Read The Whole Thing. That Is the
Importance of Abstracts in Technical Journals. That Is the Importance of
That First Paragraph in the Body of a Text. Whether It\'s for a
Brochure, an Exhibit Panel or a Self‑‑guiding Trail or a Newsletter
Article, It\'s That First Article That Cements the Reader\'s Interest
Into Reading the Rest of the Piece. I Have Some ‑‑ an Example of This
That I Would like to Pull Up That Was Done about Whales. This One Uses
the Title of \"Talking Heads\" and as You Can See it Is Followed by a
Subtitle, the Second Step, That Tells You, Gives You a Hint, of Where
We\'re Going, \"Sperm Whale Chatter Makes Sense!\" Now, the Third Step,
Those First Few Lines, in Larger Type than The Rest of the Text, but
Designed, Really, to Get Ahold Of You Read to the Last \"I Grapple with
Thee R‑thee; from Hell\'s Heart I Stab at Thee; for Hates Sake I Spit My
Last Breath At Thee, Owe Damned Whale.\" Those Were the Words, Last
Words That Ahab, the Captain of the Pecaud Said Before the Whale Sank
below the Surface and Drowned Him in Melville\'s Book \"Moby Dick.\"
Those Were the Most Compelling Words I Read into the ‑‑ in the Entire
Novel. In this Form, They Help to Bring The Reader into the Body of the
Text. You Can Sense That Just from the Drama of Ahab\'s Words. How Do We
Get Here? How Is it That with a Title or a Subtitle or Even Those First
Few Lines in Your Article, How Do You Really Relate to the Reader? It\'s
Really Very Simple\... It\'s In the Words You Use. It\'s in a Process
That I Call Painting with Words. And What I\'m Suggesting Is That You
Look Around at Your World Experience, Your Common Experience, Your Life,
and Use Words That You Frequently Associate with Events, with
Circumstances, with Things, with Experiences in Your Life and Try To Use
Those Kind of Visual Descriptors to Enhance the Meanings of Words. Those
Descriptive Words Help Readers to Instantly Identify, To Instantly
Recognize Something That They\'re Familiar with. It Helps Them to Bridge
over From Where They\'re at Knowing Nothing about What You\'re Going To
Say into the Subject at Hand. What We\'re Going to Do Today Is We\'re
Going to Get Some Experience at this Process, and Before We Do That,
Before We Give You Sort of a Baptism at Fire at Painting Images with
Words, What I Would like to Do Is to Step Back Just Briefly and Sort of
Summarize What We\'ve Done in this First Segment. So Far What We\'ve
Tried to Do Is To Take a Look at Written Products, Not from the
Perspective of the Writer or the Editor or the Producer, but from The
Perspective of the Reader. If Your Intent Is to Get People To Understand
a Message, If Your Intent Is to Get Them to Walk Away with a Different
Perspective, Walk Away Feeling Connected to Your Organization Or to the
Subject That You Are Communicating, Then There Are Some Prescribed Steps
That You Need to Go Through. What We Have Looked at Briefly Are the Use
of Catchy Titles, Good Subtitles, Excellent Lead Sentences That Are Very
Carefully Crafted to Relate to The Reader, to Pull You into the Body of
the Text. We Won\'t Spend Much Time on the Body and the Conclusion, and
It\'s Not That I Want to Dismiss Those Two Important Elements, But the
Most Important Thing at Hand Today in Our Short Session Is to Get You to
Sort of Grasp ‑‑ to Embrace These Early Stages Of Trying to Bridge
People from Where They\'re at to Where You Want Them to Go and Learning
How To Paint Images with Words with Visual Descriptors That You Have And
Readers Have in Their Common Daily Life Is One of the Easiest Ways to
Take Advantage of the Title, the Subtitle and That First Paragraph.
We\'re Going to Turn You over Shortly to an Exercise That Shows up on
Your Page 48. As You See These on Your Screen, You Will See That
There\'s a Whole List of a Number of Phrases That Describe Some Kind Of
Circumstance. What We Would like You to Do Is To Look at the
Circumstance, for Example, \"Green, Murky Sea,\" Try To Think of a Word
or a Couple Of Words That Are Common Baseline Sort of Familiar Terms In
Our Lives, Something That We Have Around the Household, Around the House
or in the Garden or at Work or at Play, Some Word That We Would
Substitute for Green, Murky Sea That People Would Instantly Relate to
That Condition. Similarly, Rather than to Say 17‑foot Baby Whale, Is
There Something in Our Lives That Is About 17 or 18 Feet Long That We
Can Use as a Word to Suggest the Size of this Baby Whale? And in Terms
of Puffy, Billowing White Clouds, Think of Something That We Might Have
Around the House or You Might See at a Carnival or You Might Somehow See
in the Bathroom as You\'re Putting on Your Make‑up That Would Somehow ‑‑
Could Be Associated with Puffy, Billowy White Clouds. In Each of These
Cases as You Go From Top to Bottom on this Page, Just Write down What
Comes to Mind. Don\'t Labor on Any One of Them. If Something Doesn\'t
Come to Mind Quickly, Pass it Up, Go to The next One, Come Back to it
Later, If You Have the Time, or If You Have an Idea. Okay? Thank You for
Your Great Attention and Participation in This Segment. Good Luck in
Your Exercise. We\'ll See You Again after this Segment Is over.

Straub: as You Can See, There Is a Lot to Consider When Working on
Interpretive Writing. During this First Section You Saw That
Communication Often Isn\'t Easy. Ron Showed You the Five Phases Of
Effective Written Communication, the Catchy Title, The Great Subtitle,
Enticing Lead Sentences, an Interesting Body, and a Conclusion That
Relates Back to the Title, Reader or Closes with a Question. Ron Ended
with a Need to Paint Images with Words. Now We\'re Going to Take a
20‑minute Break and Give Everyone a Chance to Work on the Painting with
Words Exercises on Pages 47 and 48 of the Workbook. Start with the
Exercise on Page 48. Then If You Have Time Do the Exercise on Page 47.
And Go Ahead Fax in the Copy of Page 48. We Would like to Take a Look at
It and Share Those. When We Come Back, We Will Go Over the Exercise and
Hear More About Interpretive Writing from Ron Russo. See You in 20
Minutes!

Straub: Welcome Back to Our Afternoon Session on Interpretive Writing.
Let\'s Take a Few Minutes to Review the Exercise on Painting With Words.
People Came One a Lot of Great Things. The First One Was \"Green, Murky
Sea.\" A Couple People Came up with Pea Soup, Cleaning Solution,
Nauseous Froth ‑‑ Let\'s See What Else We Have Here. There Is Kind of
Some Interesting Things There. Number Two Was a \"17‑foot Baby Whale.\"
\"A Bouncing, Bubbly One‑ton Baby,\" \"A Baby Submarine,\" \"A Boat.\"
\"A Long Station Wagon. I Think Somebody Came up with a \"Cadillac.\" Or
Somebody Even Said Their New Boat Was 17 Feet Long. Number Three Is
\"Puffy, Billowy White Clouds,\" Maybe like Cotton Balls in the Sky,
Cotton Candy, Down Pillow or Feather Bed. Number 4 Is Strong, Hot Dry
Desert Wind. \"A Breeze from Hell.\" \"Steam from My Coffee,\" \"A Hair
Drier,\" \"A Blast Furnace.\" Those Are Some Pretty Good Things People
Are Coming up With. Let\'s Go to Number Five. A Long‑legged Shore Bird,
Maybe Like a Sand Stork. A Bird with Legs like \"Twiggy,\" \"An Ironing
Board,\" \"Walking on Stilts,\" \"A Super Model.\" Someone Even Said
Themselves on The Beach. Number Six, \"Straining Mouth of A Mallard
Duck.\" \"A Screen Door Beak.\" \"Pruning Shears.\" \"A Sieve.\"
\"Cheese Cloth Brought to Life.\" \"Someone Who Quacks about
Everything.\" People Have Got Some Good Senses Of Humor and Good Words
They\'re Coming up with out There. \"A Prickly‑spined Cactus.\" \"Desert
Plant Porcupine.\" Someone Says Their Son\'s Hairdo Sounds about like
That. A Overworked Pincushion. \"Outdoor Mats.\" \"Cucumbers with
Whiskers.\" \"A Bristly Appearance of a Five‑day‑old Beard.\" Okay.
Number Eight Was \"A Mountain Goat with White, Thick Fur.\" Somebody
Said \"My Goat Appeared To Have Been Dressed by Sacks Fifth Avenue.\"
\"A Little White Cloud That Has Bumped into a Cliff.\" \"Someone Wearing
a Heavy Coat in Needles.\" I Suppose from the Needles Folks That
Probably Would Be Pretty Funny, as Hot as it Is There, Somebody Wearing
a Coat. \"Mold in the Fridge.\" That\'s Kind of Interesting One For a
Goat. And Somebody Came up with \"Weaver\'s Yarn.\" Number Nine \"The
Rapid Advancement of Dark Storm Clouds.\" \"A Car Coming up a Drive.\"
\"A Vacuum.\" \"A Giant Shadow.\" \"Day into Night.\" Somebody Came up
with That One, \"Jurassic Park\" for That One. Okay. Number Ten Is \"The
Silent Approach of a Snake Toward a Mouse.\" \"Spilled Liquid.\"
\"Cavorting Garden Hose.\" \"A Stalking Tiger or Cat.\" Number 11: \"The
Keen Vision of An Observant Young Child.\" \"Hawk‑like.\" \"Eagle
Eyes.\" \"Cat Eyes.\" That\'s All We Have for That One. The Last One Is
Number 12: \"The Movement of an Inch Worm or a Caterpillar.\" \"Turtle
Pace.\" \"Clock Ticking.\" \"Clock Gears.\" That Looks like All the Ones
We Got on That One. Some People Didn\'t Get Quite That Far. Let\'s See.
\"Slow Movement of an Approaching Vacation.\" Isn\'t it Always That Way
When You Want to Take Your Vacation Now? Seems like it Will Never Get
Here. Everybody Did Some Wonderful Things There. We Really Appreciate
All Those Faxes We Got. In Ron\'s next Segment He Is Going to Look at
Specific Examples of Plain Words Transformed by Visual Descriptors. Ron
Will Assign an Exercise for To You Complete Before Tomorrow\'s
Broadcast. Let\'s Continue with Ron on Writing Skills for
Interpretation.

Russo: Hi, Everyone. Welcome Back to Our Session on Effective Written
Communication. I Hope You Enjoyed Those Exercises and You Learned
Something. The Sad Thing Is That Because We\'re Not Together, I Don\'t
Get To Benefit from the Wisdom of Your Own Creativity and See Some Of
the Ideas You Had. I Wish I Could. They Often Help a Great Deal. Today
We\'re Going to Look at Some Examples of Words That Can Be Substituted
for Other Words To Create Visual Descriptors, And What I Would like to
Do Is To Show You a Series of Words That Are Being Used for the Word
Ocean. When You Look at the Word \"Ocean\" All by Itself, it Kind Of
Communicates One Thing, but It Leaves Lots of Opportunities, Lots of
Options, for You to Make Decisions about What That Means To You.
However, When You Add Words like \"Calm,\" \"Or Heaving\" it Changes The
Meaning of What You See in Your Mind\'s Eye. For Example, If You Were
Talking About Sailing a Boat Across a Heaving Sea, it Would Suggest to
You That You Were in Fairly Violent Water. On the Other Hand, If You
Said We Were Sailing on Calm, Crystal‑clear Waters, it Tells You
Something Entirely Different. Look Again, However, at How You Change It,
How You Change Your Own Reaction When You Say We\'re Sailing Across a
Bottomless Sea, Or a Bottom Lust Ocean. These Are the Ways That Words
Can Create Visual Images to Completely Change Your Imagery, Your
Connection to the Subject. One of the Favorites I Have That Stands out
Was Not Actually Written, But, in Fact, Narrated In a Movie Documentary
That Showed this Really Incredibly Violent Ocean Where Water Was Jumping
up and down and All over The Place, and the Narrator Used The Phrases
\"This Is the Playground of the Furies; It\'s a Maelstrom of Horrors,\"
and Those Two Phrases Just Glued Me to the Program. I Instantly Had
Someway to Recognize Exactly What That Meant, Even If, You Know, I
Couldn\'t See Well or Had Some Visual Impairment or I Couldn\'t See the
Ocean or Even If I Was Looking Away from the Screen at The Moment, Those
Phrases Instantly Created in My Mind an Image of What the Narrator Was
Talking about. Let\'s Take Another Look at Another Word. Let\'s Look At,
for Example, Cloud. \"Cloud\" by Itself Leaves a Lot Of Room for
Interpretation. A Lot of Room for Your Decisions. But What Happens to it
When You Say \"Dark, Threatening Clouds\"? Or You Change it to
\"Mountainous, Threatening Clouds\"? Or \"Soft, Billowy Clouds\"? Or
\"Boiling, Mountainous Clouds\"? Each Case Creates a Very Specific
Image, and It\'s this Specificity That Helps Us to Relate to the Reader.
It Helps Us to Get the Reader to A Place Where They Instantly Recognize
What it Is We\'re Talking about. That\'s Part of this Craft That We\'re
Trying to Create in These First Three Steps Between Catchy Title,
Subtitle and Lead Sentences. In Other Ways There Are, You Can Create
Phrases That Change the Meaning of Words, and What I Would like to Do Is
to Look at a Series of Phrases Just Around The Word \"Rain.\" For
Example, \"Like Standing Under a Water Fall.\" That Suggests Something.
It Suggests this Heavy, Unending, Solid Pour of Water Over the Top of
Your Head and Shoulders. If You Change it to a \"Heavy Fog,\" \"Or an
Orchestra of Drips And Drops,\" or \"Cascading Drench,\" or You Use
Other Phrases like \"Raining Cats and Dogs,\" Something Everybody Has
Heard Of, Then You Can Get a Mental Picture of What it Is That the
Author Is Talking About. So I\'m Suggesting to You That in These Ways
You Can Easily Create Connections Between Your Subject, Between the
Direction You\'re Going with Your Subject, And the Path That You Want
the Readers to Take. The next Subject Is One That\'s Very Perplexing. We
Usually Tell Too Much. There\'s a New Phrase out There In the World
Called \"Tmi.\" It Means \"Too Much Information.\" You Get That in
Verbal Conversation. You Certainly Get it in Written Form in a Lot of
Different Ways. Well, it Seems to Be the Case That Some Writers Identify
Almost Everything They Know About the Subject as Key to the Story When,
in Fact, Most of it Is Not. What That Extra Baggage Does Is It Clutters
up the Article. It Clutters up the Flow of Movement from the Beginning
to The End. There\'s What We Call Word Junk. All These Extra Words That
Are Simply Tossed in There, Almost As If We\'re Being Paid by the
Poundage of Words Instead of the Ease of Reading and Understanding and
Comprehension By the Reader. The Single Most Important Question Writers
Can Ask as They Go Through the Process, as They Finish the Work: Is this
Essential to the Story? Is it Essential to the Story? When You Are Able
to Ask Yourself That Question, You End Up Sort of Self‑editing. You Are
Throwing Distractions Out of the Way. You\'re Getting Rid of Clutter.
That Would Lead the Reader Astray or Lead the Reader to the Wrong
Conclusions or Simply Get The Reader Confused. In Any Case, You\'re
Threatening Interest. When the Reader Is Lost, They\'re Confused,
They\'re Distracted, They\'ve Lost the Point of the Story or the
Subject, Interest Is Threatened, and at Some Point In the Game, and
It\'s Happened To Me, I Get Three Quarters of The Way Through It, and I
Stop. It Happens a Lot in Books That I Read. So the Task Is to Create
this Compelling, Cadence, this Flow That Moves Very Smoothly, and The
Way to Do That Is to Ask Yourself Routinely, Repeatedly: \"Is this
Essential to the Central Story?\" If it Isn\'t, Get Rid of It. The
Secret to Good Writing Is to Strip Every Sentence to its Cleanest
Components, to its Barest Essentials So That You Allow the Reader to
Actually Read it with Ease and Enjoy the Reading Process So That It\'s
Fun, Not Labor, Not Work. That\'s Not What You Want. You Want the Reader
to Get to The End of it with Some Feeling Of Exhilaration, Some Feeling
of Joy, Or, Wow, I Didn\'t Know That, or I\'m Glad to Know That, Or I
Need to Do this or That, or This Is Something I Could Do at Home. You
Don\'t Want People to Walk Away Going \"Hey, They Lost Me in The Second
Paragraph.\" Mental Stops Are Forced upon Readers When Words Are Used
That Are Either Large Syllable, More Than Five Syllables, New Words That
Are Not in Common Usage in Our Culture, Our Society, Scientific Terms
That Are Not Somehow Defined or Explained. People Run into Those Kinds
of Things in Texts, and They Have To Stop and Instead of Reading
Smoothly, Understanding Each Step of the Way, Each Word in The Path,
Instead of That, They Have to Stop and Go \"Whoa, What Does That Mean?!
\" \"I\'m Confused, Not Sure about This.\" When They Make These Mental
Stops, You Risk Losing Them. What I Would like to Do Is Take A Look at
Seven Ways to Help You Streamline Your Work, Streamline Your Text, and
Actually on Page 50 in Your Workbook There\'s a Series of Seven of These
Things That Will Help Us. Let\'s Start with the First One. Clarity: the
Question You Want To Ask Yourself Is Does this Text Use Modern Language,
Rather Than Jargon or Cliche\'s? Anything That\'s Being Used Today, Some
Buzz Word Today, There\'s No Guarantee It\'s Going To Be Good Two Years
from Now, Or Three Years from Now. So You Want to Make Sure That You\'re
Using Language That\'s Pretty Simple, Basic Language That\'s Sort of
Endured over the Years. Avoid Those Kinds of Buzz Words And Sort of
Cliche\'s of the Time. The next Thing We Want to Look At Is Conciseness.
Is the Text Riddled with Unnecessary Material? The Kind of Material I\'m
Talking About Are Ofs, Theres, Whereupons, Heretofores, Get Rid Of Them.
They Are Not Essential to the Story. Are Paragraphs Short with a Single
Idea in Each One? A Paragraph That Fills an Entire Column That Is Six or
Eight Inches Long Is a Paragraph That\'s Too Long. It Needs to Be
Divided. If There Are Lots of Paragraphs, You Might Look for Convenient
Ways to Break the Paragraphs up With Good Subheadings That Are Bolded, a
Little Larger Type, So That the Reader Can Focus in on That Subheading,
Get Through the Paragraph as One Digestible Piece and Then Move On, And,
Guess What? When Something at the End of the Article Is Not Making Sense
or They Want to Refer Back to It, With Text That\'s Broken up into
Bullets or Subheads, It\'s Much Easier for the Readers to Get Back There
Rather than Read the Whole Thing over Again. The next One Is Actually on
the Next Slide, Number Four, and it Is Sentence Variety. Are Sentences
Varied in Structure and Length? If You Are Your Writing Style Is Is to
Produce Sentences That Are All 14 Words Long, They All Have The Same
Kind of Cadence, after A While What You\'re Going to Do Is Create this
Flow of Seaweed In the Readers. They Will Just Sort of like Get Lulled
to Sleep, and it Threatens, it Risks Their Interest Level, Their
Alertness. So in Order to Maintain the Reader\'s Alertness, Have Short
Sentences Backed up with Long Sentences, Backed up with Medium
Sentences, Backed up with Short Sentences. Never Let a Sentence Go Much
More than about 22 to 25 Words. A 40‑word Sentence Is a Killer. By the
Time You Get to the End Of the Sentence, You\'ve Forgot Where You
Started. So Avoid Those as Best as You Can. The next One on Our List Is
Proper Punctuation. Proper Punctuation Today Is Not What it Was in 1960.
I Hated English Because I Just Couldn\'t Get this ‑‑ All These
Punctuation Rules Right. I Couldn\'t Get Them Right. I Just ‑‑ They
Confused Me. It Was Like, Yuck! So What Happened Was, of Course, I
Launched Myself out of High School with a Fairly Poor Understanding.
Then I Find Myself 10 Years Later in the Middle of a Writing Career and
Having to Deal with Some Unforgiving Editors Who Were Going to Teach Me
Everything I Never Knew about Punctuation. So the Question ‑‑ the Point
I Want to Make with this One Subject Is to Look at Punctuation Very
Carefully. Double Check it with a Peer or Someone Who You Have Some
Trust And Confidence In. Ask and Make Sure It\'s Punctuated Correctly.
Next Is Consistency. That Point on this List Is Important Because You
Want to Make Sure That the Point of the Text Is Clear Throughout, That
The Message Never Gets Lost from Beginning to End You\'re Talking About
How Difficult it Is Nowadays for Whales to Communicate with Each Other
3,000 Miles Apart Underwater With All Those Ships and Vessels And
Submarines and Underwater Sound Orchestras That Are Going On from Other
Research Interests That Are out in the Ocean. So You Want to Make Sure
That The ‑‑ There\'s Consistency from Beginning to End. Finally, Number
Seven, Readability. Is this Digestible by the Average Person Going to
See this Document, this Text? Who\'s My Audience? Where Do They Come
from? What Are They Interested In? Am I Talking to Ph.d. Grads or Am I
Talking to Average Bills And Carols and Bobs and So Forthcoming Through
the Front Door with Their Families? My Suggestion Is to Make Language
Simple and Easy to Access. A Way to Do this Is to Take the Text and Give
it to Somebody, a Friend, a Peer, Your Husband, Your Wife, Your next
Door Neighbor, Your Daughter, Your Son. Ask Them to Read It. Did They
Understand It? What Was the Message? What Was the Point? Was it Clear?
Are You Confused? Ask All Those Questions That Will Give You Excellent
Editorial Clues about Whether or Not it Works. If it Doesn\'t Work, Why
Push it Beyond this Stage? If it Works, Then You Know You\'re on the
Right Track. If People Come Back to You and Say it Is Clear, It\'s
Poignant, It\'s Clean, It\'s Easy, It\'s Fun, I Felt Excited When I Got
Through with It, It\'s Obviously ‑‑ There\'s a Clear Point, Clear
Message, I Know What I Need to Do, Then You Know You\'ve Got Good
Evidence That You\'re on the Right Track and the Chances of You
Producing Effective Written Communication Are Exceptional. So Pay
Attention to These Seven Points. One of the Things That Encumbers This
Process Routinely Are Redone Done Sees, Redone Sees That Somehow Just
Leak Their Way Into Our Writing. Word Creep Is an Illness That Writers
Get That Compels Them to Add All Kinds of Things into the Text. The
Result Usually, Again, Is That the Reader Gets Confused, Gets Lost, Is
Distracted, Loses The Central Point of the Text And Somehow in the End
They Drop The Thing and Move On. So One of the Things We Can Do To Help
Improve Streamlining Our Text to Make Sure That It\'s Clear ‑‑ Clear Is
to Learn How To Get Rid of Some of These Redundancies. Redundancies
Attack Reader Ease And Comprehension. When You Have Lots of Of\'s, Thes,
Wheretofores, So On, You Are Stretching out Sentences That Could Be So
14 Words Long Into Many Words Longer. Be on the Alert for These Things.
On the next Graphic, it Starts On Page 54, There Is a Whole Series of
These. Now, Think about this. If You Were to Say 8 P.m. Tonight,
Doesn\'t 8 P.m. Give You No Other Alternative? You Couldn\'t Say Ate
P.m. This Morning. It\'s Ridiculous. When You Look at an up a to
Determine the Cause of Death, This Is a Phrase Taken out of an Autopsy
Report. Let Me Ask You, Is There Another Purpose to an Autopsy? Does it
Happen in Place of a Bar Mitzvah? No, an Is Autopsy Is Performed On a
Dead Person or Animal. So When You Are Using a Word Like That, Rather
than Junk it Up with All That Other Stuff, Just Cut to the Chase. It\'s
an Autopsy. The next Example: During the Winter Months. It Depends, I
Guess, on What Part of the Country You Live In. Los Angeles Winter
Months May Be Barely Distinguishable from Summer Months, but in Most
Parts Of the Country When You Say Winter You Are Talking about Some
Period of Time Between November and March or April. So One Way to Clean
up Our Writing Would Be to Simply Say During Winter. On the next Slide
We Are Going To See a Series of Other Choices. Let\'s Look at Easter
Sunday. Now, I Got to Ask You, Does Easter Happen on Tuesday? Does it
Happen on Friday? No. It Only Happens on Sunday. So Why Be Redundant?
Just Ask the Question, Easter, Or Make the Statement. When You Say
Something like Owns His Own House. Well, If You Own It, it Has to Be
Yours, Right? So Why Not Say, Owns His House? One of the Things That
Happens In Our Internal Organizational Memos and Letters and Documents,
Our Master Plans, All Those Internal Communications, Is They Are
Cluttered with More Garbage Than You Can Possibly Imagine. Look at this
Final Example. Bob Will Head up the Committee. Well, If Bob Is Intended
to Be The Leader, Whether He Takes it Up or Down, it Doesn\'t Matter.
The Point of the Sentence or the Line Is That Bob Will Head the
Committee. All Right. Let\'s Take a Look at One More Example of Redone
Done Sees and How Easy These Creep in to Our Daily Lives and in Our
Daily Conversation. Look at the next One. Totally Destroyed. If You Are
Destroyed, I Don\'t Know about You, but to Me, it Sort of Sounds Total
and Complete. What about Funeral Service? The Word Funeral Implies That
It\'s Some Sort of a Service, Right? What about Jewish Rabbi? Is There a
Catholic Rabbi out There? Or a Protestant Rabbi or an Episcopalian
Rabbi? I Don\'t Think So. So Simply Using the Word Rabbi Communicates
the Intent of the Word. Cleanly, Clearly. When You Say It\'s Very
Unique, Or It\'s Really, Totally Cool, There\'s Some Stuff in There That
Just Is Clutter. It\'s Unique. It\'s Cool. The Other Words Do Not
Contribute. To the Story. To the Line. Finally, During That Period of
Time. How about Just Saying During That Time? One of the Things That
Seems Important to Me Is Being Able to Write Just like We Talk. More
Times than Not I Have Read Things and I Asked Myself, Who On Earth Is
Writing this? Is That the Way They Talk? Only Once in My Life Did I Ever
Run into Anybody Who Talked like He Wrote. This Was a Geology Professor
in College Who Had the Most Outrageous, Drawn‑out, Impressive
27‑syllable, Unnecessary Language That I Had Met in Any Contact. It Was
Boring. I Fell Asleep More Times than Not Just Listening to this Guy Or
Trying to Listen to the Guy. So the Point I Am ‑‑ I Would Like to Make
Is to Try When You Are Writing to Convert How You Might Say it in Words
Face‑to‑face into Your Written Messages. How Do You Check It? You Write
It. You Get Done with It, and You Just Ask Yourself, Is That How I Would
Say it If the Person Were Standing in Front of Me? If it Isn\'t, Change
It. Not for Your Sake, but for the Reader\'s Sake. That\'s How We
Eliminate the Problem of Talking Down, Talking Up or Talking above
People\'s Heads. What We Want Is Instant Recognition, Instant
Identification, Instant Comprehension. We Don\'t Want to Confuse the
Reader. That\'s Not the Objective. And to Do That, to Avoid That, To
Avoid That Problem, You Really Have to Look at Ways to Speak and Write
Conversationally. How Do We Do this? Give it to Somebody Again. Ask Them
to Check It. Let\'s Take a Look at Some Samples That Will Start with
Terminate. Terminate Is a Word. You Get it in Your Little Pink Slip That
You Get the Day Before You Are Supposed to Depart or The Day of Your
Departure. Your Boss Might Well Fax You This Is the End of Your Career,
But Instead Language like Terminate Shows Up. A Better Word to Use for
Terminate Is End. It\'s Simpler. It\'s Easier. It\'s less Letters.
Another Word, Indicate. What Does Indicate Mean? It Usually ‑‑ Means
Show. How about Prior to Your Departure? Well, Before You Leave, Give Me
Your Keys. Negative Response ‑‑ in Someways That Might Apply, but in
Some Cases You Might Simply Substitute it for the Word No. How about
This, Due to the Fact. Boy, That Sounds a Little Pompous. How about Just
Substituting it With the Word Because? Our next Series of Choices Are
Equally Interesting. Advise. Will You Advise Me? Well, Look, I Know You,
You Know Me, Just Tell Me What Time We\'re Supposed to Get There. Rather
than Utilize, Just Use The Hammer in the Right Circumstance. In Order
That Is Another One of These Encumbered Statements. Very Simply What it
Means Is So That You Can Do Something. Transmit\... Well, an Easier Way
To Say it Is Send It. Finally, We Would like to Ask That You\... Now,
What Does That Mean? It Really Means Please Don\'t Pick the Flowers. How
it Would it Sound If You Were to Say, We Would like You To Please, You
Know ‑‑ or That You Not. Just Get to the Point. Cut to the Chase. Again,
It\'s That Kind of Concept Of Too Much Information, Tmi. Before We
Close, and We Have Some Exercises That We\'re Going To Go Through Later
On, a Series That Will Reinforce These Issues That We Have Just Been
Talking About in Terms of Streamlining And in Terms of Redundancies and
Looking for Ways to Get Rid of That Sort of Stuff, What I Want To Do Is
Reinforce Our Ultimate Objective, Something That Challenges All of Us
When Writing, and That Really Is to Provide Written Information in a
Manner That Attracts the Reader\'s Eye, That Stimulates Interest, That
Fosters Understanding and Greater Awareness, and That, Finally, Moves
People to Change in Perspective, Feelings and Action. That\'s Our
Objective. If it Does These Things, Then We\'re Ahead of the Game.
Perhaps this Best Can Be Summarized, However, by What an Editor Once
Asked Me, and That Was\... \"Does it Get Hold, Teach, Motivate the
Reader?\" If it Does, Then What You Have Written Has Succeeded in
Attracting the Reader\'s Eye, Stimulating Interest, Communicating
Information in a Simple and Understandable Way And Moving People to
Change in Perspective, in Attitude, in Feelings, in Calls to Action, in
Personal Ownership. If Your Answer to Those Is Yes, You Have Succeeded,
and I Applaud You. But These Are the Questions, the Kinds of Things We
Want to Remember to Hold Onto, Because These Will Help Us to Produce a
Much Better Product in the End. They Actually Help You to Avoid A Lot of
Editing Grief That You Might Have to Experience If You\'re with Somebody
Who Really Knows Their Stuff and Is Clued In Keeping the Language
Straight To the Point with the Cleanest, Most Succinct Delivery. I\'ve
Had Some Brutal Moments With Editors Where I Felt Absolutely Devastated.
There Are Ways to Avoid That, And If You Act on Your Own Behalf to Help
Self‑edit Some of Your Own Stuff, You Will Be Ahead of the Process. What
We Have Done in Our Session Today Is We\'ve Taken a Look Briefly at What
it Is That Appeals to Readers, What it Is That Draws Readers into the
Heart of Your Subject. Keep in Mind, Readers Aren\'t in Our Parks or Our
Forests or Our Reserves to Work. They\'re There to Relax, to Play, To
Enjoy Their Time. So Nothing We Give Them Has to Be Laborious. It Should
Be Fun, Enjoyable. We Want People to Get Those Important Messages and to
Get Them in a Way That They Can Walk Away with Them, That They
Comprehend Them, That There\'s Greater Awareness, They Take it Home.
We\'ve Touched on Many Ways to Streamline this Process, to Get Rid of
the Garbage, to Make it As Easy as Possible for Reader To Get the Heart
of What it Is You Are Trying to Communicate in The Simplist, Barest,
Most Essential Components. That Is the Challenge. That Is the Task of
Good Writers, Good Interpretive, Written Documents, Whether They Be
Master Plans, Self‑guiding Trail Booklets, a Brochure an Exhibit Text.
The Idea Is to Write a Message In a Manner That Grips People And Moves
Them to Change. That\'s the Idea. And Now What We\'re Going to Do Is
We\'re Going to Phase into a Series of Exercises That Are Going to Cover
Some of These Concepts. Specifically, We\'re Going to Look at Firsthand
Experience for You to Gain in Editing Other People\'s Junk. In Fact,
What I Did Was I Wrote A Series of Exhibit Descriptions, and I Cluttered
Them up with All Kinds of Extraneous Stuff That I\'m Hoping You Will
Discover and Get Rid of To Shorten the Text, to Make it Easier to Read.
I\'ve Also Provided for You a List of Redundancies, Words That Are
Really Not Necessary. I Am Hoping There You Will Be Able to Come up with
Some Very Simple, Clean Alternatives. And, Finally, in Concerning Our
Subject of Conversational Language, or Simple Language, I Have Provided
a Couple Lists of Some Language That\'s Terribly Starchy and Pompous,
and I\'m Hoping That You Will Then Find Very Common, Easily
Understandable Alternatives That People Will Learn to Recognize And Will
Help Move Them Through The Article. In Closing, What I Would like to Say
Is: Ask Yourself as a Matter of Course \"Is What I Have Written Here,
What I Have Said In this Last Sentence, or in This Phrase, or in this
Paragraph, Does it Propel the Story and the Reader Forward?\" If it
Does, Congratulations, You\'re Doing a Great Job. Thank You Very Much
for Your Participation.

