Resting upon my Laurels and Starting New Jobs

Perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments of this blog has been achieved.

When I started doing this blog five years ago the purpose of it was to highlight my career, my skills in interpretation, in education, in social media, and in creating a positive impression of me in the internet world. 

mmmmm ... Halloween candy....

Essentially, it was to help me get jobs by being an ongoing piece of resume candy for potential employers to examine while attempting to fill what I considered a noticeable void in historical interpretation blog and web presence. 

I think this has worked for me.

This last August I interviewed for a permanent interpretive position at a National Park and I was selected. 

Naturally I am elated and the last two months since that time had been spent in preparation and retooling for this park. I am glad and proud to be part of their team and am applying myself. I would like to call my blog a mission success! 

The question now remains as to what to do about my blog: should I keep writing or should I hang up my hat? Or should I do something else like slow my involvement to a quarterly submission or every other month?

While I ponder these thoughts, I welcome yours; write a comment here, or drop me an email or comment on my LinkedIn or Facebook posts. I read them. I really do. 

Meanwhile, rather than rest on my laurels of finally achieving a degree of comfort and the joy of not having to move every six months, I still need to keep my job. 

Here is my method for getting into a newfound position:

1. Become a great employee before a great interpreter
2. Make priority lists
3. Content mastery comes with time
4. Be part of the team

Cute Puppy Ellie

1. When joining a new site, the first few days will be puppy-dogging around the place. By puppy-dogging, I mean that you get shown around to every place and meet everyone while following your guide like a puppy dog. Dogs are great; they are interested in everything you do with them even if they are not sure why it is important to you. Same thing for your first few days on the job. After that, subconsciously, your supervisors and coworkers begin to have more expectations of you, increasing every day from then on. The most important thing to do is to learn the daily operations of the place. 

What is the procedure for this? Where is the key for that? Who answers the phone and how do you do it? Learning to be a worker and employee helps take the burden off of your coworkers doing the mundane or menial tasks that every job is heir to. Cementing procedure and routine is essential to learning the work rhythm.

...and who does not really love a good list?

2. Make priority lists. My experience has been to make lists and check them off as you get done so nothing gets overlooked. Few things are more upsetting than missing some crucial time sensitive task because your attention was on something else. Some of these have financial consequences, not just at work but on life tasks like getting licences or updating addresses. The list makes sure that you are aware of all of your obligations and necessary tasks, and they are hopefully arranged in such a way as to make sure they are completed in a timely manner before time sensitive tasks expire. 

3. The daily operations and routines are the most important things to pick up. Everything else in terms of content can be picked up at a run. Each site is different and you will find what information is important quickly. 

In my example, I worked at a location that did school programs all day long five days a week for a month solid, and with diminishing frequency up to three weeks after. My first day on school tours I observed two tours, by the third I did a co-tour with an experienced interpreter, and by the fourth tour, I was giving the tour on my own. Sometimes you get thrown in the fire. 

Did I have all the answers or understand everything? No, of course not, but with repetition comes confident routine and only through time, talking with other interpreters, and finally research, can you start to get the whole picture. Spring and summer are the times to perform, and fall and winter are the slow seasons where content mastery comes. This might be nonexistent for the seasonal who is only there for a limited time, but gaining the additional content helps round out the programming and gives one the ability to answer the hard questions, as well as be able to make variations and even whole new programs!

Teamwork comes in all forms for all sorts of purposes

4. Teamwork. Especially important when joining a team is making sure you are part of the team. Go out on a limb for them. Be a little vulnerable for them. Sure coworkers can be prickly or jaded or grumpy. You do not have to be super-friends with them, but they will appreciate the work you do for and with them with time and trust. Of course there are those coworkers who use people and manipulate them, but learning who to be guarded or open with starts with making that initial offer. Besides, your coworkers have probably been doing this a while and you will need their guidance. 

There are probably a few other things that could be added to that list, but for now, those are the ones that have guided me over the last month. 

In the meanwhile, I will be gaining content mastery. Ye, the reading audience, can suggest what I should do with the blog, so look forward to next month's post.    

Book Review: Creating Great Visitor Experiences by Stephanie Weaver, part 3

This is the third and final installment of Stephanie Weaver's fantastic book, Creating Great Visitor Experiences. The third part of the book goes into great depth about the site.

Some places will not be changed to fit visitor trends - like historic buildings

The site is tricky because it will depend on at what level you are as part of the organization. If you are near the top and a decision maker as regards changing something significant, like approving a building project to improve the site, this third installment might be a good