Straub: We Hope You Enjoyed Learning about How to Enhance Messages with
Images That Instantly Relate to the Reader. We Also So Ways to Unclutter
Your Writing, Streamlining, Revealing a Number of Ways to Keep the
Language Simple and Understandable. You Should Also Know How to Spot
Redundancies. You Have Exercises on Pages 51 Through 53, Page 55 and
Page 58 In Your Workbook. Please Fax in Your Exercises. We Will Be
Reviewing Them First Thing Tomorrow. Remember, You Should Provide
Written Information in a Manner That Attracts the Reader\'s Eye,
Stimulates Interest, Fosters Understanding and Greater Awareness and
Moves People to Change in Perspective, Feeling And Action. This
Concludes the Second Half Of Your Introduction to Interpretation Course.
Please Turn to Page 113 in the Back of Your Workbook and Fill In the
Evaluation for Day Two. At the End of the Course, Give The Evaluations
to Your Downlink Coordinator, Who Will Forward Them to the National
Training Center. If You Have Questions or Comments, Feel Free to Fax Us
Today. Don\'t Forget to Fax in the Interpretive Writing Exercises. You
Won\'t Want to Miss Tomorrow\'s Class. We\'ll Cover Interpretive Tools
And Elements of Design. We\'ll Talk with an Interpretive Contractor, and
Visit an Interpretive Sign Fabricator. We Will Start in the Morning at
The Same Time We Did Today and Again We\'ll Be Here on Galaxy 3,
Transponder 21. So Keep Those Receivers Set. We\'ll See You in the
Morning for The Final Day of Our Course. Tomorrow We Will Be Ending the
Course at Noon Pacific Daylight Time. Those of You in Mountain, Central
and Eastern Time Zones May Want to Brown Bag it Because The Broadcast
Will Run Through Lunch Time. Have a Nice Evening and Fax in Those
Exercises. We Look Forward to Seeing Them!

Announcer: this Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.

**Day 3**

**Telecast, May 23, 1997**

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"An
Introduction to Interpretation,\" Course 8300‑07, \"Making it Happen
Interpretively,\" an Interactive Training Course on Communicating with
the Public About Natural and Cultural Resources. And Now, the Host of
Your Program, Renee Straub.

Straub: Good Morning, Everyone. Welcome to the Final Day of Our
Introduction to Interpretation Course. Today\'s Class Will Focus on
Interpretive Tools. As Part of this We Will Be Hearing about the
Elements of Design, We\'ll Talk with an Interpretive Contractor and
Visit an Interpretive Sign Fabricator. Throughout Our Show You Will Be
Able to Communicate with Us via Telephone and Fax Using Numbers Provided
by Your On‑site Coordinator. Can You Send Us a Fax Any Time. Use the
Form in the Front of Your Workbook. Be Sure to Print Your Question With
a Dark Marker. You May Call Us Whenever You Like, but in Most Cases We
Will Only Be Putting Calls on the Air During the Scheduled Interactive
Periods. We Want to Be Sure to Answer All Of Your Questions. So Make
Sure That You Give Us a Call During Our Question and Answer Segments.
Joining Us Today Is Beth Perault, Visual Information Specialist from
BLM\'s Arizona State Office. Good Morning, Beth.

.

Perault: Good Morning, Renee. Thanks for Have Gone Me Here and I Am
Excited to Be Part of the Panel this Morning.

Straub: Beth Has Dropped by To Share Some Design Tips with Us. Thanks
for Joining Us, Beth. Pat Gubbins, Interpretive Lead For Montana and the
Dakotas Is Back with Us Also.

Gubbins: It\'s Good to Be Here And I\'m Looking Forward to Sharing Some
Things on Delivery Methods Today.

Straub: Pat Will Be Introducing Us to the Wide Variety of Options
Available for Delivering Your Themes and Messages. Amy Galperin Is Also
with Us Today. Amy Will Start Things off by Going over the Exercises
That Ron Russo Assigned Yesterday. Good Morning, Amy.

Galperin: Good Morning, Renee, and Good Morning Beth and Good Morning,
Pat and Good Morning to All of You and I\'m Really Excited to Be Working
With You Today on Showing You Some of the Stuff That You Sent In in
Response to the Exercises That Ron Gave Yesterday. Just in a Quick
Summary of What Ron Was Talking about Yesterday, He Talked about How to
Hook Them First, How to Have a Catchy Title, a Catchy Subtitle, How to
Bring Them in with Good Lead Sentences and Then Try to Hold Them ‑‑
Their Attention with the Body of Your Text. But, Really, You Need That
Catchy Title and Then the Ability to Hook Them in First. The Exercise
That Ron Gave You Related to His Emphasis on Streamlining, and He Gave
You All Kinds of Methods on How to Streamline, and You Had Lots of
Exercises All Through the Session. We\'re Going to Look at the Base ‑‑
Basically the Three Paragraphs That You Worked on Overnight and Thank
You for All Your Faxes. They Were Just Really Helpful And Wonderful and
Appreciate Everyone\'s Participation. What I Decided to Do Was Look at
The Faxed Ones First Because That Is One of the Easiest Ones To Deal
with and Then We Will Progress from There. So Let\'s Look at the First
Fax We Will Look at as an Example And this Is from Utah and If You
Remember Ron\'s Paragraph Had a Whole List of All the Things Foxes Eat
and Then Had a Whole List of Where Foxes Are During The Day, and What
They Did Here Is They Simply Took That Whole List and Combined it and
Said Small Animals and Birds and Berries. Combining All That. Bringing
That All Together. Making it Simplified. Then They Left it as Ron Did:
They Are Active in the Morning, Late Afternoon, and Took out Some Words
to Make it Tighter on The Word \"Evening.\" Here\'s Another Example.
Again, They Took All of That Long List and Combined it to Say Small
Animals and Berries and Then That Whole List of When They Are Active,
They Just Said All During the Day, Bringing it Tight, Making it Simple.
Another Example Here. In this Example They Kind of Broadened it out and
Said They\'ll Eat about Anything. That May Be a Little Bit Too Broad.
But Then They Used a Very Cute Way to Bring in the Fact That Foxes
Aren\'t Active During the Middle of the Day. So They Said after They Ate
Everything, They Can Be Seen Taking a Siesta after a Big Lunch, a Really
Cute Way to Do That. It Gets the Point Across, and it Creates the
Picture. Ron, Talked a Lot about Creating Pictures and this Is from Ely,
a Very Interesting Way to Handle That. This Is Another Fax and I Didn\'t
Write Where It\'s from on It, but Here You Have, Again, \"Foxes Eat
Everything They Can Catch and Berries, Too, and They like Siestas,\"
Also Catching on That Word of \"Siestas.\" Very Interesting Way of Doing
And it Really Accomplished the Goal of the Session. Let\'s Look at the
Session, and This Is Ron\'s Example ‑‑ Whoops ‑‑ and Ron Talked about
the Chipmunk and Had All These Words To Describe Where the Chipmunk
Lived and What He Did. How Did Some of You Handle That? In this One,
this Is Also from Utah, They Took out the Second Word Chipmunk, and
Instead of Putting the Scientific Way of Describing the Stripe, They
Said What the Stripe Was. Subtle. Really a Good Way to Do That. Instead
of Listing Habitats, They Combined it and Said Varied Habitats from
Streams to Forests And They Also Combined All the List of What They Eat,
Flowers And Fungi. Excellent Way of Doing That. Here Is Another
Approach. They Left in the Scientific Word For the Stripes, but Here
They Said They Live Almost Everywhere, Feeding on Plants And Insects.
Again, Combining All That Long List That They Had. Let\'s Look at the
Buttercup, Because the Buttercup Was an Interesting One, Because You Had
A Lot of Choices. There Was More than One Subject In the Buttercup One,
and it Was Very Interesting to See How You Organized That. If You
Remember His Buttercup One Described the Plant and Then After it
Described the Plant, it Talked about the Butterfly and Then it Talked
about Pollen. In Ely the Way They Organized It, Instead of Giving All
That Scientific Words for the Flower, They Just Described it in
Pictures. The Fuzzy Stem, Drooping Yellow Flowers You See Here Are
Herlan\'s Butter Cup and Then Left the Scientific Name, Which Is Often
Important in Plants. Then Instead of Just Telling the Name of the Soil,
They Described The Toil. This Flower Grows Only on Acid Forest Soils
Called Podsols. Then You Can See They Started Completely over Again and
Talked About the Butterfly and Related The Butterfly to the Flour, a
Very Nice Technique. As They Brought the Butterfly in Saying it Feeds on
Large Quantities of Pollen Produced by The Flower. In this Example ‑‑
Let Me Zoom In Here ‑‑ You See That Here They Eliminated All the
Discussion on the Butterfly And, Instead, Focused on the Flower, And
Focused on the Flower\'s Pollen. This Is a Perfect Example of How Themes
Can Influence What You Do. They Looked at this and Decided, This Theme
Here Is the Pollen, And So Taking out Everything That Didn\'t Relate to
the Pollen And Focusing Tight on the Pollen, Saying the Pollen Is Used
by Scientists to Determine This Kind of Plants Lived on Earth Millions
of Years Ago. Really Interesting Technique. These Guys Focused on the
Butterfly. The Same Text, Yet They Came up With a Different Theme, and
They Focused on the Butterfly, and Related the Flower to the Butterfly,
and Then Had a Separate Section Where They Focused on the Pollen. So
this Is Really Good Examples Of How Themes Will Help You Decide What to
Eliminate and What Not to Eliminate. The Same Text with Lots of
Information and a Separate ‑‑ They Separated it Out, One Focusing on the
Pollen, One on The Butterfly. When You\'re Working on Your Own Exhibits,
It\'s an Important Point to Look at That Also with Your Exhibits. Have
Separate Paragraphs on Each Of the Different Topics. Excellent Approach
and Thank You All for Sending it In. Really Appreciate Everyone\'s
Participation. Thank You.

Straub: We Did Get One Comment on That Section and We Will Have You Go
over Some of That from Don in the Desert District. He Said, Though We Do
Need to Streamline Our Message, Getting Rid of Redundancies, it Is
Important Not to Delete Descriptive Words or Phrases. He Feels That Some
of the Exercises Force to You Try to Delete Words Which Need to Be
Included, and He Gave Us Some Thoughts or Examples. So If You Have Any
Additional Comments about Some of That That He Came One?

Galperin: Thank You, Don. Actually What Most of the People Did in the
Exercise Was Not Eliminate Descriptive Words, but It Was Really
Interesting to See How People Took Scientific Words That Were
Descriptive to a Scientist but Not Necessarily to The General Public,
and Then They Described What the Scientist Was Trying to Describe, like
the Different Intendors of the Flower, and That Really Added to the
Material Instead of Talking About the Scientific Description Of this
Chipmunk, They Actually Described What That Stripe Looked Like, and
Descriptions And Flowery Words, Painting Pictures Is Something Ron
Emphasized and It\'s Something You Need to Leave In, but You Don\'t Want
to Have So Many Adjectives and So Many Descriptions That the Visitor
Loses What You\'re Talking about In the First Place. So You Have to Find
a Balance For That. So Don\'s Correct in That You Really Don\'t Want to
Lose That Flavor of the Text and the Pictures That the Text Is Trying To
Describe, but You Also Want To Make it Concise, Streamlined And Get the
Point Across. Got to Find a Balance. The Best Way to See If You Have Got
That Balance, Test out Your Text. Take it to Your Friends, Family. Ask
Them What They Think of It.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Interpretive Writing Can Really Be a Challenge, but
it Also Can Be a Lot of Fun. Now That Amy Has Gone over Ron\'s
Assignment, If You Have Any Questions or Comments, Send Us a Fax or Give
Us a Call During Today\'s Interactive Segments. Let\'s Pick up the Story
of Our Team in Phoenix. Yesterday the Team Worked Through Goals and
Objectives, Assessed the Needs of Visitors, Management and the Resource,
and Developed Some Themes for the Site. It Looks like They Are Ready to
Consider How to Deliver Their Messages.

Those Are Some Pretty Good Themes. Now What We Need to Do Is Look At
Delivery Methods and There\'s A Lot of Them. So, Rich, Do You Have Any
Ideas What Would Be the Optimum Method?

I Think it Would Be Great to Have a Full‑time Interpreter on Site
Walking Around Doing Both Formal and Informal Interpretation.

That\'s a Great Idea, Rich, Unfortunately We\'re Not Going to Have the
Budget to Have Any Staff on Site. What We Might Consider Is Using The
Volunteer Host Program like BLM and the Forest Service Use.

What If We Put out a Bunch of Brochures or Maybe Even Created Some
Interpretive Panels, or How About a Video Playing in a Kiosk Next to the
Building with One of Those Touch Screen Gizmo Things?

Some of Those Are Real Possibilities but What We Need To Do Now Is Weigh
the Pros and Cons of Each. Any Other Ideas.

Most People Will Not Be There Long. Whatever We Do, We\'ll Have to Do It
Fast. Maybe the Brochure Will Be a Good Way of Taking the Message On the
Road.

Well, There\'s Lots of Options.

Straub: as You\'ve Just Seen, The Team Considered a Lot of Different
Options That Are Available to Them. Pat, Can You Tell Us a Little Bit
More about the Options That Are Available?

Gubbins: I Would Be More than Happy To. The Options That Are Available
Are Categorized under Fancy Term Called Delivery Methods, and in A
Nutshell, Delivery Methods Are How We Are Going to Communicate Our
Messages and Share Them with The Public. Now, There\'s Two Kinds of
Delivery Methods, There Is Personal Services and Nonpersonal Services.
Personal Services Are Traditionally What We Think of With Hikes.
They\'re Very Interactive. We\'re Talking about Smiling Faces, Human
Beings Dealing with Human Beings. They Have the Advantage of Being Able
to Do Demonstrations and What Is Called Teachable Moments. In Other
Words, If There\'s Something That Occurs During a Hike or an Event,
Could You Switch Gears and Actually Share That with the Public. Now,
Hikes Are Also ‑‑ Have an Advantage of Being Able to Be Targeted for
Different Audiences, and as We Learned, One of Tilden\'s Principles Is
Children and Adults Basically Learn Differently, and Here We See a Hike
for Children. So the Program Is Tailor Made For Them. Living History
Programs Is Something near and Dear to Me. I Really Enjoy Doing Them
Myself. They Add a Realism. They Take Us Back in Time, and We Get to
Experience the Way it Was. Also for Personal Services, They\'re
Associated with Special Events. They Add Drama. This Is a Demonstration
of a Personal Services Indoors. This Is Inside a Visitor Center, But Yet
It\'s Very, Very Active. And, Finally, Environmental Education, Also
Something That I Really Enjoy Doing and Help out In a Routine Basis
Outside of Billings. Now, the Nonpersonal Services, I Don\'t Want to
Give You the Impression I\'m Not Suggesting That They Not Be
Personalized Because We Learned ‑‑ the Messages Have to Be Related to
People, but this Is Where We\'re Talking about Where We Are Not Going to
Have an Interpreter, Person Giving the Program. We Rely on Such Things
as Signs. They Are a Lot less Labor‑intensive of the. And They Offer a
Wide Variety of Options, like Brochures, Audio Official Programs.
Audio‑visual Programs, However, Can Be a Little Bit Costly, but They Can
Add a Lot of Realism. At Our Windy Gap Site in Colorado We Have a Very
Good Demonstration of How to Do an Audio Program That Adds a Lot of
Realism to ‑‑ for the Visitor. So We\'ve Got a Clip We\'re Going To
Show.

Narrator: Welcome to Windy Gap. Wondering How this Place Got its Name?
Well, Windy Gap Is That Opening In the Canyon Walls over to Your Right
past the Dam. The Wind Blows Hard Pretty Much All Day Long Through That
Gap. I Bet Can You Feel a Breeze on Your Cheek Right Now. Another Thing
That\'s Constant About this Area Is the Water. You\'re Standing near the
Headwaters of the Mighty Colorado River and We\'ve Got a Fair Amount of
Water over on This Side of the Mountains, but Folks in the Eastern Part
of the State Don\'t Fare Quite So Well, And That\'s Why this Reservoir
Is Here. Every Spring Some Water That Would Be Heading down the Colorado
Gets Pulled out Here at Windy Gap and Sent Through a Tunnel over to the
Front Range. It Was Back in the Early \'80s Construction Began Here at
Windy Gap. I Can Still Remember the Excitement When Workers Uncovered
Archaeological Remains, Stone Tools, Burned Bones, Primitive Structures.
Why, it May Made News Around the World. The Experts Figure Ancient
People Might Have Built Homes Near Lear as Long as 6,000 Years Ago.
Seems Kind of Strange\...

Gubbins: That Is High Quality. Very, Very Well Done. Now, as I Stated a
Little Bit Earlier, the Audio‑visual Programs Are Very Engaging and
Dynamic. The Public Does Expect High Quality, However, and You Need To
Work with Professionals. Writing a Script Is Not for Everyone. You\'re
Talking Very Technical Type of Work. Storyboarding, Very Technical,
Where You\'re Moving from Scene To Scene and in Each Scene You\'re
Having to Deal with the Title, All Your Goals and Objectives, All Your
Queues. So It\'s Very, Very Technical. Indoor Exhibits Often an
Opportunity to Utilize a Myriad Of Various Services, Delivery Methods,
Where You Can Have Interactive Displays. You Can Also Have Your Personal
Services Inside. 3‑d, They Add Realism. Can You Utilize Historic
Artifacts. You Can Tactile Type of Offerings for the Public. People Love
Study Skins. And Also You Can Have Your Diaramas Which Are Exciting and
Enjoyed by the Public. In BLM We Deal Quite a Bit with Wayside Exhibits
Because We Have Dispersed Recreation Areas, More Often than Not, We
Can\'t Afford The Luxury of Hiring a Lot of Folks to Work with Personal
Services. In Wayside Exhibits, BLM Does Work a Myriad of Different
Materials, and These Materials Can Range from Porcelain Enamel ‑‑ I\'m
Not Going into the Pros And Cons of All of this. We Have a Contractor
Coming on Later, and Jill out of Ecos out Of Boulder, Colorado, That
Will Go into the Pros and Cons of Each of the Various Materials That Are
Used. Porcelain Is Very Colorful, Very Beautiful. It Can Chip out a
Little Bit, But it Can Be Easily Repaired. Another Material That\'s Used
for Color Is Fiberglass Embedded. It\'s Where a Paper Is Actually
Permeated by Fiberglass. They\'re Very, Very Weather Resistant. And You
Can Have Color. You Can Have Photos on Them. They\'re Very, Very
Attractive. One That I Really like Is Cast Bronze. This Is Windy Gap
Again. They Offer the Luxury of You Could Have Raised Letters, Which
From an Accessibility Standpoint Is an Added Benefit. I Think They\'re
Very Attractive, Very Long Lasting, Something That\'s Kind of Similar in
Metal Microimagery. At Least to Me with the Look, But Not the Process. I
Don\'t Want to Mislead You by Any Means. These I like for like Historic
Areas. They Kind of Have a Feel of a Day Gone by like the Old Tin Plate
Process. It Is a Photographic Process, Generally on a Three‑eightths
Thick Material. Also Silkscreening Is Something We Use Quite a Bit in
BLM. You Can Silkscreen on Metal, Paper or Wood. We Do That Quite a Bit,
What\'s Called Medux, Exterior Plywood. We Rely Quite a Bit on the Sign
Shop out of Rollins, Wyoming, And We Have to Supply Them with A Film
Positive When We Ask Them To Assist Us on Putting These Type of Signs
Together. This Has Been Silkscreened on a 3m Product Which Is an
Adhesive Backed Product That Can Go on a Metal Plate or Wood. Once
Again, Very, Very Attractive and Kind of an Historic Feel. We\'re Moving
into New Technology. We Are in the \'90s Now, Soon to Be out of the
\'90s. Computer‑age. Cd‑roms Are Very, Very Popular. These Kids Could
Probably Teach Me a Lot. The Children Are Learning at a Very Early Age
about Computers. But it Is Going to Offer Us a Lot of Versatility in the
Future And Now. This Was an Nai Award‑winning Website from Glacier
National Park, Something That\'s Really Nice on this Is They Did Use
International Buttons on Them. Makes it Very, Very User Friendly. Here
Is a BLM Home Page from Alaska. Now, Also What We Use Quite a Bit Are
Brochures. There Are Advantages and Disadvantages, of Course. Litter
Could Be a Problem from a Downside. From an Upbeat Side, They\'re
Relatively Inexpensive to Produce, at Least in the Scheme Of Things, and
like I Say, We Use Them Quite a Bit in BLM. Interpretive Trails, Yeah,
Can Be Personal Services, but it Can Be Self‑guided Also. A Lot of Times
Either Numerical Posts, a Sequential Story Is Unfolded That Corresponds
to a Brochure, or in this Case Where You See There Is, in Fact, a Trail
Marker. Visitor Centers. Should Everyone Have Them? Absolutely Not. This
Is the Anasazi Visitor Center. Very, Very Well Done. Excellent. It\'s a
Destination Point from a Tourism and Educational Standpoint. Why
Everyone Shouldn\'t Have One? We\'re Talking Major Expenses. Oftentimes
People Get the Money For the Brick and Mortar Type Money, in Other
Words, to Build The Center, but They Run out of Money Before They Can
Put Exhibits In. This Is Coldfoot from the Alaska. Here Is an Interior
View from Coldfoot. Red Rocks, Outstanding Example. It\'s ‑‑ a Little
Bit Unique. Red Rocks, I Think, Is a Little Unique for BLM. It\'s Kind
of a Traditional Larger Visitor Center. Once Again, Very Visited, but it
Is ‑‑ You Know, These Centers Are Expensive to Build and Operate. Here
Is One in Moab. The Interior View. These Offer an Opportunity to Work
with Co‑ops and Partnerships, Salable Items like A Mini Bookstore. So
There Is an Element of Revenue Responsibilities Associated with Them.
Next We Are Going to See the Oregon Trail Here. This Is the Flagstaff
Visitor Center. Outstanding Example. Destination Point for Visitors And
Tourism. Here Is an Interior View of the Same Center. They Have a Huge
Volunteer Program and a Lot of Community Support. Renee?

Straub: Thanks. In the Reference Section of Your Book There Is More
Information And Details on the Things That Pat Just Went over. Now That
You\'ve Seen the Diversity of Delivery Methods That Are Available to the
Team In Phoenix, What Do You Think They Will Choose? Let\'s Return to
the Team and See What They\'ve Decided.

the Touch Screen Videos Require a Lot of Technical Maintenance.

I Agree. Based on What You Have Said, We Are Going to Need to Focus on
The Best Method for this Site.

Looks like We\'re down to Three Options. We Have All Agreed Interpretive
Panels Would Be One. And We Have Brochures and Volunteer Hosts as the
Other Ones. Now the Volunteer Hosts Would Have to Come from the Friends
Group and That Person Would Serve as an Informal Interpreter On Site.
Jack, What Do You Think about That?

Well, I Think Volunteers Are Going to Be Really Difficult to Get. Most
of My People Are Maxed out. The Brochure Holders Will Just Be a Constant
Headache to Keep Stocked, Not to Mention the Printing Costs. We\'ve Got
a Brochure Already, But We Don\'t Know If We\'re Going To Be Able to
Meet Your Demand. I Just Think Brochures Are Going To Be a Real Hassle.

I Think Brochures Are a Good Opportunity for People on the Run. They Can
Pick One Up, but I\'m Also Concerned about the Ongoing Cost of Printing
Them and Keeping Them Supplied out There.

I Have to Strongly Agree with Jack and Kathy about the Negative Aspects
of Brochures. Plus You Have to Consider the Fact of Serious Litter
Problems On the Site, Not to Mention the Hassle and the Issue of Keeping
Those Brochure Dispensers Refilled. So I Say Let\'s Can the Idea of
Brochures. No Pun Intended.

Well, Looks like We\'re in Agreement about the Brochures And the
Volunteers. So That Leaves Us with the Interpretive Panels. I Think
We\'re All in Agreement On That. Okay. Then the next Thing We Have to
Worry about Is Design and Fabrication of the Panels.

Don, Doesn\'t the State Office Have a Graphic Designer Who Could Duty
Artwork for Us? And Could the BLM Sign Shop Do The Interpretive Panels?

Those Are Possibilities, Rich. But the Last Time I Checked with Our
Graphics Artist, She Was Pretty Well Booked. I Think the Idea of a
Contractor Might Be the Best Way to Go. That Person Would Have the
Experience, They Would Have the Contacts, They Could Do the Design and
They Also Would Know The Fabrication Process. The Question Is Whether We
Have Any Money.

We Do Have the Money, but We Also Have Some People Who Are Already on
Contract with Our Agency. I\'ve Seen Their Work, and It\'s Pretty Good.

Well, Contractors Still Require Us to Bring a Lot of Stuff to the Table.
We Have to Provide Text and Research but the Good Thing Is We Have Our
Themes, We Have Our Goals and Objectives, and That Will Help Them a Lot.
So, Are We All in Agreement?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Great. I\'ll Get in Touch with Some Contractors.

Straub: it Looks like Our Team Is Thinking about Developing Wayside
Exhibits and Will Be Needing a Contractor. Beth, What Are Some of the
Things to Consider When Developing or Evaluating a Wayside? Do You Have
Some Good Tips They Can Follow?

Perault: I Do, Renee. As a Matter of Fact, I Have Some Tips on Design
and Layout of a Wayside Exhibit as Well as Brochures. I Will Be
Explaining Some Basic Visual Concepts, Concepts Such As Space in a
Layout, Balance And Position of Elements and Size of Elements as Well as
Text And Color. If You\'ll Turn to Page 61 in Your Workbooks, We Will Go
Straight to the First Visual Concept. Space, the Use of Negative and
Positive Space. To Help You Understand This, Let Me Show You an Example.
In this Example, this Is a Very Good Illustration of Negative And
Positive Space. Let Me Give You a Definition of What I Mean by That. To
Start Out, up in the Right‑hand Corner You\'ve Got a Yellow Band up
There and You\'ve Got a Lot of Graphics Going On, And You\'ve Got a
Little Snake Going down There with the Letters of the Alphabet. You\'ve
Also Got Blocks of Text. These Elements Take up Positive Space. Over on
the Left‑hand Side You Have Some Graphics and a Photograph over There.
Down Below, over to the Left, You\'ve Got an Owl with a Little Tassle
Hanging off. That\'s a Very Good Interpretive Tool. It\'s a Bookmark.
Children Can Take it out and Use It. It\'s a Good Tool to Use for People
to Get Involved in the Brochure Itself. You Don\'t Want to Overwhelm or
Confuse the Viewer with Too Many Things Going On. That Is Why You Need
to Create The Negative Space That\'s Going On. Mostly down There in the
Lower Portion to the Right‑hand Side, A Little to the Left‑hand Side.
It\'s Very Important to Build Negative Space into Your Layout.
Oftentimes People Think That They\'ve Got So Many Things That They Want
to Say That They Don\'t Take the Time ‑‑ They Don\'t Understand That
They Need to Build the Negative Space into That. They Need to Create
Negative Space So That the Viewer Isn\'t Intimidated and Doesn\'t Take a
Look at and it Think, Oh, I Don\'t Want to Look at That, That\'s Too
Much Information and Then Turn Around and Walk Away. You Need the
Negative Space Because You Need to Invite the Viewer in to Participate
into The Piece You Are Trying to Get Across. Let\'s Move onto the next
Visual Concepts. That Would Be Shape and Balance. The Elements Should Be
Proportionate to Other Elements Keeping in Mind Their Weights, Heavy and
Light. And I\'ll Illustrate this with Another Example. This Is Another
Brochure on ‑‑ This Is a Map Brochure, as a Matter of Fact. On the Other
Side There Is a Map. This Is the Text Side. It Kind of Folds down Nicely
Into about a 9‑by‑4 Inch Pocket Map. This Is the Folded Layout of It.
What You Need to Keep in Mind Here Is the Balance of this Layout. The
Fact That It\'s Evenly Distributed. The Elements Are Evenly Distributed.
And It\'s a Traditional Layout, Meaning That It\'s Symmetrical, Meaning
That There\'s Balance on One Side Evenly as Balance Is on The Other Side
and Let Me Talk a Little Bit about Heavy Versus Light Elements. You\'ve
Got a Lot of Photographs On this Layout. The Photographs Are Very Heavy
Elements. They Take up Weight. They Don\'t Have Negative Space In There,
Although There Might Be Some White Highlights, They Don\'t Really Create
Negative Space in There. So They Weigh Heavy. So You Don\'t Want to Have
Too Many Photographs over on One Side and Then a Lot of Text on The
Other Side Because the Text Itself Is Actually Taking up Lighter Space.
It\'s Light in Comparison to the Photographs. So this Is Very Evenly
Balanced, Very Well Planned out. The Simplicity of this Photograph Is
Very Nice as Well And I Would like to Take a Minute to Talk about the
Photographs. Oftentimes People Will Think That They Need to Have
Photographs in Their Layout, and So They Don\'t Really Seem to Think Too
Much about the Quality Of the Photographs. They\'ll Just Pull a
Photograph Out of a File, for Example, That Might Be Five Years Old,
That Might Be Yellowed. They Don\'t Understand That the Quality Really
Needs to Be Good Because this Is What Is Going to Be Inviting Your
Viewer In, and This Is the Quality That the Viewer Is Going to Be
Seeing. So If You Don\'t Have Good Photographs, You Need to Either Go
out and Take Good Photographs Or You Can Purchase Photographs, And There
Are Places Called Stock Photography Agents Where You Can Go out and
Purchase Photographs. You Can Just Give Them a Subject Matter and They
Can Pull out the Subjects That You\'re Looking for And Display Them for
You So You Don\'t Have to Fish Through All Their Slides. It\'s a Very
Good Resource to Use. We\'ll Move onto the next Brochure I Wanted to
Show You. This Is Also Illustrates Very Good Shape and Balance, Although
It\'s Not the Traditional ‑‑ Not The Traditional Layout That I Just
Showed You, It\'s More Nontraditional, I Say That Because It\'s Very
Asymmetrical. It\'s Well Balanced Although It\'s Not Evenly Distributed.
The Elements Are Not Evenly Distributed Throughout the Layout. On the
Right‑hand Side It\'s Kind Of Heavy. It\'s a Little Bit Weighed down.
There Is a Photograph and a Lot Of Elements Going on over There, But
It\'s Offset by the Green Band Going down the Left‑hand Side. Now, this
Is Okay. There\'s a Lot of Negative Space That Helps to Give an Airier
Feel to the Whole Layout in General. I Would like to Say More about The
Text on Here as Well. The Text Is Nice. You Can Tell on the Left‑hand
Side That\'s the Main Body of the Text. That\'s the Primary Text You Are
Supposed to Read. But It\'s Different from the Italic Text That\'s ‑‑
Italic Text Returning down the Band. In the First Place It\'s Running
Down the Band and It\'s Italic And It\'s Offset from the Re:. You Can
Tell That\'s a Sidebar And Even Though It\'s a Sidebar, It\'s Different
Information. On the Right‑hand Side You Have A Caption, a Caption
Describing The Photograph and the Elements That Are Going on over There,
And That Is Definitely Offset by The Fact That It\'s a Different Color
than the Primary Text. We\'ll Move onto the next Concept. That\'s
Position. Elements must Carry the Viewer Logically from One Place to
Another. Let Me Show You an Example of What I Mean by this. This Is an
‑‑ this Is a Nice Layout with Regards to Position. What I Mean by
Position Is That You Want to Follow a Logical Sequence. You Definitely
Want ‑‑ You Want To Be in Control of Where the Viewer Is Going, Where
the Viewer Starts out and How He Is Being Navigated Throughout the
Layout. If He Wanders, You Have Lost His Attention. So It\'s Important
to Keep Him on Track. Over Here You Will Notice Again It\'s ‑‑ It\'s a
Symmetrical Layout. You Know That You Start over up On the Left‑hand
Side and You Kind of Work Your Way down. You Kind of Run into a
Photograph There That Helps to Illustrate the Text as Well as The Text
Is Illustrating the Photograph. So it Takes You down the Panel, And Then
You Just Kind of Start Back up at the Top Again, And, Again, You\'ve Got
Photos to Help Guide You Through the Text. The Text Is Short and It\'s
to The Point. It\'s Very Nicely Done. We\'ll Move onto Another
Illustration or Another Graphic Illustration of What I Wanted to Explain
as Something That You Don\'t Want to Do. This Brochure Is ‑‑ There\'s So
Much Going on Here That You Don\'t Know Where to Begin. The Organization
Is Kind of Chaotic, and the Position of the Elements Are Poorly Placed.
You\'ve Got the Photograph ‑‑ It\'s a Nice Photograph up on the Top
There, but Then It\'s Kind of All Cluttered up with a Bunch of Little
Photographs Thrown in There, and It\'s Not a Good Idea To Use All These
Little Photographs, Because the One Photograph That You Have Is Very
Nice and It\'s Really Covered Up. Almost as Though They Couldn\'t Decide
Which Photograph to Use, So They Just Wanted to Show You Everything All
at One Time. Well, You Can\'t Show Everything All at One Time. You
Really Just Need to Kind of Decide What Is Important and Just Use That.
Up on the Left‑hand Side, That\'s Kind of Where You Start and You Go
down and Then You Kind of Stop at a Blue Box That Talks About
Reservations. You Know, You Don\'t Know If You Want to Go Here or Not.
You Don\'t Know ‑‑ You Don\'t Know Anything about the Place. So You Just
Are Kind of Stopped In Place and it Takes You down Again. You Look at
the Map, and Then It\'s Kind of Like, Oh, Well, You Kind of Move onto
the Rest of The Information. Well, That Is Very Important Information.
The Information down There Is Really What Describes the Brochure. So
this Wasn\'t Well Planned Out, And this Is Something That You Don\'t
Want to Do. Let\'s Move onto the next Concept Of Size. Elements Should
Be Proportionate To the Picture Plain with Respect to Other Elements. I
Will Illustrate this with the Next Brochure. This Is a Brochure Done for
California. I Would like to Discuss Size on This One, Because it
Illustrates Very Well That There Are Varying Sizes, and it Makes for a
More Dynamic Layout. There Are Icons Going On, Recreation Icons in
Black, and They Are Kind of Weighed Heavy Because They\'ve Got ‑‑
They\'re Surrounded by the Dark Black, And Then You\'ve Got the
Photograph down at the Bottom. Well, I Described Earlier That
Photographs Weigh Heavy as Well As the Icons but There Is a Lot Of White
Space in There That\'s Been Created That Makes for a Very Nice Flow. The
Elements Complement One Another and They Don\'t Compete. The Heavy You
Are Weighted ‑‑ Heavier Weighted Elements under Contrast to the Lighter
Weighted Elements. The Text Is Concise and the Negative Space Is Very
Inviting. We Will Move onto the next Concept of Text. You Want to Use a
Small Amount And to the Point. Let Me Illustrate this with Another
Brochure. I Chose to Use this Brochure to Illustrate the Text. I like
the Fact That the Headers Fit the Subject Matter and That It\'s Geared
Toward Younger Viewers. The Text Here Is Nice. It\'s Readable. The Font
Sizes Are Nice. Something I Would like to Say About Font Sizes, That\'s
the Fact That If You\'re Creating a Brochure and You\'ve Got a Lot of
Information or a Wayside Exhibit, off Lot of Information Here, Well,
It\'s Really Important to Cut a Lot of That Information out That\'s
Extraneous and You Don\'t Need. You Don\'t Want to Take All That
Information and Make it Small So That the Reader Can\'t Read It. I Mean,
That\'s Not the Intent. You Really Need the Information To Get Out, and
If the Reader Can\'t Read it in the First Place, You\'re Not Getting
Your Point Across. So It\'s Important to Actually Caught Your Text If
You Have Got Too Much. You Don\'t Want to Use a Font That ‑‑ for
Example, If You\'re Doing a Brochure, I Wouldn\'t Want to Go less than
11 Point or If You Are ‑‑ If You Are Using a Time or Times‑like Font and
If You Are Doing a Wayside Exhibit, Definitely Not Lower than 28 Point
Text, Maybe 26 Point. You Want to Get That Information To the Viewer and
You Have to Take into Consideration the Fact That Maybe Your Readers
Need to Wear Glasses, Maybe They Forgot Them That Day, Things like That.
So Keep Your Viewers in ‑‑ Consider Your Viewers When You Are Thinking
about Laying out Your Exhibit or Your Brochure. Another Good Thing about
this Brochure Is That There\'s an Element over on the Left‑hand Side
with Regards to Tex. There Is a Graphic and You Have The Text That Wraps
Around It. That\'s a Very Nice Tool and Makes for an Interesting Layout.
The Negative Space That\'s Created Throughout the Brochure Is Very Nice,
and the Layout Itself Is Very Simple. Let Me Show You Another Brochure
In Contrast. This Is Another Example of Something You Don\'t Want to Do.
What They Did Is They Took a Photograph, and Then They Laid Text on Top
of and it Reversed The Text ‑‑ What I Mean by Reversed Is the Text Is
Actually The Color of the Background of The Paper. So It\'s Actually
Reversed out of The Photograph, and as You Can See, It\'s Very Difficult
to Read. There\'s Too Much Text. Even If it Wasn\'t Reversed and It Was
on a Solid Background, I Know It\'s Hard to See on Your Monitor, but
There Is Too Much Text Here. A Person Is Going to Take a Look At this
and Say, Boy, You Know, I Am Just Not Going to Bother With this. Their
Eyes Are Going to Reverberate Right off the Page. We\'ll Move onto the
next Concept, Which Would Be Color. Color Should Be Pleasing to the Eye
and Appropriate for its Function, Keeping in Mind That Colors Go Through
Fads with Time. Let Me Show You Another Brochure To Illustrate this.
It\'s a Little Ironic That I Chose this Brochure to Show for Color in
That the Other Brochures That I Showed You Have Been Full Four‑color
Brochures With Photographs and Now That I Have Gotten to Color I Am
Showing You a Brochure That Actually Has Only Used Two‑color And the
Reason I Am Doing this Is I Want to You See and I Want You to Understand
That Can You Come up with Very Nice, Very Pleasing Brochures and
Exhibits, You Can Lay Them out Very Nicely, with less than Four Colors.
This Is a Brochure That I Did For Lake Havasu Here in Arizona. It\'s One
of Those Somewhat like The Other Brochures That I Showed You, a Come of
the Others, Where You Notice There Was Text on One Side and Then You
Flipped it over and There Was a Map the Other Side. Well, this Is an
Illustration of What the Map Side Looks like on This One. What ‑‑ I Want
to Discuss a Little Bit about a Process Called Screening, and That Is
How You Can Get More than ‑‑ an Illusion of More Colors than You\'re
Actually Using. For Example, the Header Where it Says Lake Havasu
Fisheries Improvement Program, That\'s a Certain Purple and It\'s the
Same Purple as the Purple That\'s Below it in the Legend and It\'s Also
the Same Purple That\'s in The Matrix down in the Left‑hand Corner.
Well, What You May Not Understand Is That It\'s Also the Same Color That
Is the Logo in The Background, the Fish Logo That Goes Throughout in the
Upper Right‑hand Corner. The Way That this Was Achieved Was That the
Dark Purple Was Printed at 100% Color Whereas The Logo Itself Was Only
Printed In Say, 10 or 15%, and That Gives it an Illusion of Creating
More than One Color. Actually You Can Print it as Many Percentages as
You Want. So I Could Have Printed More Elements, Which I Did, and It\'s
A Little Bit Hard to See Here, But There Are More Elements on The Page
That Were Printed At, Say, 50 or 60%, and That\'s How You Can Achieve
the Illusion of Having More Color. The Colors Enhance and Complement the
Layout Here and Don\'t Overwhelm It. There Is Very Nice Negative Space.
There\'s Very Nice White Space on The Brochure. The Shape and Balance Is
Very Well Done. The Elements Are Arranged to Complement One Another.
There Are Overlapping Elements. As I Said, You\'ve Got the Fish Logo up
There, and it Bumps into The Text above It, Although Since They\'re
Different Colors, Or They\'re Different Percentages Of Colors, They
Don\'t Intrude With One Another. So You Have Actually More Space To Work
with. And the Text Is Very Readable. And this Is Another Illustration Of
Color And, Again, Again I Have Used Only Two‑color on this Brochure, and
You Have an Illusion of More. There Are Overlapping Elements, But They
Don\'t Intrude with One Another. You\'ve Got the Text down at the
Bottom, Where it Talks about the Awards Breakfast, and That\'s a 100%
Red and above it You Have The Little Dancing Figure Which Was Screened
Back to a Percentage of That Red So You Have an Illusion of More Color
And the Same Thing with the Green Band on the Side. It\'s Just a
Screened Back Version of the Text Where it Says That You\'re Cordially
Invited. On the Right‑hand Side You Have An Example of What a Good Use
Would Be of Reverse Text, Where It Gives the Date of 1996 and Then down
in the Little Postcard Down at the Bottom You Have the Same Thing Where
it Says Mark Your Calendar. That\'s Reversed Text. It Actually Almost
Looks as Though You\'re Using More Colors Than You Really Are, But,
Really, All it Is Is Text That Is Reversed out of the Background of the
Paper Itself. Well, Renee, We\'ve Covered Lots Of Information. Are We
Going to Be Taking Calls Soon?

Straub: I Think So. Those Were Some Good Tips, Beth. In about Five
Minutes We\'ll Be Taking Your Calls. If You Have Any Questions or
Comments for Beth and Pat about The Material They\'ve Covered in This
Segment, Give Us a Call or Send Us a Fax. Beth, Do You Have Some More
Examples for Us?

Perault: I Do. I Have a Couple More Examples of A Wayside Exhibit I Did
for One Of Our Offices, Our Yuma, Arizona, Office for an Area Called
Betty\'s Kitchen. I Put Together Someway Side Exhibits. There Are
Actually Nine of Them All Together and I Would like to Illustrate to You
the Importance Of Working Closely with an Illustrator. This Is a Mock‑up
That Was Put Together by an Artist That I Contracted with. This Is Just
One of the 10 Panels or 9 Panels We Worked With and I Wanted to Give You
an Example of What You Can Expect From a Preliminary Mock‑up from Your
Artist. I Thought That this Turned out Really Well, All in All. There
Were a Come Things I Needed to Have Changed That Just Didn\'t Flow Well.
One Is the Fact That the Header There Is Lower Case and I Wanted That to
Be up and Lower Case. He Fixed That. Also, I Didn\'t Care for the
Circles He Had Around the Birds, The Wildlife over on the Right‑hand
Side of the Panel. I Wanted Him to Take Those out And Add Some of the
Vegetation Of the Area. So ‑‑ Also There\'s the Issue of Color That I
Wasn\'t Real Crazy With. I Didn\'t Really Care for the Bright Colors. I
Thought Something Maybe a Little Bit More Subdued Would Fit the Area a
Little Bit Better. So Let Me Move onto the next Illustration Here. This
Is a Secondary Mock‑up That I Received from the Artist and This Turned
out Much Better. You\'ve Got the Text There That You Can Read and That
You Can Work with and the Illustrations Are a Lot More Detailed. The
Only Fact Is There Wasn\'t Any Color and since I Had Problems with the
Color in the First Place, I Was Getting a Little Bit Nervous, and this
Project Was Really Done on a Very Short Deadline, and I Was a Little Bit
Worried That We Were Running out of Time, and I Just Said, Okay, I Know
That We\'re Running out of Time. Just Do It. And I Just Kind of Said,
Okay, It\'s Yours, Take It, Make it Look Good. So Let Me Show You What
He Ended Up Giving Me and this Is the Final. And this Turned out Real
Nice. I Was Very Pleased with this One, All in All. The Only Thing,
Again, the Color, it Was a Little Bit ‑‑ it Was a Little Bit More than
What I Wanted. I Wanted, Again, More Sub Sued Color, More Maybe More
Earth Tones and I Wasn\'t Crazy with The Blues, but All in All, it
Turned out Pretty Well, and I Can\'t Stress to You Enough the Importance
of Really Keeping up With Your Contractor and Getting Together for
Regular Meetings And Keeping Your Lines of Communication Open. As a
Recap, I Would Just like to Go over this Layout So That You Can Take a
Look at the Different Visual Concepts We Have Been Talking about
Throughout the Show. , First of All, There Is the Negative Space, and
the Negative Space Works Really Well Here. There Are a Lot of Visual
Things Going On, but Not So Much That It\'s Overwhelming, and Not So
Much That it Turns the Reader or Viewer off. The Shape and Balance of
the Illustrations and Text Is Very Nice. It Has a Very Good Eye Flow to
It as Far as Position Goes. The Size of the Elements Vary. You\'ve Got
Kind of a Block of Things Going on over on the Left‑hand Side and Then a
Smaller Block of Things on the Right‑hand Side, and Then up at The Top
You\'ve Got the Text, and The Eye Flow Is Very Good. The Text Works Well
and the Headers Fit the Area. And That Is about It. There\'s One Thing
That I Would Like to You Keep in Mind as You\'re Working on Your
Layouts, And That Is the Fact That it Is So Extremely to Keep it Simple.
You Don\'t Want to Make it Too Complex, Too Complicated. You Want ‑‑ You
Know, You Don\'t Want to Fill up Space with a Lot Of Text. You Don\'t
Want to Fill it up With a Lot of Photographs and Graphics and Line
Drawings. Just Stick with a Couple Elements. Stick with a Couple
Elements, Make it Simple for Yourself and Make it Look Nice. And That\'s
about It.

Straub: Thanks, Beth. We Do Have a Few Questions People Have Come up
with. Let\'s Go Ahead and Take Those. This One Seems to Be a Two‑parter:
What Are the Options to Protect Brochures From Water and Sun. And Can We
Put a Coating on Paper to Provide Protection?

Perault: That\'s a Good Question. You Have a Couple Different Options to
Protect ‑‑ If You\'re Talking about Exhibits, You\'re Talking ‑‑ Then,
Yes, You Do Have Some Options to Protect Them from the Sun. There Are
Different Materials That You Can Put on Top. Again, this Might Be More
of a Question for Pat.

Straub: Maybe They Were Talking about Brochures, Though. Are There Some
Options for Brochures If People Were Leaving Them Outside in Areas, in
Boxes For People to Pick Occupy Tours And Things like That.

Gubbins: They Have Waterproof Paper Because We Have Used in That Our
River System for Brochures.

Perault: That\'s True. It\'s Not Commonly Used to My Knowledge.
Typically Brochures Are Used for A Different Idea than to Have Them
Outside. You Can Have Them Outside, but If You Do Do That, You Have to
Take into Consideration the Natural Elements. Typically Brochures Would
Be Used to Keep ‑‑ by Nature They Are Made of Paper and You Need To
Realize and That Keep That in Mind.

Straub: So There Are Some Things out There but They Need To Do a Little
Research to Find What Might Be Best for Them?

Perault: That\'s True.

Straub: Let\'s Go to Another One: Do You Always Have to Go Through Gpo,
the Government Printing Office, for Clearance On Brochures?

Perault: If You Are Going to Use Color, Then, Yes, to My Knowledge You
Will Need to Go Through Gpo, And, Again, I Work With a Very Talented and
Very Informative Printing Specialist That Keeps Me up to Date with
Things like That, and since the Rules Seem to Change So Much and There
Is Always a Certain Period Of Time from One Thing to Another, Whether
I\'m Working on Exhibits or Brochures or Four‑color or Two‑color, the
Prices Change of the Materials, So I Work Very Closely with this
Printing Specialist to Kind of Keep Me Updated with What the Newest
Rules and Regulations Are. So I Would Suggest That You Talk To People
That Have That Kind of Knowledge, Because They Do Change from Time to
Time.

Straub: Okay. Thanks, Beth. Here Is One for You, Pat. What Is a Diorama?

Gubbins: It\'s a Model Often Found in Visitor Centers. We See Quite a
Bit Where It\'s a Scale Type of Overview of an Area. It Really Helps to
‑‑ in Acclimating and Orienting the Visitor. Where ‑‑ Also It\'s Kind of
like ‑‑ It\'s a Depiction from an Historic Era, Perhaps. I like Them a
Lot, Renee.

Straub: Beth, Someone Would Like to Know, What Are Some Costs That Are
Considerations For Brochures? They Only Have \$1500 to Produce 500
Brochures, to Design and Produce the Brochure, and Also Is it Possible
to Do a Brochure Just Using Their Photocopy Machine?

Perault: Well, Pass Two‑part Question. Yes, it Is ‑‑ You Can ‑‑ You Can
Definitely Print a Brochure with A Minimal Amount of Money. As I Said,
There Are Things to Take into Consideration Such as Color. Can You Use
One Color. It Doesn\'t Have to Be Black. It Can Be Any Color. And Then
in Order to Create More Color, You Can Use a Color Background, a Color
Paper. I like to Advocate the Use of Recycled Papers, Just for
Environmental Purposes, and Just The Fact of I like the Way They Look.
And They Have Come down in Costs. So, Again, I Work Very Closely With My
Printing Specialist, Who Keeps Me up to Date on a Lot of Those Issues.
It Depends on How Many Copies You Want to Have Made. That Will Be a Big
Determination And What Your Costs Are Going to Be. And While as Far as
Printing Them on a Printer, I Stay Away From Doing That. As a Matter of
Fact, We Have Kind of Rules Set in Our Office Where We Just Don\'t Do
That Kind Of Thing. It Depends on How Many Copies You Have Made. If You
Are Going to Make a Significant Amount, Then Taking Tight a Printer Is
Going to Be Cheaper than Printing Them on a Photocopy Machine Anyway.

Gubbins: That\'s a Good Point. Remember, it Reflects on You and The
Whole Agency. So You Want ‑‑ You Want to Strive for Quality.

Perault: That\'s True.

Straub: Okay, Thanks. Pat, Why Don\'t You Give this One A Try:
Specifically What Services Are Available from the BLM Sign Shop?
Silkscreening Only or What Kind Of Things Do They Provide? Do You Know?

Gubbins: Well, You Have Worked Quite a Bit with the Sign Shop Also. I\'m
More Familiar with the Silkscreening, and I Will Tell You, I\'ve Had
Good Results. People Have Done Things Timely. I Think It\'s Something
You Want To Consider. I Don\'t Know If They\'re Doing ‑‑.

Straub: I Some Other Options Are Start to Go Change and I Think Probably
Maybe the Best Option Would Be to Go Ahead and Give the Sign Shop a Call
and See If They\'ve Come up with ‑‑ With Updated Technology and New
Things They Are Going to Offer. Normally We Have Been Sending Them a
Film Positive. So We\'ve Had Someone Else, Either the Graphics Artist in
The States or a Contractor Go Ahead and Lay out the Final Item If It\'s
Going to Be an Interpretive Sign. We Suggest You Call the Sign Shop for
the Latest on Updated Information. We\'ve Got One More. These People
Would Really like To Use Recycled Paper for Their Brochures, but it
Seems like It\'s Always More Expensive. Do You See the Cost of Recycled
Papers and Products Coming down Any?

Perault: Actually, I Do, Yeah. As I Said Earlier, the Cost of Papers Is
Coming down and I Do Like the Use of Recycled Papers And I Kind of Keep
up to Date on That Kind of Thing. So, Yes, Technology Is Getting Much
Better and More and More You Are Going to Have Things Available and
Materials Available to You That Are Going To Be Cheaper than They Ever
Were Before.

Gubbins: There Are Some Nice Textures Coming out with Recycled Paper,
Good Quality.

Perault: Very Nice, Yes.

Straub: Thanks. Those Are Some Great Questions People Came up with. Do
You Have Any Final Comments On Anything Else on Your Talk, Beth?

Perault: Well, Gosh, I Think I Pretty Much Covered It.

Straub: So Pretty Much Those Design Tips, Whether People Are Working on
Way Sides or Any Type Of Indoor Exhibits, They All Kind of Work Really
Well.

Perault: They Do. I Guess I Can Make a Point That We Have Been Talking
Specifically about Wayside Exhibits and Brochures, but No Matter What
the Format Is That You\'ve Chosen, Whether It\'s Going to Be a Poster,
Whether It\'s Going to Be a Booklet, These Design Elements or Design
Concepts I Have Mentioned That I Have Gone into Detail Explaining Can
Actually Be Use Used on Any One of Those Formats. They Are Basic Simple
Designs Can You Use on Anything.

Straub: Okay. Thanks. We\'ll Be Taking a 15‑minute Break at this Point.
If We Were Not Able to Get to Your Questions, We Will Try to Address
Them Later in Our next Interactive Segment. When We Come Back, We Will
Continue to Follow the Progress Of the Phoenix Team. We Will Also Be
Visiting with Two Contractors to Take a Look At the Nuts and Bolts of
Designing and Fabricating Interpretive Signs. We Will Be Back in 15
Minutes!

Straub: Welcome Back. Now We Turn the Discussion to a More in Depth Look
at Wayside Exhibit Design and Fabrication. We\'ve Also Got a Call from
the Sign Shop That\'s Going to Help Us Explain Some of the Things They
Can Do. Let\'s Go to Mary in Rollins. Mary, Are You There?

Caller: Yes, I Am.

Straub: Can You Provide Us More Information on the Sign Shop and What
They Can Provide People.

Caller: First of All, I Want To Mention That about a Year Ago We
Produced a Brochure Detailing All of the Sign Shop\'s Capabilities and
Telling How to Order Signs and about 20 of These Brochures Were Sent to
Every Field Office, and We\'re Really Curious If the People That Need
Them Got the Brochure Routed to Them. If They Didn\'t and Would like a
Copy of this Brochure, Please Call the Sign Shop at 307‑328‑4312 and
We\'ll Get a Brochure to You or Several Brochures If That\'s What You
Would like. The Sign Shop Can Make Several Different Kinds of Signs, and
This Is All Detailed in this Brochure. So I Hate to Go it over Too Much.
But They Do Silkscreening, Heat‑sensitive Sheeting on a Variety of
Materials Such as Plywood, Aluminum, Plastic or Other Special Substrate
Materials, Such as Medux. The Sign Shop Is Also Getting New Equipment
Which Will Enable Them to Do a Lot More, Different Kinds of Things. One
of the New Computers Will Have an Automatic Letter Cutter And They Will
Be Able to Do Four‑color Prints and Photographs and They\'ll Be Able To
Make Their Own Mylars for Silkscreening in the Future. I Just Want to
Remind the BLM People out There That the Sign Shop Is the Mandatory
First Source of Signs, and It\'s Much Cheaper and Quicker to Use the
Sign Shop than to Go to an Outside Contractor for Most Things.

Straub: Thanks, Mary. If People Have Questions, Is There Someone They
Should Address Calls to at the Sign Shop?

Caller: They Just Need to Call the Number I Gave Them. Whoever Answers
up There Can Probably Answer Their Questions. There Is a Staff of Five
or Six People up There.

Straub: That Sounds Great, Mary. We Appreciate You Calling in and
Sharing Those Things with Us.

Caller: Okay. Thanks. Beth and Pat, There Are So Many Things to
Consider. Not Just the Fundamentals of Design, There Are Also So Many
Materials out There to Choose From and Things to Consider When You Work
with Contractors. Some of Our Viewers May Not Have Access to this
Information in Their Agency or Organization. Can You Share Some
Experiences In Working with Interpretive Contractors?

Gubbins: Yeah, Renee, I Would Like to Start out with Shop Around and You
Want to Establish A Relationship with a Contractor. So You Want to Be
Clear on What You Need and See What They Can Do for You. You Want to
Tell Them That You Have a Plan and Probably Share That Plan with Them.

Straub: Okay. That Sounds like Some Really Great Things. Beth?

Perault: Something I Would Like to Say about Working with Contractors Is
That Technology Is Changing So Quickly Right Now That You Think That
You\'ve Got a Real Good Idea What You Want, But I Find it Kind of Fun
and Exciting to ‑‑ since There Is Always Kind of a Significant Period of
Time in Between My Projects, or from One Wayside Exhibit to Another,
That it Seems That Each Time I Get Ahold Of a Contractor They Have New
Technology That\'s Getting less Expensive, That\'s Getting Higher
Quality. So That\'s a Good Aspect of Working with Contractors, Is That
Just ‑‑ Pump Them for Information. They Are So Excited to Give You That
Information.

Straub: So If They Haven\'t Worked with a Contractor, They Need to Talk
with Several, or Call Someone That\'s Worked with Several Different
Contractors And See What Kind of Work They\'ve Done Before They Decide
On What They Should Do.

Perault: That\'s Right.

Straub: Remember the Phoenix Team Working on the Hassayampa Project?
They\'ve Decide to Do Use an Interpretive Contractor. We Thought You
Might Enjoy Visiting with Some Contractors To Find out More about What
to Consider When Developing a Wayside Exhibit. We Asked Leah
Quesenberry, an Interpretive Specialist with BLM In Colorado, to
Interview Two Contractors. As You Watch the Interviews, You May Want to
Use Pages 62‑64 in Your Workbooks to Take a Few Notes or Jot down Any
Questions You May Have to Call in or Fax In Later. First, Leah Visited
Ecos Communication Ins Boulder, Colorado.

Quesenberry: Today I\'m Visiting Ecos, an Environmental Communications
Company in Boulder, Colorado. With Us Is Joe, One of the Co‑founders and
Owners of Ecos. Jill, Tell Us a Little about Your Company.

as You Mentioned, We Are an Interpretive Specialist Company, And We Are
a Team of Biologist, Researchers, Interpretive Writers, Designers,
Computer Graphics Production Folks and Our Goal and Aim Is to Really
Interpret Natural and Cultural Resources to the General Public. I Think
Our Mission Is to Help Bridge the Gap Between Scientific and Lay
Audiences, to Help People Gain a Better Appreciation and Understanding
Of Our Cultural and Natural Heritage and Hopefully Move Those People to
Become Better Stewards of the Environment and Do it in Ways That Are
Visually Pleasing and Graphically Fun Yet Accurate and Balanced. We Work
with a Variety of Folks, Mostly Federal, State, Local Agencies, as Well
as Nonprofit Organizations, Museums, Zoos, Aquariums, Anyone Who Is
Trying To Interpret Natural and Cultural Subjects.

Quesenberry: Jill, Can You Tell Us about Some of the Services and
Products Your Company Could Offer Our Team?

Well, Depending on What Your Needs Are, Because of Our Internal Team of
Researchers and Interpretive Writers and Designers, We Can Sort of Get
Involved at Any Step along the Way. We Have Planners on Board Here, So
We Can Get Involved at the Beginning and Help You with Some Of Those
Planning Questions and Conceptual Develop Ment and Take It All the Way
Through to Fabrication. If, on the Other Hand, You Have Some
Interpretive Specialists on Your Team You Are Able to Bring In, We Can
Sort of Facilitate The Relationship and Work in a Way That Meets Your
Objectives And Needs and Gives Us All a Good Product. We Work in a
Variety of Mediums, Sort of Depending on the Client\'s Needs. Typically
It\'s Interior and Exterior Signage as Well as Different Print
Materials, Brochures, Posters, Trail Guides Or Curricula. When We Are
Working with Visitor Centers, We Incorporate a Whole Host of Media. We
Do a Lot of Interactive Videos and Computer Interactives, Audio
Programs, Sculpture, 3‑d. It Depends on What You Need.

Quesenberry: the Team Has Decided to Develop a Wayside Exhibit. Can You
Give Us Some Ideas on What Would Help You Work Most Effectively with Our
Team?

I Think It\'s Really Critical When Someone Calls Us and Is Looking for
Some Outside Help That They Come to the Table with All Their Cards Open.
I Mean, Our Goal Is to Help You Develop the Most Effective Product, and
for Us to Be Able To Do That, We Need a Really Clear Understanding What
Your Budget, Is What Your Time Line Is and What Some of the Constraints
Are, and I Think Too Often People Feel\... That If They Divulge the
Budget They Might Get a Lesser Product or Someone Might Take Advantage
of Them. I Make the Analogy When I Talk To People on the Phone, It\'s
Similar to Buying a Car. Some People Want to Spend \$100 And Get an Old
Beater Car and it Might Take Them from Spot \"A\" to \"B.\" Other Times
People Want to Spend \$50,000 on a Car, and So If You Can Give Me a
Little Indication What Your Budget Is, Then I Can More Accurately Give
You an Idea Of What We Can Provide for That, And Even Once You\'ve Given
a Budget, Say Your Budget Is \$20,000. Then We Can Work Together Once I
Have That Sort of Framework, and I Can Give You Lots of Suggestions
about How Can You Spend That Budget. I Mean, You Could Spend it More On
Fabrication, or You Could Spend More on Do You Want Black Line Art, Do
You Want Half‑tone Art, Do You Want Full‑color Art? How Tight Are the
Illustrations Going to Be? What Sort of Copy? Do You Want to Incorporate
Tactile Elements? All Those Pieces Together Create The Final Budget, and
If You Give Me a Sense of What Your Budget Is, You Can Still Be in
Control and Consider the Priorities, but I Can at Least Throw out Some
Suggestions of How We Can Work Together to Use That Money Most
Efficiently. I Think Time Line Is Also Really Important. Typically
People Underestimate What\'s Involved in Creating Interpretive Signage,
Both on The Internal Side, Where it Involves a Lot of Reviews and
Depending on the Subject Matter And How Complicated it Is, There Might
Be Several Resource Specialists That Need to Be Pulled in for Accuracy
or Content Development, and Often People Are a Little Bit Unrealistic in
What They Think It Takes, and Then Even on Our End, on the Contractor\'s
End, Often Your Project Is Not the Only Project We\'re Working On, And
So We Have to Be Able to Accommodate Different Schedules And Different
Clients, and I Think the Fabrication Itself Can Often, Depending on the
Medium We Choose, Can Take Upwards of Three Months, and So If You Can
Plan a Good Six Months to a Year In Advance, Then You\'re Going to More
Likely Get the Product You Want. So You Can Take Your Time and You
Don\'t Have to Cut Corners, And You Don\'t Produce a Sign That You
Regret Later on Because You Had to Jump Through So Many Hoops Too
Quickly.

Quesenberry: What Are Some of The up a Shuns Available to Our Team in
Developing a Wayside Exhibit?

Once You Decide You Are Going To Use or Have a Wayside Exhibit, There
Are about Four or So Different Mediums. Of Course, There Are a Lot More
Can You Choose From, but in Terms of Those Proven for Durability and
Long Jeff Tea, it Sort of Comes down to Force Lynn, Embedded Fiberglass,
Metal Microimaging and a Variety of Digital Outputs, and like
Everything, There Are Trade‑offs With Each One. I Think Our Company,
We\'re Not Wed to Any One Fabrication Method, Because We Really Feel
That in Different Situations One Medium Is Definitely Better than
Another. But That Across the Board, We Couldn\'t Consistently Say We
Only Recommend X. So I Think, Again, it Really Takes Having a
Conversation with You, Getting a Better Understanding What Your Site Is,
What Are Some of the Things Happening at Your Site. Is Vandalism a
Potential Problem? If Vandalism Is an Issue, That Will Send Us down One
Path Versus Another. How Important Is Color in Getting Across Your
Message? Those Types of Things. Are You Thinking You Might Want To
Incorporate Photographs? All Those Types of Questions Will Lead Us to
Sort of Recommend One Medium over Another. Porcelain Enamel Is Certainly
The Best Resolution That You Can Get in an Outdoor Sign, Particularly
When You Are Incorporating Photographs, for Instance, on the Spring Box
Sign, You Really Get Nice Detail In the Photographs, Very Sharp, Nice
Detail. But with Porcelain, Some of the Downsides and Some of the
Realities Are That You Pay More For Fabrication than You Do for A Lot of
Other Mediums. Not Only That, but Within Porcelain You Are Going to Pay
More Money as You Add Each Color And as the Complexity of the Design
Increases. Each Time You Add a Photograph, Depending on the Size of the
Photograph, That Will Dictate Price on the Panel as Well as Number of
Colors That You Use. Then Also If Colors Are Overlapping or it Creates a
Trapping Difficulty, That\'s Going to Be More Expensive. With Porcelain,
One of the Biggest Disadvantages, Particularly for a Lot of BLM Sites,
Is Just If a Sign Is Vandalized, It\'s Very Expensive To Replace.
Obviously Can You Save the Cost Of the Films That You Have Generated,
but Unlike Some of The Other Mediums Where You\'ve Got Fairly Cost
Effective Back‑ups, with Porcelain You\'re Almost Starting from Scratch,
And So That Needs to Be Considered Before You Go into a Site and Decide
Which Way You Want to Go with a Medium. One of the Other Mediums We Work
With Is Fiberglass Embedment, And as I Mentioned Before, Everything Has
it Trade‑offs, And Fiberglass Is Partial to That as Well. Eights Great
in Areas Where You Think You Want to Do More than One Sign for a Site or
Where Vandalism Is an Issue and You Might Need to Replace a Sign. It\'s
a Silkscreening Process and So When They Create the First Copy, They Can
Create Five, 10, 15, Paperback‑up Copies at Relative Little Experience.
You Can Keep Those on File and If Something Happens to Your Sign, You
Can Get it Embedded For a Few Hundred Dollars. That\'s Very Cost
Effective. And the Quality and the Resolution of Embedded Fiberglass Is
Superior to Such Digital Mediums That Are out There. One Example Where
We Used Embedded Fiberglass Where it Made a Lot of Sense Was in a Job We
Did with Maine Where They Had About 15 to 20 Sites Where They Wanted to
Utilize the Same Sign And Yet They Wanted to Fine Tune A Piece of the
Sign for Each Specific Site. So What We Were Able to Do by Working with
the Client and Sort Of Understanding Their Needs Is We Suggested a
Full‑color Portion That Was Duplicated 15 Times, and Then We Designed a
Two‑color Side Panel That Was Specific to Each Site. So That Was an
Example Where in Porcelain it Would Have Been Exorbitant, Absolutely
Ridiculous and in Some of the Other Mediums, While Perhaps Costwise They
Could Have Been The Same, it Wouldn\'t Have Been As Effective in the
Resolution. So it Warranted Spending a Little Bit More Money for
Fabrication Because There Was So Many Different Places Where You Could
Use It. Another Medium That\'s Been out There for Quite Some Time Is
Metal Microimaging, and it Has Its Place, Particularly in Historical
Sites or Where You Want to Make Sure the Sign Doesn\'t Overpower a Site,
Which We Feel Is Really Critical and That Again Would Lead to Some of
The Recommendations of One Medium over Another. Metal Microimaging Does
Not Have The Resolution for Photographs Of Porcelain or Embedded
Fiberglass. It\'s More Similar to a Newspaper Quality, Kind of That
Half‑tone Resolution and You Don\'t Have Much Option with Colors. But
It\'s a Nice, Brown ‑‑ There Are a Couple Tones You Can Work In. Again,
it Can Be Effective for Some Sites. It\'s Much More Cost Effective Than
Porcelain or Embedded Fiberglass. The Downside Is it Scratches Easily,
and Although You Can Above it Out, it Takes Someone ‑‑ You Can Buff it
Out, but it Takes Someone Willing to Visit The Site and Buff it Out, and
Once it Gets Scratched Through The Illustration It\'s Tough to Get
Replaced. Some of the Other Mediums We\'re Excited about and Have Been
Doing a Lot of R & D for Years Or So Is Some of the Digital Outputs and
They Come in a Variety of Different Machines. When You Are Working in an
Outdoor Environment, They Are Probably 10 to 15 Different Outputs on the
Market That Would Work. Just to Give You a Comparison, For Some of the
Digital Outputs, They Only Are Warrantied for Say Three to Five Years
Depending on The Orientation and How It\'s Mounted. That Compares with a
10‑year Warranty with Embedded Fiberglass and 25 Year with Porcelain.
Again as You Are Kind of Talking Through Your Budget, You Need to Get an
Understanding of How Much Your Money Do You Want to Put Into Fabrication
and How Long Do You Want the Sign to Last? How Dynamic Is the
Information You Are Interpreting, Those Types of Questions. So the
Digital Medium, the Biggest Advantage There Is That Unlike Porcelain and
Embedded Fiberglass Where You\'re Paying For Each Additional Color That
You Add, and Each Complication You Add to the Sign Costs You Money, in
Digital, It\'s a Square Footage Cost, and So Regardless Of Whether It\'s
a One‑color Sign Or a Full‑color Sign, You Are Going to Pay the Same
Amount for The Output. Now, What That Typically Means Is You\'re Saving
Money on Fabrication, but Hopefully That Freeze up Some Money to Be Able
To Be Used for More Accurate Illustrations or Tighter Illustrations,
More Full Color Illustrations. Often When You Are Working with Porcelain
or Embedded Fiberglass You Don\'t Have the Fabrication Budget to Have a
Full‑color Where as in Digital You Do. On the Two Designs You Will
Probably Spend More on Illustration in the Digital Medium than You Would
in Another. There Are a Whole Host of People Out There Producing Digital
Signs and Again You Need to Talk Through What Your Priorities Are. You
Know, If You Are Going to Incorporate Photos into Your Design, That
Might Dictate Using One Output Versus Another One. Certainly If Outside
Versus Indoor. Once You Move Inside, Visitor Center Exhibits, There Are
Machines You Can Use That Have Better Resolution than Some of The
Outdoor Digital Signs. Things to Be Looking for Are Quality, Resolution,
What Sort Of Warranties They Will Give. Some of the Trade‑offs with
Digital, of Course, Is That the Resolution Is Not as Good as Porcelain
or Embedded Fiberglass. So If You\'re Looking at a Critical Eye and You
Are Compare Two Signs Side by Side, it Will Be ‑‑ You Can Actually See a
Dot Pattern. Also with the Digital, It\'s Not As Tried and True as
Porcelain And Fiberglass and So We\'re the First to Tell People That
You\'re Sort of Launching into a New Area When You Try Digital. One
Thing to Keep in Mind Is That Regardless of Which Medium You Use, Nut
Something Vandal Proof and No One Should Ever Tell You That There Is
Such a Thing as Vandal Proof. If Somebody Wants to Damage a Sign, They
Can. And So If Vandalism Is an Issue On Your Site, Then You Really
Should Consider Which One of the Mediums That You Work with.

Quesenberry: Tell Us Some of The Things That You Do to Make Your Wayside
Exhibits More Accessible and Interactive.

There Are a Variety of Techniques, Even with the Wayside, That You Can
Incorporate to Make the Signs More Accessible and Interactive And
Ultimately More Effective For All Visitor Types, Regardless Every Age or
Physical Challenges or Anything Else. Ultimately by Making Something
Tactile and Giving it a Little Bit of Relief or Dimension, Often it
Increases the Attractiveness of the Sign, Which Ultimately Will Increase
The Holding Power. We Have Employed a Number of Different Techniques to
Try to Get Some Interactivity into Our Wayside Signs. Of Course,
There\'s a Whole Lot More Flexibility When You Are an Indoor Environment
or When You Are Working with a Visitor Center, but up until Recently,
Most Wayside Signs Have Been Two Dimensional and Fairly Flat, and Some
of the Things That We Have Tried to Incorporate Are Just Something as
Simple, for Instance, in the Spring Box Sign, as Simple as Raising the
Photo off of the Panel Itself, Just That Little Bit of Dimension. People
Will Go up and Touch it More than They Do If It\'s Flat. Something
That\'s a Little Bit More Complicated, a Little Bit More Expensive than
Just Doing That Is Maybe Incorporating a Track, or Three‑dimensional Egg
We Have Done for Some Projects. We Create Those Pieces in House And So
We Are Able to Sculpted It and Make it Work with the Exact Project and
Come up with Something Fairly Cost Effective Yet Durable. I Think One of
the Main Considerations When You Want to Increase Activity and You Want
The Gee Wizardry, That Means it Will Need Maintenance. That Means it
Will Need Someone Checking in on it to Make Sure It Is Working. Again,
There Is Nothing More Frustrating for a Visitor than An Interactive That
Doesn\'t Work And Again If You Have an Interactive with Moving Parts or
Mechanical Parts and It\'s Successful and People Are Using It,
Ultimately it Will Break Down and Need Repair. If You Want to Introduce
Some Sort of Tactile Element That Has A Mechanical Part, Whether an
Audio Program or a Moving Piece, Make Sure That There\'s a Little Bit of
Money ‑‑ or Be Ready to Spend a Little Bit of Money on Maintenance down
the Road to Keep it Working. And I Think Our Effort with Some Of the
Wayside Exhibits Realizing the True Maintenance Considerations and Often
the Fact That People Are Given a Budget up Front with Not a Whole Lot of
Endowment down the Road Is to Come up with Ways on the Onset Where We
Can Introduce Some Tactile and Increase the Interaction but Do it in a
Way That Is Not Going to Require a Lot of Maintenance down the Road. And
So Some of the Bronze Tactile Tracks and Little Ways ‑‑ What We Have
Found Is That Although We Say We Are Designing It for More Accessibility
and For Kids, People of All Ages Are Much More Attracted to It. And it
Also Helps Develop Different People\'s Senses. I Think There Are Ways of
Creating Interactivity on Wayside Signs That Are Even More Simple than a
Bronze Track or Something and That Is Just in The Style, the Way You
Write the Text, Trying to Both Increase The Interaction Between a Parent
And a Child, and That\'s Interactivity Right There. If You Can Write in
Such a Way It Will Stimulate a Conversation Or a Parent Is Going to Act
as The Interpreter to the Child, And Also Can You Write in Such a Way
That You Stimulate People Using Their Senses. You Don\'t Necessarily
Have to Introduce the Tactile Element on The Sign Itself, but If
There\'s An Interesting Rock That\'s Right Near By, or an Artifact, or a
Plant, You Can Encourage People Of That Interaction by Stimulating Some
of Their Senses. You Know, \"Look\" or \"Listen for This,\" \"Or Watch
for this.\" There Are Lots of Way to Get Interactivity on the Sign and
Ultimately Make it More Effective.

Quesenberry: in Your Experience, What Are Some of the Elements of a
Successful Project?

I Think for a Project to Be Successful it Has To, First and Foremost,
Really Work for the Visitor and the End User, And, Secondly, and
Probably Equally Important, It\'s Got to Work for You. I Mean, Hopefully
You\'ve Decided That You\'re Doing a Sign Because You Want to Educate
People about A Resource or Maybe You Want Them to Protect a Resource,
and So It\'s Got to Be an Effective Blending of What Your Needs and
Goals Are, as Well as What the Visitor Wants to Learn. I Think for Us,
Personally, as a Company, for a Project to Be Successful, it Has to Do
More Than Just Provoke or Provide Information, That Really to Be
Successful We Have to Move People to Become Better Stewards Of the
Environment and So We Constantly Try to Incorporate Conservation
Behavior Objectives And Conservation Ethics into Our Sign in a Way We
Are Not Preaching but Making People Aware of What\'s out There and Then
Trying to Give Them the Skills So They Can Go out and Do Something about
That.

Straub: Jill Brought out a Lot of Good Points. There Are So Many New
Materials Out There That You Really Need To Research Your Site, Look at
Your Themes, Goals and Your Objectives and Vandalism, and Take All of
That into Consideration Before You Decide On What Material You\'re Going
to Be Using and What\'s Best for That Site. And There Are Some Other
Tips And Points We Would like to Bring Out, Too. Beth, Did You Have One?

Perault: I Think It\'s Important to Use the Fundamentals of Good Design
and Creative Writing.

Straub: Pat, Was There Anything You Wanted to Bring out About That
Video?

Gubbins: Yes, Renee Accessibility for All Visitors Is Very Important.

Straub: Also We Wanted to Let You Know You Can Refer to Pages 93‑95 in
Your Workbooks for More Information on the Materials That Are Currently
out There for Wayside Exhibits. Now We\'ll Visit a Firm That Specializes
in the Fabrication Of Interpretive Signs. But Before We Do That, I Would
Like to Mention That Shortly After this Segment, We Will Be Taking Your
Calls and Faxes. So If You Have Any Questions or Comments for Our Panel,
Jot Them Down and Get Ready to Give Us a Call. Now Let\'s Join Leah at
Grand Visuals in Denver, Colorado.

Quesenberry: Now That We Visited Ecos and Learned about Some of Our
Options for Wayside Exhibits, Today We\'re in Denver, Colorado, at Grand
Visuals to Talk with Aims Fowler.

Welcome to Grand Visuals.

Quesenberry: Aims, Can You Tell Us a Little Bit about Your Company?

Grand Visuals Was Founded About Three‑and‑a‑half Years Ago As a Digital
Imaging Company Specializing in Large Format, And That\'s All That We
Do. In the Process of Doing That We Found That There Was an Area in
Interpretation Where the Products Were Meeting the Need For a Lot of
People Who Needed a Lower‑cost Alternative, and That Was the Niche That
We Were Meeting in the Promotional Marketplace, and So about Three Years
Ago We Started Investigating Ways to Take Digital Imaging Outdoors and
Over the Last Three Years We Have Worked to Break That Barrier for
Decreasing Cost but Also Delivering a Product That Was Durable and Also
Everything That We Do, of Course, Is Full‑color. Basically What We
Realized Was That There Were Different Alternatives for Putting Images
Outdoors, but Primarily They All Had Layers of Things Where You Were
Making Some Sort of a Sticker and Sticking it onto Something and All of
Those Layers React Outdoors, Whether They Either Peel up or the
Adhesives Are Compromised or Where the Protections That Are Required to
Have the Kind of Adhesives That You Need Don\'t Withstand Ink or
Scratching or Sand Blowing or Those Types of Things. So We Concentrated
on Eliminating the Layers and Getting Materials That Would Withstand the
Outdoors and That\'s What Fused Pvc Is. A Result of Knowing What
Interpretation Requires as Far As Human Element Abuse and the Natural
Element Abuse, and Also That It\'s Not a Product Unless It Comes Within
the Budget of Those People Who Need it And, of Course, What Happens
Digital Imaging Does, Is That it Reduces The Pre‑press Costs. So That\'s
What Fused Pvc Is the Result Of, and Actually Fused Pvc as a Product Is
a Pvc Base With the Image Fused into the Surface of it and Protected,
and It Will Last ‑‑ Well, up to Tests Now We Have Been Almost Three
Years Outdoors with Very Little Fade, and the Materials Are Lasting Very
Well. The next Phase Is Being Able to Image into Almost Anything, and
That\'s What We\'re Working on Now, and We\'re Working on Weather
Testing and Long Jeff Tea Testing. A Few Examples of Those Might Be A
Metal Sign Base like this Where it Is Now Thin and Rigid, But Also It\'s
More Durable Long‑term Than, Say, a Plastic Base. I Don\'t Think That
These Products Will Necessarily Supersede the Benefit That Comes From
Fused Pvc, Because it Has Some of its Own Benefits in That This Is a
Rigid Material, So it Reacts in a Rigid Way to Abuses Like Pounding and
the like. But Then this Is, for Example, An Anodized Aluminum Product
Where It\'s Going Right into the Surface of the Assume Number, And
Again, Getting the Quality Digital Image into the Product Without Having
Layers, but Also An Outdoor Material. And Then Other Technologies. This
Is a Luminescent Technology That Will Glow in the Dark, and Building it
So it Will Glow in Color. All of These Things Would Be of No Use in the
Digital World If It Wasn\'t That the Digital Technology Brings Low Cost
to Short‑run Graphics like One or Two Signs.

Quesenberry: What Is Digital Technology?

the Digital Technology Has Broken the Barrier of Having to Go to
Intermediate Films for Putting an Image out to a Destination. That Used
to Mean That Digitals ‑‑ Digital Prints on Paper Weren\'t Going to
Require a Silkscreen Technology or Photograph or Plates to Be Burned in
the Offset Printing Business. What it Means for Us in this Business Is
That for Large Format We\'re Able to Convert an Image Directly from the
Computer Onto the Sign Surface, and the Additional Benefits of That Is
That Not Only Is it Very Quick And Easy to Do the Output, but It Adds a
Lot of Flexibility on What You Can Do with the Graphics, Because We Can
Bring It up and We Can Set it up on The Screen, and We Can Look at What
It\'s Going to Look Like, Backup Then We Can Also Print it Out and Know
That What We\'re Seeing on the Screen Is Going to Look like What\'s on
the Paper. We Can Do Several Iterations Until We like It. Therefore We
Don\'t Get Caught, As Many People Have, Where They\'ve Already Burned
Films, or They\'ve Already Made a Plate and Now They\'ve Got Their Sign
in The Field And, Gosh, It\'s Just Not Exactly What They Wanted. The
Digital Technology Lets Us Do That Because We\'re Able to Take it and
Check it over on the Screen and Make Changes in Realtime Without Having
to Go Back Through the Process. The Other Benefit Is That as More and
More Computers Are Proliferating That People Can Use Them in Their
Facility to Do A Layout and They Can Do a Lot Of the Work That Used to
Require Someone Who Knew How to Operate The Screens or Was Going to Lay
Out the Films, et Cetera. So it Eliminates the Costs of Those
Intermediate Steps and Adds the Flexibility of Being Able to Use the
Computer to Kind Of Get a What You See Is What You Get Look at the Sign
Before It\'s Made. The Time Frame to Response Is One of the Real
Benefits of Digital Technology Because We Don\'t Have to Wait for
Anything To Get Started. It\'s Just like Printing it on Your Laser
Printer on Your Desktop. We Go Through a Very Similar Process. So While
Cost Is Always Going to Be a Factor, Weaver Been Able to Respond
Overnight for Signs That Just Absolutely Needed to Be Replaced Right
Away, to Our Standard Turnaround Which Is Somewhere Between 10 Days and
Two Weeks, Depending on Our Production Schedule. It\'s Never Going to Be
over a Month from the Time We Finish The Artwork until a Finished Sign
Is in Your Hands.

Quesenberry: Take Us Through The Process of Making One of Your Signs.

a Typical Process of Making a Sign Requires the Pre‑press Work, Which
Would Be Assembling All the Pieces and Getting Them Into the Computer.
That Work Specifically Includes Some Digitizing of the Necessary
Artwork, Typing in of Any Typesetting That We\'ll Have to Put in There,
Any Interpretation That Will Have to Go in There, Maybe Computer
Illustration of Something That You Want to Have On Your Sign, and Those
Are Basically the Three Elements That Are Included in the Pre‑press. Of
Those, It\'s Important That The Quality of What Comes in Be
Representable in Large Format Without Losing Any of the Quality That We
Want to See. Traditionally People Have Done Things That Are Going to Be
on a Brochure, 8‑and‑a‑half by 11 and So the Quality What They Were Able
to Put Wasn\'t That Critical. When You Take That Same 8½ by 11 Sheet and
You Make it Large to a 42 by 48 Sign, All Those Things You Didn\'t Take
into Consideration Become an Issue. So Those Things Are Going to Make a
Difference. For Example, If We Take a Stat Of Someone\'s Logo and Just
Scan It into the Computer and Try to Enlarge It, There Might Have Been
Some Dust On, There the Edges Might Not Be Exactly Right, or Maybe it
Just Wasn\'t Ever Meant to Be Big. So We\'ll like to Take Those and
Actually Dress Them up and Make Them ‑‑ Turn Them into True Digital
Artwork That Can Be Enlarged. By the Same Token, If We Take a Photograph
and Bring into it the Computer, We Want to Make Sure That the Quality of
the Scan Is Very High So That the Quality of The Color and the Quality
of the Image Are the Best They Can Be On the Final Product. And What
That Means Is That We Need a High‑resolution, Which Means the Amount of
the Picture We Store in the Computer, and Also the Color Depth Oh Range,
Which Has to Do with the Quality Of the Scanner That\'s Being Used. So
Really a High‑quality Scanner Needs to Be Used. We Can Represent Photo
Cd or Even Some of These Quick Snapshot Photos. They May Not Have the
Resolution Or Color Depth of a Sign You Want to Have out in the Field 3
To Five Years. After We Go Through the Pre‑press Process and Get All
These Pieces In, We Make Sure We Get the Quality in That We Want To
Represent on Our Final Product. Then We Want to Arrange It. We Want to
Go Through the Proving Process to Make Sure That it Looks Exactly Right.
We Want to Provide a Full‑color Proof So That the Color Looks Right, and
Then We\'ll Go Ahead And Image a Sign out of That. It Is Important That
If You\'re Plan to Go Use Digital Technology That You Make That Plan
from the Beginning and That You Work with Your Artist So That They\'re
Aware That You\'re Going to Be Scanning and the Like. For Example, Many
Artists like To Use Pencil. Pencil Doesn\'t Scan Well. It\'s Just Very
Light, and While It Makes an Excellent Piece on The Wall, When We Have
to Scan It In, We Really Need to Make Sure If That We\'re Using Colored
Pencils That the Artist Is Working with Pressure Enough to Give Vibrant
Color That Can Be Captured. If We\'re Putting in Lettering That Really
Needs to Be Read, Then That Lettering Needs to Be High Contrast and We
Represent Penning in That in a Black Pen. These Are Kinds of Things That
Are Important That the Artist Know That We\'re Going to Be Scanning It.
Also, the Amount of Detail That The Artist Is Trying to Represent. We
Have to Remember That We\'re Going to Digital Technology and We\'re
Fooling the Eye. We\'re Taking Four Colors, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and
Black, and Creating 16 Million Colors out Of That. There Are Limitations
That Can\'t Be Represented Exactly from the Original Artwork. So, If,
for Example, We Are Drawing Some Very Tiny Animals Or Insects, We Need
to Make Sure That the Detail Is Very Well Spelled out and Maybe They\'re
a Little Bit Larger than They Would Be If We Were Just Going To Take
That and Put it on the Wall or in a Visitor Center Under Glass. So That
the Graphics Can Be Captured by the Computer.

.

Quesenberry: in Your Experience, What Makes for a High Quality and
Effective Sign?

the Best Signs Come from Good Designs Which Use a Lot of Color That Are
Targeted to Their Audience.

Straub: Ames, Thanks for That Great Presentation on the Different
Things. He Had a Lot of Good Points. Some of That Is That Digital
Technology Is Increasing Access To Full‑color Signs. With the Printers
That They\'ve Bought, It\'s Almost like Having A Desktop Printer. As We
Mentioned, Before the Video, We Will Be Going to the Phones in a Couple
of Minutes. If You Have Anything You Would Like to Ask, Give Us a Call.
So That\'s Kind Avenue Technology, but It\'s Fast. It Takes Minutes Once
All of the Design Is Done for Them to Actually Print That out to Be Able
to Place it on a Sign. Almost like Four Minutes. Beth, Is There Anything
Else You Wanted to Take a Look at That Ames Brought out for Us.

Perault: I Said it Before, Just the Fact That Technology Is Constantly
Changing. It\'s Getting More Reasonably Priced. And I Think That You
Just Need To Get Ahold of Your Contractor, Talk to Them a Little Bit,
Find Out What Works Best for the Individual Project That You\'re Working
On, and They\'re Always Very Helpful. Always Willing to Give You Any
Kind of Information That You Need.

Straub: Thanks, Beth. Pat?

Gubbins: It\'s Important, Renee, to Understand the Limitations and
Capabilities of The Various Products.

Straub: Okay. Though Ames Was a Contractor Who Does Mostly Fused Pvc,
Remember, There\'s a Lot of Other Contractors out There That Do Do The
Rest of the Signing That Jill Talked About, Porcelain, Things like That.
So There\'s a Lot of Things out There. You Need to Check into What\'s
Best for You, the Site and Your Particular Project. Thanks, Beth and
Pat. We Have Do Have a Few Questions You Have Sent In. Let\'s Take a
Look at Some of Those. First One, Someone Asked: How Does Fiberglass and
Porcelain Hold up Against the Sun and Can They Be Used in Direct
Sunlight? Pat?

Gubbins: I Think That\'s a Very Good Question. In a Nutshell, Yes Would
Be a Simple Answer. When Fiberglass First Came Out, You and I Were
Discussing this Earlier, the Photos after a Period of Time Seemed to
Yellow Out, but with the New Technology ‑‑.

Straub: and Even Some of the Colors Earlier Used to Fade in The Panels.
So We Would Almost Avoid Some Colors.

Gubbins: Now Porcelain Signs Have Been Used for a Long, Long Time, and
the Quality of the Color with Stands the Weather.

Straub: I Have Noticed a Lot Of Places, the Porcelain, They Don\'t Even
Bother to Put Covers Over. They Leave Them out in the Direct Sun, and I
Think We Have Places from down in the California Desert Where It\'s Very
Hot, Even Death Valley, All The Way up to the Rocky Mountains Where
It\'s 50 Below, And Some of Those Signs Seem to Be Holding up Real Well.

Gubbins: Oh, Yeah. Good Question.

Straub: Here Is One That Wants to Know If We Can Address Font Types,
Beth. They Want to Know If There Is a Font That\'s Best for Ease of
Reading and Gave Some Examples Like Arial and Universe. Are There Some
Examples We Should Use?

Perault: What I Can Say about Fonts Is There Are Two Basic Kinds of
Faults: There Is a Serif Font and a sans Serif Font. A sans Serif Font
Is a Font like Block Lettering. It\'s Something That\'s Very Simple.
It\'s Easy to Read. Sans Serif Is the Font That Little Tails on Them
That Makes It Very Nice and Easy Reading For Big Blocks of Text, If
You\'re Having a Lot of Information. It Kind of Eases You from One Word
to Another. I Don\'t Really Have Any Set Hard And Fast Rules about What
to Use For Headers or What to Use for Block Text Except That, as I Said,
Block Text Is Better to Use Serif Fonts, but as Far as Headers Go, I
Don\'t Really Think There Are Any Rules about That. You Don\'t Want to
Use Real Fancy, Swirly Types of Text in Like Blocks of Text, but as Far
As Headers Go, You Can Be Pretty Creative and I Think You Need to Be
Sure That the Fonts You Choose, That They Fit the Feel Of the Overall
Panel Itself.

Gubbins: the Swirly Text Kind Of Makes it a Little Difficult To Read.
Sometimes the Letters Seem to Blend Together.

Perault: Right. But Fur Talking about in a Headline Where You Are Only
Going to Have Three Words, That\'s Not Necessarily a Problem And the
Letters Are Going to Be Nice and Big. But That Is Going to Create a
Problem If You Are Talking about A Lot of Text All at One Time And If
It\'s Small.

Straub: That\'s Great. Thanks, Beth. Greg at Escalante Would like to
Know for ‑‑: We Have Books and Handbooks to Help Us Estimate
Construction Costs for Facilities Such as Piggy Tails, Trails and
Campgrounds. His Question Is, How Can We Best Estimate General Costs of
Interpretive Media Such as a Three by Four Fiberglass Embedment Exhibit
or a Two or Four‑color Brochure?

Gubbins: it Would Be Nice If There Was One Book out There but I Haven\'t
Found That One Book That Is a Cost Book, If You Will. However, I Think
If Greg Would Like to Call Amy, I Think She Has a Lot of That
Information in Her Office, and That Might Be Helpful.

Straub: Kind of What I Found Is, it Depends on How Many Colors You Want,
Whether You\'re Going Line Art, Half‑tone Art, Whether You Need True
Color or Going to Hand Paint Something. There Is an Awful Lot of Factors
In That. Once You Know Some of Those Factors and Can Do Some General
Estimations, You Can Get in the General Ball Park, and It\'s Always
Better When We\'re Estimating Our Own Work to Try And Estimate a Little
More than What You Think It\'s Going to Cost So That Way When You Do Go
To the Contract Stage, Hopefully You Have Enough Built in to Go
Whichever Way You Would like to Go.

Gubbins: I Think in the Planning Phase You at Least Have A Feel of Where
You Wanted to Go With It.

Straub: it Depends on What Your Site Is. You Make Sure Things Fit In.
What about Brochures, Beth? Is There Any General Ways We Can Provide
Estimates or Costs or Should We Just Call ‑‑.

Perault: I Think the Advice That You Gave Was Very G It\'s Hard to Give
General Kinds of Advice and Information Unless You Kind of Have a Set
Idea What You Are Looking for. You Are Going to Need How Many Colors You
Are Going to Use. You Need to Know Whether You\'re Going to Use
Photographs or Line Drawings. If You Are Going to Use Line Drawings, Are
You Going to Hire A Contractor or an Artist to Do That? Or Do You Have
Somebody in House Can That Do That for You? So There Are ‑‑ like You
Said, Renee, There Are a Lot of Factors Involved in Something Like this.
So You Really Have to Kind of Narrow it down and Decide What Exactly You
Want, and Then from That Point Go to Find Out, You Know, What Kind of
Costs ‑‑ What Kind of Options Are Available to You.

Straub: Okay. Let\'s Go to Dan in Canyon City. Dan, You Have a Question
for Us?

Caller: Yes. My Contracting Officer Wants a Very Detailed Specifications
for A Contract to Develop a Wayside Exhibit. I Haven\'t Done this
Before, and I Just Want to Know Where to Start.

Straub: Okay. That\'s a Good Question. In Colorado You Are Pretty Lucky.
Down There in Canyon City You Have Leah Quesenberry You Saw on The
Videos Earlier. She Can Answer Some Questions. Also the National Lead Is
in the Colorado State Office, and She Can Provide Some Help There.
Colorado Has Done Several Exhibit Specifications Packages And Are the
Contracting Officer In the Colorado Office Can Get You Some Copies of
Some of Those That Have Been Done for the Byways and Some of Those in
Colorado. Those Would Be the First Places To Check. Amy Galperin
Normally Keeps Pretty Good Packets of Different Types of Things That She
Can Send out Copies Of. So Feel Free to Give Any of Those People a Call.
Does That Help You, Dan?

Caller: That Helps a Lot. I Appreciate That.

Straub: You Bet. Thank You for Calling, Dan.

Caller: Bye‑bye.

Gubbins: That Was a Good Question.

Straub: Here Is One, Kind of About Budgeting: How Can We Let A Potential
Contractor Know What Our Budget Is Without Violating Contracting
Principles? Any Idea on That One?

Perault: That\'s a Good One. To Tell the Truth, That\'s Not My Area of
Expertise. I Go to My Printing Specialist For That Area of Information.
I Would Suggest You Find Somebody That Has That Kind of Information
That\'s in That Field. Again, That\'s Not Something That I Really Work
with All the Time And it Seems to Change Through Time. Prices Change.
Costs Change. You Need to Kind of Talk to Somebody That\'s up on Things
Like That.

Straub: You Might Be Able to Give Them an Idea in a Ball Park Area Where
You\'re Thinking About, Because If You Haven\'t Finished All Your
Product, You May Not Realize That. But It\'s Probably Best to Talk To
the Contracting Officers to See What Regulations Are out There about
Giving That Particular Information and That May Depend on Whether
You\'re Able to Go Sole‑source or If You Have to Just Talk to Three or
Four People to Get Some Bids. But If You Have to Go the Contract Stage
with Specifications, You Need to Talk To Your Contracting Officer on
That and Make Sure What the Latest Regulations Are.

Gubbins: Good Advice.

Straub: the Destruction of Signs Is a Problem. How Do We Solve it and
the Cost To Replace Them? Got Any Thoughts on That, Pat?

Gubbins: Yeah, I Do. I Think One Thing You Might Want To Consider Is
Working with the Community and See If You Could Have Maybe Somebody Kind
of like A Neighborhood Watch Variation, A Park Watch Type Program. Stuff
like That. Do You Have Any Other Ideas, Renee?

Straub: Well, Sometimes for Replacement, If We Think That We\'re Going
to Get a Lot of Vandalism, I Know in Our Area We Have Gone Ahead in Some
Places And Gone Fiberglass Panels and Gone Ahead and Had the Extra Paper
Copies Made or Each Had an Extra One Embedded So It\'s Ready To Go. That
Is Kind of One of the Nice Things about the Fiberglass Panels, Is When
You Go Ahead and Have Everything Laid out and Silkscreened, If You Have
Those Extra Copies Made, it Only Costs Several ‑‑ Just a Few Hundred
Dollars to Have Your Paper Copies Re‑embedded. So That May Be a Lower
Cost than Maybe Other Alternatives. Also I Think the New Fuse the Pvc Is
in That Range of Prices, Too. But it Is Always Determined on The Size of
the Panel.

Gubbins: Vandalism Is Always Going to Be a Problem, So You Are Going to
Have to Consider Budgeting for It, and You Don\'t Want to Leave That
Sign up in a State of Disrepair Because it Reflects on You and the
Agency.

Perault: That\'s True. There Is Something I Would like To Say, Too. I
Worked on a Project Recently Where Vandalism Was a Real Serious Problem,
So What We Did Is We Had it Printed, a Digital Process, Where the
Quality Isn\'t, You Know, Just Perfect, But It\'s Very Good for the
Purposes That We Needed it For, And We Had Duplicate Copies Made Because
the Cost Was So Much More Inexpensive than Having Duplicate Copies of a
More Costly Process Done. So We Had Five Copies of Each Panel Done, and
Then When They Were Vandalized, We Would Just Replace Them. We Had like
a Subsurface That We Would Put on Top of Them That Would Kind of Help in
the Vandalism Problem Itself.

Straub: I Think in Some Areas We Have Also Found That If the Site Is
Clean, You Make it Look Cared For, You Put in Some Signs That Really
Look Nice, That Sometimes Your Vandalism Problem Goes Away, or at Least
Diminishes. So Sometimes the Quality Product Helps in That. If You\'re
Giving the Information Out There That the Visitor Wants, Is Looking
Forward to Seeing, Then They Are less Likely to Vandalize It.

Perault: That\'s a Good Point. That\'s Very True.

Straub: We\'re Going Here on Some Warranties from Joe in California. He
Wants to Know What Kind of Worn Fees Come with Porcelain, Fiberglass or
Fused Pvc and Sort Of Against Fading And/or Chipping. Any Thoughts on
That? I Think Porcelain Does Sometimes ‑‑ Sometimes That\'s Added In,
Sometimes the Companies Provide That, a Year Five‑year Warranty. It
Varies So Much from Company To Company You Would Have to Check on That.
Finer Glass, There Is a Warranty Against Fade ‑‑ Fiberglass, There Is a
Warranty Against Fading. I Don\'t Know Exactly What the Time Line Is. I
Think That Also Depends on the Contractor and Exactly Who Actually
Embedded That Panel for You. And for Pvc, It\'s Three Years For Right
Now, and That\'s Because That\'s How New the Technology Is. It Hasn\'t
Been out There Longer. It May Go Longer Once We\'ve Had An Opportunity
‑‑ Idea on Whether it Will Fade or Not. They Have Good Ideas about That
As Far as That Type of Thing.

Gubbins: I Would like to Add Something, Renee. You Have to Consider like
How Long You Want the Sign Up. I Mean, You Want to Have Something Fresh.
So Is this Sign Going to Be Relative for the Next, You Know, 10 Years,
Five Years, Whatever You Want ‑‑ You Know, However Long You Want Tight
Last Also.

Straub: That\'s a Good Thought. Just Because You\'re like the Micrometal
Imaging Are Known to Last for Years and Years and Years, If That
Doesn\'t Fit Your Site or Your Topic and It\'s Going to Change Sooner,
Then Don\'t Put in That Type of Sign. You May Want Something That Is a
Little Bit Cheaper or Easier to Replace. That\'s a Good Thought. Thanks,
Pat. How Much of the Cost of a Product like a Poster or Brochure Will Be
Needed for Design as Opposed to Printing If I Have Only Funding for the
First Phase, the Design Phase.

Perault: Can You Read That Again? Let Me Take a Look at That.

Straub: Straub I Think That Works with Brochures or Way Sides, If You
Are Trying to Phase in a Project.

Gubbins: You Obviously Have The Upfront Costs of Your Design Work and
Layout. Oftentimes That Can Be More Costly than the Production.

Perault: That\'s True. The Design of the Product Is Really the Important
Thing, and The Production ‑‑ Well, You Know, They Go Hand in Hand. It\'s
Really Hard to Say. It\'s Hard to Say. I Have Never Thought about Giving
it a Percentage Before. That\'s Probably Just a Question That I Really
Can\'t Answer Right Now. I Don\'t Know Because I Do All The Design
Myself When I Do the Design, So I Never Have to Figure in That Kind of
Cost. When I Hire Somebody, It\'s Always ‑‑ We Have ‑‑ We Always Have a
Set Cost or a Set Budget For That and We Just Kind of Say ‑‑ What We Do
Is We Go out to Contractors, and They Send in Their Bids, and Then
Whichever One Comes in Within That Specific Budget, That\'s the One That
We Go with. So It\'s Really Hard for Me to Answer Something like That. I
Guess I\'m Not Really Sure About It.

Gubbins: and Your Bids Would Include Both the Design and the
Fabrication.

Perault: and Fabrication. For Example, the One I Was Just Talking About,
We Went a Cheaper Process Fabrication, but That Worked out Ream Well for
Us Because We Had So Many Copies That We Need to Do Make. We Couldn\'t
Have Afforded to Do That With, Say, Fiberglass Embed Many. So the
Fabrication of That Particular Project Ended up Being less Costly than
it Would Have Been Otherwise. So It\'s Just Always a Give and Take, and
it Just Depends on What Your Needs Are at the Specific Time with the
Specific Project.

Gubbins: and Another Pricing Factor on That Is How Many You Are Going to
Produce.

Perault: That\'s True. Right.

Straub: a Lot of Good Points There. We Have a Comment from the Sign Shop
That They Would like for Us To Share with You. We Are Still Very
Disappointed That Contractors Were Emphasized And the Bureau\'s Own
High‑quality Sign Shop Was Barely Mentioned and Not Given Equal Time. At
the Very Least, a Video Segment Showing the Main Different Types of
Signs Made Here Should Have Been Made. We Miss Add Prime Opportunity to
Promote Low‑cost, High‑quality Bureau Products. If You Have Questions
for the Sign Shop, the Numbers on the Screen, It\'s 307‑328‑4312, and We
Did Show Some of the Products When Pat Went over Some of His Segments
That We Had Available. And Let\'s Go to Our next Question: Can You Make
Last‑minute Changes in Digital Technology Without Increasing The Cost?
That Depends. If They Are Small Changes in Just Color, Probably.
Wholesale Changes, Significant Changes Will Cost. Good Communication
with a Contractor up Front Is Always Essential. So That You Don\'t Have
to Make Those Last‑minute Changes. This Person Would like to Use an
Audio on a Trail. How Do I Find out More on Using Audio Posts and Are
There Solar‑powered Ones. I Can Say Yes, There Are Solar‑powered Ones.
We Did Look into That at Windy Gap, and There Is More Technology Coming
out on Those. There Is Even Wayside Exhibits I Have Seen Recently Where
They Have Embedded the Solar Panel in The Exhibit for Doing an Audio
Program. A Lot of the Contractors out There Can Give You Some
Information. Do You Have Any Shots on Any of Those, Pat?

Gubbins: Well, I Have Seen The Solar Ones Operated Also, And Also
Motorcycle Batteries or Battery Powered, but That\'s Not Really Very
Cost Effective. I Would like to Go Back to the Comment on the Sign Shop.
We Never Really Intended ‑‑ it Was Just the Availability of Being Able
to Videotape the Contractors. We Don\'t Mean to Slight the Sign Shop. We
Want to Encourage Everybody To Go to the Sign Shop and See What They Can
Do for You. Just a Little Plug for You.

Straub: Okay. So If You Have More Questions on Audio, You Might Want to
Give Me A Call Later in Kremlin, Colorado, or You Can Give Amy Galperin
Also. We Can Give You Some Information On Different Contractors and What
We Found out So Far and Used on Our Different Projects. The next
Question Is: Is There A Better Medium for Putting 3‑d On a Sign? I
Don\'t Know Exactly What this Person Was Trying to Ask, but Hopefully
We\'ll Answer That. I Think What Jill Was Talking About in Some of Those
Was Some Of the Bronze 3‑d for Tactiles And Some of Those. There Is a
Variety of Things That Have Come out. There\'s Some Fired Clays and Some
Porcelains, Almost like Tiles, That Are Being Used, and I Know the
Contractors Are Constantly Looking for New Things That They Can Do, and
I ‑‑ it Depends on Where Your Site Is. Up in Colorado We Looked at Doing
Some of the Fired Tiles And They Didn\'t Feel They Would Hold Up, So We
Went for the Longer Duration for the Bronze And That. So the Contractors
Will Work With You for That for Your ‑‑ For Your Site, Your Weather
Conditions, and Those Types of Things. If That\'s Not Clear, You Have
More Questions, Please Give Us a Call, and We\'ll Try to Answer That
Differently for You, or Better. Anything Else? Pat, Beth?

Gubbins: I Think That Pretty Much Covers It.

Straub: Those Were Some Great Questions. Now Let\'s Go Back to the Team
in Phoenix and See How They\'re Doing on the Design for Their Wayside
Exhibits. We\'ll Join the Team in the Process of Working with Doug,
Their Interpretive Contractor.

We Had a Very Productive Meeting Last Time with Doug. I Think We Got
Across Our Themes And Our Ideas for the Panels. We Hope That Doug,
You\'ve Come One Some Good Ideas for Us this Week.

Well, I Got a Lot of Good Information in That Last Meeting And I Have
Eight to 10 Potential Ideas for Panels. What I Need to Do Today Is Talk
With You about What You Are I Thinking of for Specific Illustrations,
Photos and Text. I Have Some Mock‑ups Here I Need To Get Some Immediate
Feedback From So I Can Get Direction Towards a Final Process.

I Think It\'s Essential We Make Sure These Signs Meet Ada Standards So
That They Are Universally Accessible for Everyone.

We Need to Make Sure the Detail and Wildlife Illustrations Are Correct.

I Am Glad to See How We Are Stressing the Riparian Values And I Really
like the Signs.

I Agree. And I Really Think That the Sign Holders Are Really Reflecting
The Architectural Design We Are Using. I Am Excited to See What We\'re
Going to Come up with.

Well, I Think We Got Enough Information for Doug Now. How Do You Feel,
Doug?

I Feel G I Got a Lot of Information Today. I Will Be Sure to Go Back to
the Wildlife Artist this Week and Make Sure the Illustrations Are
Correct. In Two Weeks We\'ll Have the Final Text for to You Review and
Also at Our next Meeting We Will Have the Final Panels to Make Sure
They\'re Correct and Then We\'ll Move onto Pretest.

I Really like the Bat Illustration. Doug, Did You a Nice Job with These
Final Panels. Now It\'s Time to Start Talking About Pretesting These to
See If We\'re Getting Our Message Across. Any Ideas?

Kathy, What Method Would You Suggest for this?

Well, in the past We\'ve Used A Team of Experts to Look at Our Work to
Give Us a Fresh Perspective. We Have Also Tried Focus Groups.

We\'ve Talked about Sending This out to Some Typical Visitors and
Letting Them Give Us Some Feedback.

That\'s Going to Be Difficult, Lori. Remember, We Have More than One
Audience, but I Have a Sister That Teaches in a Local Junior High. I
Could Take the Mock‑ups over To Her and She Could Try Them Out on Her
Class.

That\'s a Good Idea, Rich. Junior High Students Are a Perfect Audience
to Validate Our Message. But Are There Any Other Ideas?

I Think We Have a Very Good Product Already. After All, Weaver\' Looked
at These from a Number of Viewpoints, and Aren\'t We the Experts,
Anyway?

I Don\'t Think We\'re Very Good Test. I Know I Have a Lot of Bias in
What I Have Read. Can\'t We Put the Mock‑ups on Site for a Few Days and
Have Someone out There to Ask for the Visitors\' Reaction? Can You Do
That, Doug?

We Do That Type of Research All the Time for a Small Fee, But I Could
Have Someone out There next Week.

I like Both Suggestions and I Do Think We Have the Money in The Budget
to to the Pretest. So What We\'re Going to Do Is Send the Panels to
Rich\'s Sister At the Junior High Level, Let Her Check That out and Then
We Will Have Doug Do the Pretest on Site. By Doing That this Research I
Think We Will Feel More Comfortable with the Product Before We Send
Tight Fabrication.

That\'s Fine with Me. I Will Have Someone out There in A Week and We
Should Have Results Back in Two Weeks.

this Has Been a Good Process. I Appreciate Your Willingness to Stick
with Us. Next Time We Meet I\'ll Have Doug\'s Results and the Responses
From the Junior High Students. I Want to Thank the Team for Doing Their
Job, And, Doug, Thanks for the Great Panels.

Straub: Joining Me Is Don Charpio, Interpretive Coordinator for BLM\'s
Arizona State Office. Don, We Have Been Watching You For Several Days
Now on Tape. It\'s Nice to Finally Have You Here in Person.

Charpio: Thanks, Renee. It Was Very Much a Lot of Fun. We Just Had a
Great Time Doing Those Segments for the Simulation Exercise and I Am
Very Pleased to Be Here Today And Very Honored. Thank You.

Straub: I Hope It\'s Helped The Students with Some of the Projects
Coming Up. Don, What Are Some of the Things Our Viewers Can Help Your
Team With at this Point in the Process?

Charpio: as You Remember, the Team Has Gone Through the Process of
Working with the Contractor. They Have Gone Through the Process of
Drafting Some Panels And Discussing the Issues Related to Those Panels.
Now They\'ve Recognized the Need To Do a Step Called Testing or
Pretesting. So We\'d like for the Students Out There, the ‑‑ to Serve as
Our Audience. The Students Will Serve as an Audience as Sixth Graders or
Adults as We Look at These Panels in Draft Format. The Pretesting Step
Is Very Important, like I Said. Ownership of the Panels Becomes Very ‑‑
They Become Very Possessive at this Point. The Team Has Worked on These
for A Number of Weeks, Maybe a Number of Months in Some Cases, And as
You Saw in the Video, They May Not Want to Turn Loose Of this. They May
Think They Are the Experts. So They May Not Be the Best Judge of the
Quality of the Panels at this Step. So There Is a Couple of Methods, As
They Mentioned in the Video. You Can Look at the Panels from The
Standpoint of Friends and Family, and ‑‑ It\'s a Very Useful Way to Do
It. Sometimes Our Friends and Families Are Not the Right Audience,
Though. Another Way of Doing this Is to Use Focus Groups. A Lot of
Market Research Firms Have Gathered Focus Groups or Small Groups Which
They Pay to Analyze Various Products. In this Case, They Could Easily
Take this Panel to a Focus Group Would That Meet Your Demographics. But
If You Have\' Come up with a Wayside Exhibit or Panels, the Group Has
Set a Methodology That Will Be Very Useful, the Methodology of Putting
Them on Place and Observing Your Audience or Talking to Your Audience.
This Is Very Inexpensive and Can Be Sun Very Quickly. You Don\'t Have to
Spend a Lot of Time or Money on this. But it Is Important to Do. Another
Opportunity Is If You Have a Captive Audience like You Out There, We Can
Always Make This an Assignment, and So That\'s What We Did, Renee. If
You Look on Page 67 Through 72 in Your Workbook, You\'ll Find That We
Have Information Relative to Two Panels. The Two Panels Are Provided,
and We Have Provided Them on Page 69. There Is a Black and White
Illustration of the Mesquite Panel, Which Is in Color on Your Screen at
this Time. It\'s Called \"Mesquite\... More Than a Good Barbecue.\" On
Page 72 You Will Find a Panel Called \"Tammy Whacking.\" It\'s Also a
Black and White Illustration of What Is on Your Screen. The Text for
this Panel Is on Pages 70 and 71 So You Might Go Through it as Part of
the Exercise. Now Let\'s Talk about the Exercise. The Exercise Is
Actually on Page 67 in Your Workbook, and it Has Four Components. We\'d
like You to Do this Exercise as a Group, and the Four Components We
Would like For You to Look at Goes Back to What You Have Observed over
the Past Three Days, and That Is, The First One Is Themes. If You
Remember Sam Ham to Who Talked about Themes Had a Number Of Points He
Wanted to Bring Out. Do the Panels Relate to the General Theme of this
Site? Can You Find a Clear Theme Reflected in Each of the Panels? Do the
Panel Titles Capture Your Audience and Provoke Interest? The Second
Aspect We\'d like to See You Evaluate Is Content. If You Remember Amy\'s
Presentation about the Principles of Interpretation: Is the Content
Appropriate for The Audience? Would a Junior High Student Understand the
Cob Tent? Is the Content Appropriate to The Panel\'s Theme and Title?
Does the Content Reveal, Provoke Or Provide a Sense Of, \"Aha\"? Does it
Answer Interpretive Questions or Answer Questions The Visitors Might
Have? Is it Memorable? The Third Aspect Relates to Beth\'s Work, and the
Idea of Visual Aspects, Graphic Quality And Layout. Do the Layouts
Indicate a Sense Of Balance? Good Spacing? Do They Have Good Negative
and Positive Space? Are the Colors Appropriate for The Site, the Subject
and the Audience? Are the Panels Eye‑catching? Will They Draw You to
Them? Do the Colors Have ‑‑ or Convey A Message? Is the Text Laid out in
an Interesting Way? And Is it Positioned and Has Appropriate Size? The
Fourth Element We Want You To Look at Is Text, and You Remember, Ron
Russo\'s Presentation on Text, We\'re Looking for the Quality of the
Interpretive Writing Here. Is There Economy in the Use of Words? Does
the Text Use Words That Paint a Picture, Provoke a Feeling, or Provide
an Image That the Audience Can Relate To? So, as We Look at These
Exercises, We Again Remind to You Look at Them as a Group. Think about
the Principles You Learned over the past Three Days, and Work Together
to Come Up with the Answers to Those Questions or Any Other Aspect That
You Might Feel Is Important To Bring out. We Do Not Have a Lot of
Ownership in this Project. We Will Not Be Offended by Your Comments. We
Hope That You Will Take Your Personal Knowledge, Based upon The past
Three Days, and Give Us A Goody Valuation of These Panels. Renee, If
You\'ll Let Them Know How We\'re Going to Do This, I Would Appreciate
It.

Straub: You Bet. Thanks, Don. Now We Will Take a Working Break And Give
You 30 Minutes to Complete the Exercise. As Don Mentioned, the Panels
Are Part of the Exercise That Will Be on Your Screen During the Break.
Near the End of the Break We Will Be Calling Some BLM Downlink Sites So
They Can Share Their Evaluations of the Two Panel Designs. Feel Free to
Call or Fax with Us Your Evaluations. Good Luck on Your Assignment!

Straub: Welcome Back to the Final Segment of Your Introduction to
Interpretation Course. Back with Me Now to Help Review The Last Exercise
and to Wrap up What We Have Covered of the Last Three Days Is Our Panel
of Interpretive Experts. Amy Galperin, Well Cull Back.

Galperin: Thank You, Renee. Great to Be Here and Looking Forward to
Going over the Exercise and Hearing What Everyone\'s Feedback Is from
People Outside Watching In.

Straub: We\'d Also like to Well Coming Back Pat Gubbins. Pat?

Gubbins: Thanks a Lot, Renee. I Have to Agree with Amy. I Have Had a Lot
of Fun Doing This Program and Distance Learning. I Think We\'ve Had a
Good Responses and the Questions Are Very, Very Interesting and
Relevant.

Straub: Thanks, Pat. Rich Ray, Good to Have You Back Today Also.

Ray: Thanks, Renee. I Have Had a Lot of Fun as Well And I Have Enjoyed
the Broadcast And Helping out Behind the Scenes as Much as I Can.

Straub: Thanks, Rich. Beth Perault, Welcome Back.

Perault: Thank You, Renee. I Am Glad to Be Here. It\'s Been a Real
Educational Experience and I\'m Having a Good Time Doing the Show.

Straub: Don Charpio Is Also Back with Us. Don?

Charpio: I Also Want to Echo What Beth Said. This Has Been an
Educational Experience for Me and I Have Been in Interpretation for a
Number of Years. I Think It\'s Been a Good Broadcast and I Hope People
Feel The Same Way.

Straub: Are We Ready to Go to The Phones at this Point to Review the
Evaluations on the Panels?

Charpio: I\'m Ready.

Straub: Our First Call Is Lined up and We Have Mona and The Team in Palm
Springs. Mona?

Caller: I\'m Here. We Kind of Had a Hard Time Hearing You. You Are Real
Soft. We Were Going to Talk about the Two Different Panels. We Reviewed
this Last Night, and When We Looked at Them We Thought, You Got to Throw
Away Panel 1. We Thought Hit a Great, Catchy Title, but That Was about
as Far As it Went. We Found That it Didn\'t Flow, That the Message
Itself Was Rather Mixed Up. We Thought That the Sign Would Probably Be
Too Small, Too Low. We Kept Thinking, Well, the Size ‑‑ the Smallness of
the Size, You Would Have People That Would Have to Crowd in on Each
Other In Order to Read It, and People Just Don\'t like Doing That. We
Just Didn\'t like It. When We Went to Panel 2, it Flowed Both by
Reading, You Know, the ‑‑ All the Text, it Just Flowed. There Was No
Doubt about It. We Didn\'t Find Any Language That We Thought Needed
Improving. The Sign We Thought Would Be of The Appropriate Size. After
You Showed the Signs on The Television and We Saw the Coloring, We Liked
it Even More. It Was Great. We Just Didn\'t Find Anything Wrong with It.
We Only Had One Thing That We Came up with Between the Two, And That Was
Neither One of Them Actually Stated What a Riparian Zone Actually Was.
I\'m Involved with a Group of Students, and I Said Something About
Riparian to Them, and Only About 25% of the Students Could ‑‑ Actually
Knew What a Riparian Zone Was, and That\'s College. So I Thought, You
Know, That Need to Do Really Be Explained. That Was about What We Came
up With.

Straub: Any Thoughts to Help Them Out, Don?

Charpio: Yes, Renee. I Think the First Thing Everyone Needs to Remember
as You\'re Doing this Is That These Are Works of Art to Some People, and
So Consequently, Everybody\'s Opinion Is Valued. It\'s Not Just a Right
Way to Do It. The Same Thing with the Interpretive Text. If It\'s
Creative Text, If It\'s Written in Certain Ways, it May Be More Appeal
to Go Some Audiences than Others. So We Really Value Your Opinions And
You Can See the Importance Of Testing this. There Are Some Elements That
We\'ll Bring out as We Look at These Panels That May Change Your Mind
and May Not. But You Brought out Some Very Interesting Points and I
Think Ones That the Team Ought to Take To Heart. Especially Your Point
about the Jargon, the Riparian. Amy Mentioned this Early On. We All Know
That We Tend to at Our Own Level Sometimes and Don\'t Think about That
Sixth Grade Audience Sometimes. Those Were Very Good Points. Thank You
for Calling.

Straub: Thanks. We Appreciate It.

Caller: Thank You.

Straub: We Have Nancy in Worland. Nancy?

Caller: Hi.

Straub: Hi. Would You like to Share Your Comments of Your Team with Us?

Caller: Yes. On Panel Number 1, I Also Felt That this Was Too Small, and
I Don\'t Know That Mounting it on The Fence Railing Was a Real Good
Idea, but There must Have Been a Management Decision Behind That, Why
They Couldn\'t Just Mount it in a Regular Stand. But I Felt like the
Size Was Too Small. I Felt That it Has a Provocative Title That Really
Pulls the Reader in to Read More. There\'s No Message Pyramid, Although
My Opinion Seemed to Change Quite a Lot after I Saw The Panel this
Morning. I Felt like it Needed to Be Shortened and Simplify the Overall
Message. Use Vivid Language. It Didn\'t Seem to Paint a Picture. Looking
at it Last Night, it Felt like ‑‑ I Felt like it Needed to Integrate the
Graphic Into the Message a Little Bit More, but I See That You Have Done
That. So I Had to Scratch That One Off. Use a Graphic That Simplifies
And Maybe Organizes the Message. It Has a Good Theme, a Good Title. It
Provokes Interest, and Very Good Colors. Panel Number 2, a Good Size and
Intriguing Shape, Which Automatically Pulls the Reader In. It\'s Mounted
on a Stand. It Does Have a Message Pyramid Which Flows. It\'s Very Well
Organized. It Invites the Reader to Decide For Themselves about the
Eradication of Tamarisk, and That\'s a Good Effort to Achieve A Behavior
Objective. Riparian Is Mentioned in Both Panels, but Not Everyone Knows
What Riparian Means, as You Just Explained That. A Good Theme Title and
Good Colors. That\'s What I Have.

Straub: Thanks, Nancy. Don, or Does Anybody Else Have Any Comments?

Charpio: Renee, I Think There Are Some Good Points There. Let\'s Talk
about the First Panel, the Mesquite Panel. The Mounting of That Sign Is
on Some Railings on ‑‑ along a Walkway, and it Does Have a Unique Title.
If You Remember the Comments by The Team, They Were Having Some Titles
with this Idea of Mesquite Being a Barbecue Element, and More So than an
Environmental Element That Could Contribute to the Site. So this
Particular Panel Is Blue On Black ‑‑ or Black on Blue, I Should Say. It
Does Have Some Good Spacing In Between the Letters. I Appreciate the
Points about The Balance, the Fact That We Have Elements That Are Spaced
Out and Pull Your Eye in Certain Directions. This Riparian Issue of
Using That Word Is a Common Issue for BLM and for Other Agencies, and I
Think We Ought to Take Tight Heart What We Are Hearing Today, That We
Need to Get this Simplified. On the Second Panel, I Appreciate Again the
Idea of the Title and the Subtheme Catchiness. We Were Talking Around
the Studio Here Yesterday, and it Was Interesting That Most of the Crew
Remembered this Title. Now, What Does it Mean? Does it Mean to Go out
and Whack These Things Any Time You Want? But it Was Memorable. Now, One
of the Things I Want to Point out about this Panel Is, You Saw it in
Color. It\'s an Important Element That What They Tried to Do Was Do the
Left Side of the Panel, It\'s on Your Screen Now, I Think, Left Side of
the Panel Is the Tamarisk, and It\'s Done in Line Art, in Black and
White. The Color Portion, Which Is the Healthy Portion, Is on the Right,
and So the Idea Was That, Let\'s Show the Healthy Situation In the Very
Vivid Color Situation, and Show the Unhealthy, the System That Drains
the Environment of the Water, That Takes Away a Lot of The Groundwater,
and Show it in A More Black and Darkened State. They Are Trying to
Suggest Something There. The Other Thing You Mentioned Was this Idea of
the Pyramid of Information. One of the Things the Team Thought Was They
Had a Lot of Information They Wanted to Give Out but Didn\'t Think it
Was All Primary and as We Mentioned Earlier on in the Broadcast, Not All
the Information Is Going to Be Read by Everybody, but If You Have
Information That People Want to Get To, You Should Provide It. So What
They Tried to Do Here Was Put it at the Top of the Panel, the More
Pertinent Information, the Key Message They Were Trying to Get Across
And Then the Other Things, If You Wanted to Stay and Read It, Fine, Get
down to the Smaller Text. Okay?

Straub: Thanks, Don. Does Anyone Else Have Any Comments They Wanted to
Make In.

Galperin: I Just Would like To Make One, Taking off on Your Pyramid
Thing. One of the Things That the Panel 1 Is Missing That Nancy Spoke
About and Also the People in Palm Springs Spoke about Is the Fact That
There Is No Pyramid of Information in Relationship to Titles and
Subtitles, and That Is Real Key in Helping Visitors Want to Move Through
the Text, Because You Keep on Trying to Recapture Them with Those Titles
And Subtitles, and That\'s Weak In this Panel, Which Is Also Something I
Think Nancy Was Referring to When She Was Saying Pyramid of the
Information and Palm Springs Was Hinting To, Something Directly out of
What Ron Was Talking about.

Straub: Don?

Charpio: I Agree, Amy. I Think this Panel Is along a Walkway, and You
Could Have Improved it a Lot, I Think, by Putting Some Subtitle Ins and
Breaking this Text up a Little Bit. Now, They Tried to Use the Graphic
He Will Also to Do Appear Little Bit, but it Really Begs for Maybe a
Subtitle Here Or There. Good Point, Amy.

Straub: Thanks, Nancy, for Calling in and Your Team Did a Great Job.

Caller: Thank You.

Straub: next Let\'s Go to Gene In Anchorage Alaska.

Caller: Hi. I Was Just Thinking That One of The Things this Misses Is a
Real Strong Thematic Statement for The Mesquite Panel. I Think What
We\'ve Got Is in Encyclopedic Information and an Encyclopedic Approach.
That\'s Sort of the Problem. I Was Looking for Someway to Organize the
Information So it Would Work Better and One Way Might Be to Refer to a
Healthy Mesquite‑driven Ecosystem That Is in Pristine Form and Then
Compare That to the Existing Conditions. Another Thing Would Be
Emphasizing Native Use and Perhaps a Community That Would Be Existing
There. One Thing I Found Was That the Information Was Presented in a
Pretty Impersonal, Probably ‑‑ I Hate to Say it ‑‑ but Almost Memo Form,
You Know. It Needed to Be More Color, More Images in the Language That
You\'re Using.

Straub: Don, Did You Have a Comment?

Charpio: Yeah, I Think ‑‑ Let\'s Go Ahead and Talk about This Panel
since Gene Has Made Some Good Points and Thank You For Those Points. I
Agree with You. I Think That When You Look at This, it Tends to Be
Somewhat Impersonal. But There Is Components to it That Could Have Been
Made a Little More Attractive, a Little More Revealing, Relate it Well
To a Person. Remember the Whale Thing That Ron Russo Gave Us, and the
First Thing That Caught My Eye in this Was in the Second Paragraph and
It Talks about How Deep the Roots Are and Hit to Put in Parentheses 150
Feet. Here Is the Memo Format That Gene Is Talking about. So, Again, I
Think Some Creative Writing from Ron Russo and Other Folks Around Here
Could Help Making That More Personal, Making it Appeal to the Person In
Terms They Can Understand. But Just by the Way It\'s Laid Out, Gene, I
Think You\'re Right, Looks like a Memo to Me, Too.

Straub: Thanks, Gene, for Sharing Those Thoughts.

Caller: One Other Thought Is That One of the Guidelines I Use When Doing
Wayside Exhibits Is To Try to Limit My Text to 120 Words in the Primary
Block of Text and Try to Break it up as Much as Possible with Small
Paragraphs, and I Think We\'re Pushing Beyond 120 Words Here, And It\'s
Kind of like Memo Writing. If You Can\'t Say it in One Page, You
Probably Shouldn\'t Say It.

Straub: Don?

Charpio: Gee, I Think Another Good Point Here Is this Idea That When
Breaking this up There Is a Couple of Good Topics to Choose from. This
Relates to the Native American History in Some Parts. It Relates to the
Natural History in Some Parts. But You Have to Choose. Remember the
Point the Team Made\... You Know, If We\'re Going to Get Our Message
Across, We Better Get it Across Quick. This Is a Rest Area. People Are
Going to Be in and Out of There. But There Are Some People Who Do Stay
at this Site and They Will Take the Time to Read It, but Only If It\'s
Presented in an Attractive Manner as Beth Talked Us to about. So, Gene,
Do You Have Some Ideas About the Second Panel?

Caller: Well, That Was a Little Better from My Standpoint, Although We
Did Lapse into Some Good Government‑ese: \"Eradicating,\" \"Tamarisk.\"
We Never Did Define What a Tamarisk Is in this Panel, I Don\'t Think.
Let\'s See. It\'s Difficult and Laborious to Remove Plants That Do Not
Belong. One of the Things in Interpretive Writing to Remember Is That
Verbs Are Really Important. If You Verb ‑‑ Just Put Lots of Verbs In,
Have People Involved In Visualizing What Is Happening, What\'s Going On,
That\'s So Important in These Situations. This Seems a Little Passive.
Threatened Vertebrate Species. If You Could Illustrate with That
Particulars. One of the Things I like to Remember Is Something That
William Blake Said, Which Is \"Do Good in Minute Particulars.\" So We
Need to Be Thinking about Particular Things to Illustrate The Whole. I
Don\'t Know. It\'s Hard with the Feedback from The Tv, but I Hope These
Have Been Helpful.

Straub: They Have Been Great, Gene. We Really Appreciate It. Thanks for
Calling in and Your Team Did a Great Job Reviewing These.

Charpio: One More Comment to Gene, Please. Gene, One of the Things That
I Think the Word \"Whacking\" Misrepresents What Some of the Message Is
in this Particular Panel. The Actual Approach That the People Are Taking
Is Very Subtle. They Are Using Sponges to Apply Some Materials to the
Tamarisk To Kill It, and So the Word \"Whacking\" While It\'s Intriguing
From the Standpoint of Catching Your Attention Doesn\'t Convey What
Actually Is Taking Place. This Is a Big Invitation for People to Get
Involved. And So I Think, Again, Gene, You Are Right. Those Verbs Are
Very, Very Important.

Galperin: I Want to Make a Comment and Thank Gene for Calling In. Gene
Is One of Our People in the BLM Who Is One of Our Creative Writers. So
it Was Really Extra Special To Get Your Comments, Gene and Thank You.

Caller: Well, Thank You, Amy.

Straub: Let\'s Go to John in Phoenix. John in Phoenix?

Caller: Yes. Hello. Our Group Focused on the Mesquite Panel. We Have
Similar Comments. So I Will Try to Focus on the Ones That Were a Little
Bit ‑‑ We Thought the Title Was Actually Very Catchy Also. However, We
Thought That Maybe The Problem with the Different Themes, Although the
Title Would Allow You to Handle Different Themes, What Possibly Could
You Do Is Bring out the Subtitles More, Highlight Them More,
Particularly There Was One Comment That Maybe a Subtitle Would ‑‑ Could
Define Mesquite As a Barbecue Device Right up Front, Bringing it out of
the Text. Also Another Suggestion Was the Subtitle That Was You a Tale
Sized Could Be Separated and ‑‑ Italicized and Highlighted by Separating
it from the Text. You Could Do That with the Several Different Themes
That Are Addressed in the Whole Panel. Then to Talk about Content, We
Thought That Perhaps it Was a Little Bit Inappropriate for the Grade
Levels If it Was Going to Be Used for Educational Purposes For
Elementary School Students. Again, the Terminology, Riparian Community,
Stability, Sources of Protein, Encroachment, Those Sorts of Things Could
Be Defined Better and Probably over the Heads of Students That Age.
However, We Also Thought That The Signs Were Attractive Color‑wise and
Some of Us Had The Benefit of Seeing the Signs Out There, and They Are
Memorable in the Sense That They Are Attractive out in the Field. Most
of Our Comments Had to Do With the Layout, and We Thought That Perhaps
the Strongest Point Of the Sign Was the Graphic of The Mesquite and the
Root System, and We Felt That it Could Have Been Highlighted Better in
the Design of the Sign By Perhaps Making That Graphic Larger and Moving
the Text Around the Graphic, and Also to ‑‑ Also as an Eye‑grabber to
Highlight the Size of Scale of The Tree and the Roots Some Reference
Point Like, Perhaps, a Small Child or Something. We Thought That
Probably Was the Large ‑‑ the Greatest Highlight Of That Panel, and it
Could Have Been Drawn out More. Also, Another Suggestion on That Was to
Make the Sign a Vertical Sign Instead of a Horizontal Sign to Highlight
the Length of The Roots. Other Thing on That Was ‑‑ Excuse Me a Second,
Just Reading My Notes Right Here ‑‑ it Need ‑‑ There Needed to Be More
Negative Space. The Sign May Not Be Large Enough. These Sorts of
Comments. Finally, in Text We Thought it Needed a Little Bit ‑‑ We Found
A Few Mistakes in Punctuation, But We Felt on the Positive Side That it
Was Very Informative and There Were a Lot of Good Information There. So
That\'s Some Suggestions We Had.

Straub: Thanks, John. Beth, Do You Have Anything You Want to Add about
Space?

Perault: I Do, as a Matter of Fact. Thanks for Calling In, John. Those
Were Some Very, Very Good Comments That You Made. In Particular, the One
about Making it a Vertical Rather than A Horizontal. You Are Absolutely
Right. The Graphic Itself, or the Illustration, Really Lends Itself to
Being More Vertical Than Horizontal and I Think If That Were the Case
That You Would Be Able to Flow the Text Around it Better. It Would Make
for Better Position of the Elements. And it Would Create More Negative
Space. I Thought That Was a Very Good Comment That You Made. Everything
Else Seems to Be ‑‑ Yes, I\'m Have Gone the Same Problem That You Are,
That the Text Is a Little Disjointed. It Needs to Flow Better. Maybe
Instead of Having Columns On the Right‑hand Side, Maybe They Should Be
More of the ‑‑ The Line Length Should Be Longer And Maybe They Should ‑‑
the Text Should Flow Around the Graphics a Little Bit Better. It Does
Make it a Little Bit Difficult for Your Eye Flow to See. Other than
That, Those Were ‑‑ Those Were Very Good Comments That You Made, and I
Appreciate The Fact That You Called in to Voice Your Opinions Regarding
That.

Straub: ‑‑.

Galperin: and I Would Also Like to Comment Your Idea of Putting a Child
in the Root System Is Really an Outstanding Approach. One of the Things
That They\'re Finding More and More in Museum Studies and Interpretation
Studies Is That When You Bring The Image of the People Who Are Looking
at the Sign, it Really Brings Them In, I.e., Children Like Seeing
Pictures of Children. Senior Citizens like Seeing Pictures of Senior
Citizens. So That Would Be a Real Attraction to Children to Bring A
Child in Comparison to the Roots. Excellent Idea.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Let\'s Go to Jim in Cous Bay. Jim?

Caller: Hello. How Are You?

Straub: Pretty Good. How Did Your Team Come up with?

Caller: We Are in Agreement With Most of the Other Teams. We Felt That
the Seems Were Good, Also Felt That the Content On Both Signs Were a
Little Cluttered. We Felt That the Layout Was a Little Cluttered, and We
Felt The Writing Needed to Be Simplified and Flowing. We Wanted More
Addition of Subtitles. We Thought That Would Help. On the Mesquite
Panel, We Wanted To Drop the First Sentence and Then Rewrite it
Completely. As for the Paragraph about the Mesquite ‑‑ We Felt We Should
Drop That Paragraph or Need a Graphic That Addressed That One. In
General, the Entire Writing, If it Was Simplified this Would Probably
Work, And, More Importantly, We Wanted the Background Color to Match the
Other Signage. On the Tammy Whacking, We Wanted To Drop What Is and it
Just Go Right into Restoring Riparian Areas. We Wanted to Change the
Text Size and Vary the Sizes. We Felt We Need to Do Simplify The
Illustrations and Enhance The ‑‑ Some of the Colors like The Greens and
Perhaps Half‑tone The Blue. Our Eyes Tended to Go to the Water Real
Quickly, and We Didn\'t Catch All of the Meaning Of That. We Just Wanted
That Text Reduced Significantly. We Looked at Replacing Entire
Paragraphs. It\'s Kind of the Stuff That We Were Looking At.

Straub: Great, Jim. Rich, You Have Some Comments?

Ray: That\'s Really Good. I Liked All the Comments. And I ‑‑ I Want to
Reinforce a Couple Things That Came out. One Thing That Gene Mentioned,
Actually Several People Mentioned, the Importance of Being Able to Tier
That into a Hierarchy of Text. Also Use Subtitles to Help You Do That.
It\'s Very Important. Cut down on the Amount of Text. I Read an
Interesting Study Where ‑‑ That Was Done at a Number of Sites down in
Southern California Where They Did a Lot Of Observation and Asked
Questions Later about How Much Text People Were Comfortable With
Reading, and They Found out That People Could ‑‑ Would Self‑select to
Look at Paragraphs about 50 to 75 Words And They Would Do ‑‑ They Would
Comfortably Do Two or Three and If it Was Something Really Intriguing,
They Would Maybe Do More. With That in Mind, It\'s Really Important to
Know That the People Who Are Going to Come and Access Your Interpretive
Panels Out There, You Know, They\'re Usually Trying to Do Other Things.
They\'re Trying to Decide, Is This Something That I Want to Follow
Through With, and by Doing ‑‑ by Creating That Hierarchy and Making Sure
That The Key Points We Want to Bring Out Are There, That Helps People
Get into That Mode and Helps Them Move into Those Key Points. If
They\'re Intrigued from There, They Will Look at the Other Ones As Well.
I Just Want to Bring That up Again and We\'ve Started Do That A Lot More
in Our Interpretive Panels out in Oregon, Trying to Simplify, Keep the
Wording down.

Straub: Thanks, Rich. Let\'s Go to Thea in Tucson. Thea, Your Comments,
Go Ahead With Them, Please.

Caller: First, I Would like To Say That this Is an Interagency Team and
We Almost All Agreed on All of the Comments. We Do Have Similar Concerns
About the Illustrations, Especially on the Mesquite One. But We Would
like to Specifically Talk More about the Message on That, and We Thought
There Were Mixed Messages Being Sent, and We Picked out the Mesquite
Plays an Important Role In Arizona Wetlands as a Main Theme You Were
Going to Be Talking about Here, and under That Theme, Then, There Are
Only Three Paragraphs That Actually Relate to it and That Is the One
That Begins ‑‑ the Center Column \"Mesquite Trees Are Important to
Riparian Communities.\" Then the Two Paragraphs on the Right‑hand
Column. But They Do Need to Be Written In a More Interesting Manner. The
Paragraph Describing the Root Systems Is Interesting, Could Serve as
Maybe an Italicized Lettering Caption That Goes with the Trees Instead.
And the Last Two Paragraphs on Each of the Other Two Columns, We Would
Eliminate, and Instead Ask for a Personal Commitment to Protection
Instead. On the Tammy Whacking One, We Also Did Not like the \"What Is
It\" Part of That, Because it Brought Back the Song \"What Is It Good
for\... Absolutely Nothing.\" In All of Our Minds. The Narrative Mind,
We Thought Again it Was Too Long on That And We Had Some Specific
Suggestions on this and We Wanted to Eliminate the Part About Talking
about That It\'s an Efficient Ecology and Financially, and Instead Maybe
Putting in Something about ‑‑ You Know, Just Throwing That out
Completely and Just Saying It\'s Restricting Damage to the Tamarisk
Stem. We Understand You\'re Trying to Tell People It\'s Not Good to Use
Herbicides All over the Place. The Other Part Is We Never Talk About the
Tamarisk and That It\'s Not a Native Species and We Thought to Eradicate
the Aggressive Alien Invader Tamarisk Would Put That Feeling Into That
Sentence. Under Restoring a Riparian Area, We Threw out Most of That
Sentence and Wanted to Make it More Personal by Saying Restoring a
Riparian Area Is a Time Consuming Labor of Love to Bring Troubled
Riparian Areas Back to Life. Then the Final Sentence in There We Put
Instead While Visitors And Residents Will Appreciate Your Effort for
Years to Come to Support or Join this Effort Call And Then Put the
Number In. That Would Eliminate the Paragraph That You Have of Inviting
People to Take Part Later. So Would it Shorten It. And Then Our Final
Comment on This Was That We Thought That The Drawing in Your Tamarisk
Fit The Mesquite Panel Much Better And We Didn\'t like the
Grapefruit‑shaped Tree in the Mesquite Panel but the Tamarisk Would Do
Quite Well.

Straub: Those Are Great Comments, Thea.

Gubbins: Thea, Those Were Excellent Comments. I like the One about
Talking About the Native and Nonnative, What You Do by Doing That, You
Get a Cohesiveness Between the Two Signs from a Graphic Thematic
Statement. Also, What I Was Thinking When You Were Talking about the
Grapefruit Design, I Was Kind of Looking at That from Maybe a Graphic
Balance. If Some of the Text Were Deleted, Which We Heard From, I Think,
Jim Earlier, and I Think You Kind of Made Reference to That, it Might
Provide a Little Bit Better Graphic Balance for That Particular Sign.
And Last of All, I Want to Say, It\'s Great to Here It\'s a Multi‑agency
Team in Tucson. That\'s Wonderful to Hear, Because That\'s the Way to Go
on That.

Galperin: Actually, Pat, I Was Also Very Pleased to Hear That, and
We\'ve Quite a Number Of Multi‑agency Groups That Are Viewing this
Broadcast. I Know That It\'s Happening in Colorado at a Couple Places,
in Wyoming, and We Hope That the Multi‑agency Feel Is Coming Across, and
That\'s Great. We Really Appreciate That.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Thanks, Pat. Thanks Again for Calling in and
Sharing Those Thoughts with Us. We Really Appreciate It. Let\'s Go to
Larry in Bakersfield. Larry, We\'ve Got a Few More Minutes for Your
Comments Here, But Just a Few. Go Ahead.

Caller: Okay. It\'s Really Tough to Be at the End of the Line of All
Those Great Comments.

Straub: I Know. But I Know You Will Come up with Some Really Good Ones.
So Go Ahead.

Caller: Just a Few Here. On the Mesquite Tree, We Agreed Not Taking the
Best Advantage of A Great Graphic There, Something Better Could Be Done.
Some Good Suggestions Already Made. And It\'s Obvious That this Text Is
Not Really User‑friendly. It Needs to Be Written a Lot Better for
Conversationally. A Good Example Is the Last Paragraph \"Mesquite
Removal Allows Easier Encroachment or of Nonnative Plants.\" My Eyes Are
Glazing over. Tammy Whacking, We Thought the Title Was Great, Except for
the Word Riparian in the Title. I Think That Word Needs to Be Somewhere
Else. And Also We Felt That There Wasn\'t a Strong Enough Statement At
the Top about Why Are You Doing this? Why Are We Whacking These
Tamarisks? It Needs to Be More Strongly Stated Right up at the Very
Beginning Why this Is Happening. The Text Is Well Written Except It Gets
Very Technical in Some Spots. Formidable and Time Consuming, Difficult
and Laborious to Read This. It\'s Hard to Work. Eliminate Tamarisk. It
Needs to Be Rewritten to Be More Reader Friendly. Visuals Were Great
Here. A Little Busy, but I Couldn\'t Tell If That Was the Size on the
Screen or If it Did Seem to Be a Little Busy but Overall it Was a Great
Visual. I Thought it Worked Very Well. Briefly, Those Are Our Comments
In Bakersfield.

Straub: Any Comments with That, Don?

Charpio: I Appreciate His Comments Also, and I Think We Found out That
All of You Realize While this Is a Personal Experience for Many of You,
There Are Underlying Principles We Have Talked about the Last Three Days
and Those Do Come Across to the Public and They Do Come Across to
People, and You Made Some Excellent Points, Points Which I Think the
Team Could Have Been Fitted from. I Do Want to Point out One Thing ‑‑ We
Had a Fax on That Somebody Pointed out about the Tamarisk, The Tammy
Whacking Panel, and That Is That it Was an Unusual Shape, Most Panels
Tend to Be Rectangular or Square, and this Was an Unusual Shape That
Focused Your Attention to the Top of the Panel. What a Wonderful Comment
and I Think a Nice Thing. So, What Happens Here? We Had a Great Time
Putting These Together, and like You\'ve Learned Now, Pretesting Is Very
Important. If You Don\'t Do It, You\'re Liable to Make Some Mistakes
You\'ll Regret Later On. Even with the Best at Vice You Don\'t Always
Get the Perfect Product. Now Our Team Has Finished Their Process. What
Do You Do Then? The Most Important Thing Then Is To Recognize Your
Partners, to Put this Thing on Display, to Show You the Product Now.
We\'re Going to Roll a Video and To Show You What the Site Looks Like
after It\'s Completed, I Want to Call Your Attention to a Couple Things.
One, the Architectural Design of The Area You Heard Talked About, And
the Panel Holders Themselves For the Arch Panels, Very Unique And
Different. The Other Thing I Would like to Call Your Attention to Is the
Fact That We Took the Time to Recognize the Partners, and this Project,
as You Might Have Figured out by Now, Was a Reenactment of What Might
Have Been the Case When this Team Was Working Together. Not All the
Facts Were the Way That They Really Occurred. So Now That We\'ve Had a
Chance To Have it on Site, We Have a Good Feel for Whether People Are
Looking or Not and I Think You Will Enjoy the Video That Was Part of of
Our BLM Magazine a Couple Years Ago. So, Renee?

Narrator: 50 Miles Northwest Of Phoenix in Central Arizona Glistening
Waters Emerge from The Dry and Sandy Hassayampa River Bottom to Form a
Spectacular Oasis. A Riparian Area of Thick Vegetation. Tree‑lined
Shores. And Abundant Fish\... Birds \... Reptiles\... And Mammals. This
Is One of the Few Remaining Cottonwood/willow Riparian Forested in
Arizona. Among the Most Endangered Forest Types in the West. 75% of
Arizona\'s Wildlife Species Depend on Such Areas for All or Part of
Their Lifecycles. Paralleling the Shore, Thousands Of Travelers Daily
Pass along U.s. Routes 89 and 60 and State Route 93 Connecting Phoenix
to Las Vegas and Other Points to The North and West. Along the River the
Nature Conservancy Has Established its Hassayampa River Preserve. And
Adjoining the Preserve, a Cooperative Effort in Environmental Education
Is Rejuvenating a Popular Rest Area. And Allowing Visitors to Appreciate
this Scenic and Environmentally Significant Place. A Joint Effort of the
Bureau of Land Management, the Arizona Department of Transportation, The
U.s. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Arizona Came And Fish
Department, the Hassayampa River Riparian Area Presents an Educational
Exhibit Of 14 Attractive Displays Interpreting Riparian Habitat. On
December 2nd, 1993, at a Ceremony Attended by about 500 Students and
Members of the Public, the Partners in this Project Joined to Dedicate
the Interpretive Displays. The Festivities Featured Interpretive
Talks\... Demonstrations\... Refreshments\... And Speeches. John
Christianson, Area Manager Of BLM\'s Lower Gila Resource Area,
Recognized the Many People And Groups That Made the Project Possible,
Emphasizing That More Than a Quarter Million Travelers A Year Will Visit
this Area and Come Away with a Valuable Message about Riparian Lands.
Autumn Comes Late to the Sonoran Desert, but its Arrival Can Be As
Glorious and Colorful as this Warm December Day along the Hassayampa,
Where BLM and its Partners Have Transformed a Scenic Rest Stop into an
Informative Public Place for Visitors to Learn about Riparian Areas and
Depart with the Knowledge of How Fragile and Beautiful These Systems
Are.

Straub: with Our Remaining Time the Instructors Are Going To Recap Some
Key Points of this Course. We Would ‑‑ We Also Would like To Use this
Time to Hear from You. If You Have Any Questions or Comments about
Anything That Has Been Presented During the past Three Days, this Is the
Time to Give Us a Call or Send Us a Fax. We Do Want to Hear from You. We
Will Be Giving a Copy of Sam Ham\'s Book, Environmental Interpretation,
a Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas And Small Budgets to the
Sixth Caller. Our Operators Are Standing By. Amy, Any Final Comments You
Would like to Make?

Galperin: Yes, I Would like To Make a Few Final Comments, And Before I
Even Go into a Summary of My Presentation and Sam\'s Presentation and
Ron\'s, I Would like to Take this Opportunity, Because I\'m Not Sure If
It\'s Going to Come up Again, to Thank All Our Instructors and Also to
Mention That this Is the Team That Helped Plan the Content of It, But We
Also Have Leah Quesenberry Who Has Been in the Control Room and the One
Who Is Running Around and Been Helping Us Keep on Time and Leah Has Been
a Key Person Who Has Been a Part of this Team Also from the Beginning.
You Saw Her on the Video. We\'ve Also Been Able to Pull This off Because
We\'ve Had Such Great Help from the National Training Center. We Really
like to Thank Them. Then There Is an Incredible Crew Here That Has Been
Putting on This Production and Just ‑‑ I Don\'t Even Want to Attempt to
Go Down the List of All the People Because I Am Afraid I Will Leave
Somebody out. But Chip and Chip I Hope I Don\'t Mess up Your Last Name,
but Calamaio, Has Been the Key Person to Keep Everything Together and
These Guys Have Been Working Really Late Nights, And I Would like to
Publicly Thank Their Efforts. And with That, in Summary of Our Section
in the Course and What We\'ve All Been Trying to Accomplish, Sam and I
Looked at Trying to Get That Foundation on The First Day and the
Principles Of Interp and What Makes Interp Successful and Successful
Programs. Those Six Principles That Were Set out by Tilden Really You
Should Be Looking at All Your Interpretive Projects and Try to Make Sure
Those Principles Are Covered in Everything You Do, Because They Really
Have Shown Over Time That They Stand up as A Good Way to Evaluate Your
Product and to See If Your Product Is Really Reaching Your Visitor. The
Other Thing I Would like to Mention Is the Way That We Hope You\'ve Seen
to Get That Point Across of Those Principles Is Through Themes. The More
You Work on Your Theme Development, the More You Try to Capture All
That, the Stronger Your Program Is Going to Be. No Mat What You Are
We\'ve Said, The Real Focus and Key Keeps on Coming Back to the Visitor.
You Have to Understand and Know Your Visitor and Try to Relate That
Information Back to Your Visitor, Whether You\'re Dealing With
Management Objectives or Resource Objectives, it Still Comes Back to How
Can I Make This Information So That the Visitor Will Want to Hear It. So
What Is Their Interest? What Is Their Expectations? How Could I Relate
this All? And There\'s a Lot of Neat Ways To Do That Without Formal
Surveys, Just Plain Observation. You Really Learn a Lot about That.
That\'s Something We Really Hope You Gained Especially from the First
Day N Ron\'s Presentation, The Whole Thing of Capturing the Visitors\'
Attention, Then Holding That Attention with Your Titles and Your
Subtitles and That First Sentence and Then Trying to Paint with Words or
Paint with Phrases, and as You Are Doing and That Moving the Visitor
Through the Text, Keep It Simple. Keep it Concise. Keep Those Pictures
There. But Don\'t Get So Flowery That You Lose Your Point. With That, I
Really Appreciate Everyone\'s Attention During this Presentation and
Participation.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Pat?

Gubbins: I Would like to Leave You with Just the Importance of the
Interpretive Plan, That it Is, in Fact, a Process. You Don\'t Just Go
and Jump into The Delivery Method. While it Is Neat to Be Able to See
the on the Ground Product of Your Efforts, You Need to Plan. Rich Is
Going to Go in and Recap That in a Little More in Depth. Once Again, I
Want to Reiterate It\'s Been a Pleasure Working With the Folks up Here
and the Folks from the Training Center, And You Folks in Particular. It
Was Really a Dynamic Exchange And I Had a Lot of Fun. I Also Learned a
Lot.

Straub: Thanks, Pat. Rich?

Ray: Well, as Pat Mentioned, Plan Something Really, Really Important,
and We Both Enjoyed This Opportunity to Put on this Section on Planning.
I Don\'t Want to Pontificate Too Much on Planning, to Use a Bunch Of
\"P\" Words There, but ‑‑ it Is An Important Part of That Process That
We Need to Use to Move Towards Effective Messages For Visitors, and I
Can\'t Emphasize That Enough. We Often Shortchange That Process End,
That Up‑front Part Where We Do Effective Planning, And this Is Where We
Need to Revisit That and Make Sure We\'re Doing Good Plans. A Couple
Things Related to That\... Pat and I Went over Materials, Planning,
Programs Materials That Were Put Together by a Lot Of Different Agencies
and a Lot Of Different Organizations and Private Contractors. We Found a
Lot of Similarities. So We Built Those Similarities Into the Model That
We Presented Here. There Are a Lot of Other Things That Can Be Added to
Your Process. One of the Things That We Didn\'t Get into Too Much Was
the Peer Review. Won\'t Be Afraid to Show Your Plan to Other People.
It\'s a Really Good Way to Get Comments, Especially When You\'re In
Those ‑‑ in the Formative Part Where You Are Looking for Good Ideas and
You Want Feedback On How You Are Doing. So Those Are My Final Points
Here. I Really Enjoyed This, and I Look Forward to Hearing from You
Folks out There to See How We Did.

Straub: Thanks, Rich. Beth?

Perault: First, I Would like To Thank You All for Having Me Here. I Have
Had a Very Good Time and It\'s Been Very Excite to Go Participate in
this Whole Experience. I Would Just like to Recap a Couple Things That I
Mentioned Earlier in My Talk, and That Is If You Just Need ‑‑ You Just
Need to Keep in Mind the Visual Concepts That I Discussed. You Need to
Keep in Mind Thieves Of Space in a Layout, Shape and Balance in a
Layout, Position, Size of Elements, You Need to Be Aware of the Text
That You Are Using and the Color as Well. Thank You.

Straub: Don?

Charpio: Thanks, Renee. Well, as Everyone Can See from The Video, this
Was a Real Project, and it Involved Some Very Important Partners That
Brought a Lot to the Table, and We Benefit When We Do That in This
Planning Process. But So Often We Forget That Important Element of
Testing Our Product, and it Is Important and It Doesn\'t Take Much Time
or Money. So I Encourage You to Do That. Now, this Particular Project Is
Now Four Years Old, and One Thing We Haven\'t Mentioned Is The Fact That
You Need to Go Back and Evaluate after It\'s Been on the Ground and
That\'s a Whole Different Subject, but it Is an Important Element, and
If You Do Have Projects out There That Have Been a While, Brochures, or
Doing a Walk You Have Been Doing Five or Six Years, It\'s Time to
Evaluate. With That I\'ll Turn it Back to Renee.

Straub: We Have Some Callers On Line and We Appreciate You Holding.
Let\'s Go to Katy in Tucson. Your Question for People?

Caller: We Did Want to Know If You Have Evaluated the Signs And Are They
Working? Are People Leaving the Mesquites Alone?

Charpio: I Guess I\'ll Take That One. I Think the Observation by the
People That Are Going out to the Area Has Shown That People Are Reading
the Signs. We Get a Tremendous Number of Birders at the Site, and They
Spend More Time than the Average Rest Area Visitor. So Because of Their
Attractiveness, and I Think Particularly Because of Their Use of the
Paneled Holders, People Are Drawn to Them, and They Are Looked at Very
Carefully. Now, There\'s No More Tammy Whacking There Because They Have
Eliminated Barbecue Pits, and That Was a Big Factor, I Think. As I
Mentioned Earlier, You Really Can\'t Necessarily Change Behavior Just
Because You Put a Panel up There. It Takes a Little Bit More than That.
But it Was a Good Effort and it Was a Good Point.

Caller: Okay. Thank You.

Straub: Thanks, Katy, for Calling In. Let\'s Go to Sandra in Ely,
Nevada. Sandra, Your Question?

Caller: Yes, Regarding ‑‑ This Question Is Directed to Beth Perault.
Regarding the Resources for Design, the Two Magazines, I Would like to
Check into Those, The Communication Arts and the \"How\" Magazine and I
Wondered How to Go about That.

Perault: Can You Pick Either One up and If You Have an Access To an Art
Supply Store, They Always Carry \"How\" Magazine. You Might Find Them in
the Local Grocery Store as Well. I Pick Them up There Myself.

Caller: You Haven\'t Been to Ely!

Perault: You\'re Right, I Haven\'t Been to Ely. Gosh ‑‑.

Straub: Could They Call You And Get a Phone Number for the Magazine?

Perault: I Could.

Straub: Do You Have the Workbook, Sandra? Beth\'s Phone Number Is in
That Workbook.

Caller: I Don\'t Have the Workbook. I Just Have the Handout.

Perault: Just, Sandra, Give Me a Call. My Phone Number Is 602‑417‑9214.
I\'ll Be Happy to Pass That Information on to You.

Straub: Our next Caller Is Neal in El Centro. Let\'s Go to Neal.

Caller: Hello? Hi. We Have a Ranger Station out Here, and We\'re Looking
at Doing Some of the Interpretive Displays over. In Talking to Our
Contracting Officer, We Were Told That We May Need to Do Two Contracts,
One for Design and One for the Actual Installation of the Interpretive
Displays. Is That True? And When I Go to a Design Contractor, How
Specific and Detailed Do I Have to Be for the Displays Before it Goes to
Bid?

Straub: Amy, Would You like To Take That One?

Galperin: Yes, I Would Love To. And Thank You for Calling. In Order to
Have a Real Effective Contracting Experience, You Really Need to Look at
Developing an Idea of What Your Themes Are Going to Be And Have a Good
Handle on Those Themes Before You Even Speak to A Design Contractor.
Some Good Ways to Develop Those Themes Is to Actually Get a Facilitator
and a Whole Bunch of People Together in a Room and See What Themes Come
up from That. It\'s Common in Visitor Centers Especially to Separate out
the Design and the Fabrication Contract, and That\'s a Common Approach.
It Gets into Problems When You Get Your Fabricator in and They Always
Want to Make a Couple of Changes to the Design, and Sometimes You Find
Yourself Redesigning a Whole Project. In Order to Decide Whether You
Want to Go a Separate Design and Fabrication, You Really Need to See How
Much Money You Have, and I Would Highly Recommend That You Look at Doing
it in One Contract. It\'s a Much Smoother Approach, Especially in Your
Small Information Areas. You Would Find it Much Smoother To Go with a
Combined Contract. It\'s Usually Money That Causes You to Separate out
Those Two Contracts. There Are a Lot of Firms out There That Can Do
Design and Fabrication Together. A Lot of Your Fabrication Contractors
Do Have Interpreters As Part of Their Staff. If You Need Some Telephone
Numbers on That, I Would Be Happy to Help You with That When I Get Back
to the Office in Denver. And Anyone Else Who Wants to Comment on That?

Gubbins: I Think It\'s Easier To Work with One Contractor than Everyone
Else. Oftentimes It\'s the Difference Between Looking at ‑‑ Working With
a Contractor in ‑‑ and a Series of Contractors. I Mean, They Will
Subcontract.

Straub: Don?

Charpio: I Think One of the Things We Have Learned Is That In Writing
the Specifications For the Bid Proposal, It\'s Almost as Important to
Worry About How You\'re Going to Negotiate with These People What
Criteria You Are Going to Hold Them To, When You Are Going to Do a
Review, 20%, 40%, What Can Be Changed at That Point. If You Just Focus
on the Interpretive Content and Sending It out to Them, That Will Help
Them a Lot. But If You Don\'t Have a Good Agreement, a Good, Solid
Agreement as to When You Are Going to Make Changes and How Often Can You
Make Changes, and What Degree of Detail ‑‑ You Saw Beth\'s Illustration
on the Front End of Her Waysides. That\'s a Wonderful Time to Start
Getting a Feel for the Project. But If You Don\'t Build That into That
Purchase Order, You Are Going to Be Sorry Later On.

Straub: Neal, Does That Help Answer Your Question?

Caller: Yes, Does That a Lot. Thanks a Lot.

Straub: You\'re More than Welcome, Neal. Let\'s Go to Joann in
California. Joann?

Caller: Hello. Go Ahead with Your Question. Well, We Had Two Questions,
and We Also Had Some Comments. First Question Is, We Have a Lot Of
Interagency People Here and They\'re Really Excited about the Courses
and They Want to Know If You\'ll Be Having Others in the Future, and
Will They Be for Other Outside Agency Folks? And, Also, Will a Video Be
Available That They Can Get a Copy of this for Their Folks at Home? And
Then My Comment Is, this Interagency Group We Have at Our Office, Which
Is in Riverside, Is ‑‑ We Have a Turtle Rock Nature Center, Forest
Service, Wildlife Biologist, Seasonals, Girl Scouts of America, Natural
Resource Conservation District And We\'re So Excited. We\'re Going to
Start Networking And Having Sack Lunches and People Have Brought in
Their Displays and Brochures and We Have Been Helping with Them. It\'s
Been a Great Opportunity to Get to Know the Folks in Our Area.

Straub: Don?

Charpio: I Think the Key Thing Here, and I Don\'t Want to Miss this One
at All and That Is This Partnership That\'s Being Formed Here. We Did it
on the Hassayampa. We Had Fish & Wildlife Involved. We Had the Preserve
Manager Involved. That\'s Key. So We\'re as Excited as You Are About the
People That Are There And, Yes, this Is Going to on Video and Available
to You. It Was One of the Principal Reasons We Put this Course in This
Format, Is That it Would Have a Great Shelf Life of Five Years, You Can
Go Back and Take Segments of this and Just Look At Writing, or Just Look
at Theme Development, Owe Just Take The Case Study and Try to Analyze
It. So It\'s Going to Be Available And You\'ll Hear More about That
Later on in the Broadcast.

Straub: Rich Any Thoughts?

Ray: I Agree. We Worked Really Hard on Putting This Together, this
Introductory Course, and I Want to Emphasize, For One Thing, it Is an
Introductory Course. We Want to Make Sure That People Know That We\'ve
Done Our Best to Cover These Topics, Introduce You to Those, Give You
Some Good Materials You Can Take Back with You and Some Tools That You
Can Use Back in Your Jobs, and There\'s a Lot of Other Opportunities
Besides this One. Amy Mentioned Some of Those Before, like the
Interagency Training Coming up in June, and There Are a Number of Other
Workshops on Specific Themes Like Planning That Do Pop Up. So It\'s Good
to Keep Tuned into That, and We\'ll Try to Do Our Best to Help You with
That in Any Way We Can. So Keep Networking with Us and Other People. We
Do Hope to Offer More Courses Like this Somehow, Maybe Not This Format
but We Certainly Won\'t Stop Training. It\'s One of the Most Important
Things We Do, and Getting Feedback from You Is What Helps Us Determine
Where to Go with It.

Straub: Thanks, Rich. Joann, We Appreciate Your Comments and Calling In,
and You Are the Lucky Winner! So, Expect That in the Mail Sometime Soon.
We Won\'t Say Exactly When it Will Get There to You, but We to
Appreciate That. I Think You\'re Doing Really Well With That Team There.
Thanks, Joann. Joann, Why Don\'t You Stay on the Line.

Caller: Okay.

Straub: Amy, What Other Additional Training Can People Get and Resources
That Are out There ‑‑ Where Do They Go from Here?

Galperin: There Is Actually a Lot of Sources of Information And
Resources, and Those of You Who Didn\'t Earn Sam Ham\'s Book, You Can
Get it Through Golden ‑‑ North American Press in Golden, Colorado, and
They Do Have Lots Of Copies of That. So Those of You Who Want to Order
It, it Is in Your Resource Reference on Page 109, and We Do Have a Lot
of Lists of References in the Workbook from Page 108 to 109. So Look at
Those References. As Far as Other Sources of Training, Rich Mentioned
the Interagency Training That We Have this June. It\'s the First Week in
June. That\'s Going to Be in Fort Collins, Colorado. Those of You Who
Want More Information about it Could Give Me a Call or Give the Training
Center a Call. That\'s an Interagency Training. This Is Our Sixth Year
Putting It Together and All the Agencies Are Involved, and All the
Agencies Are Supporting It. It\'s Set up in Tracts and There Is a
Fundamental Tract That Will Cover Some of the Information We Covered the
First Day, plus There Is Going to Be a Whole Section on How to Build the
Creativity in Yourself, How to Stimulate Yourself to Get Real Creative
and a Lot More Focus on Personal Services Interpretation. There\'s
Another Track on Exhibit Construction. This Is an Advanced Track Where
You Are Going to Learn Actually How to Construct Exhibits. You Are Going
to Be out There With Power Saws and Building Exhibits. There\'s Another
Track on Computer Graphics and All about Layout of Brochures and Printed
Material. We\'ve Got Some Excellent Commercial Artists That Are Going to
Be Helping to Teach That Track. There\'s Another Section on Exhibit
Design, How to Work on Designing. And a Lot of Emphasis on How to
Analyze Your Visitor. We Have Marcella Wells from Colorado State
University Who Is Going to Talk about a Lot of the Studies She Has Been
Doing on How Do You Test That ‑‑ Your Visit ‑‑ Your Materials Before You
Put it up and Emphasizing a Lot of Stuff That Don\'s Been Talking B She
Has Done Quite a Bit of Work in That. There Will Also Be a Lot of
Evening Activities and a Lot of Time to Do Networking. But If You Really
Want to Know What\'s Happening in Interpretation, If You Want to Know
What Training Is Coming Up, If You Want to Know Where to Go For
Training, the Best Source of Information Is Nai, the National
Association for Interpretation. We Highly Recommend That You Try To Get
Involved with Nai, Join Nai. Their Newsletter That Comes out From the
National Office Not Only Lists All the Trainings Coming Up, but Lists
Information About the Internet, Tells You What Internet Sites Are
Directly Relating to Interpretation, New Internet Listings Are in Each
Newsletter. There Is Also Information about Who Is Doing What. They Have
the Green Pages, Which Is a Whole List of Contractors That Are Involved
in Interpretation and What the Different Contractor Skills Are. And
Then, of Course, They Have Their Magazine Where You Can See A Lot of the
Issues and the up To Date Discussions on Interpretation and the Journal
That\'s Looking at Research and Trying to Figure out What Is Some of the
Trends in Interpretation. So That\'s a Real Good Source of Information
If You Want to Get More Involved. If You Don\'t Want to Personally Join
Nai, You Can Get Your Office to Join. There Are Special Prices for Your
Office to Join and Things Like That. Nai Also Has a National Workshop,
Regional Workshops and There Is a Lot of Training Going On in Those
Workshops as Well as A Lot of Networking.

Straub: Thanks, Amy. Well, That Wraps up Your Introduction to
Interpretation Course. I Would like to Thank All of the Instructors Who
Put this Course On, but Most of All, We Would Like to Thank Everyone Who
Faxed In and Called in Questions and Comments to Us over the past Three
Days. We\'d Also like to Thank the Sites That Sent in Photos. A Lot of
Those Have Been Featured over the Last Couple of Days, and We Hope You
Enjoyed Those. I Would like to Remind Our Downlink Sites to Have All
Viewers Sign the Tendance Roster And Fax it into the National Training
Center Immediately After Today\'s Show. You Should Keep a Copy for Later
Use. Also, Please Complete the Course Evaluation as Soon as Possible And
Return it to Your Downlink Coordinator. To Help Your Office Participate
In Future NTC Broadcasts, See The BLM Satellite Downlink Guide Or Visit
the NTC Home Page on The World Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is
www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of this Course and Other NTC Broadcasts Are
Available on the Home Page. For Information on Upcoming NTC Distance
Learning Telecasts as Well as Traditional Courses, Call the Training
Center at 602‑906‑5500 or Visit the NTC Home Page. Everyone Here Wishes
You Success With Your Future Interpretive Projects. If You Have Any
Questions or Need Help in the Future, Contact Your Local Interpretive
Specialist or Feel Free to Call Our E‑mail Your Questions to Any Of the
BLM Instructors You Have Seen over the Last Three Days. We Hope You
Found this Course Interesting and Helpful. Thanks for Tuning In!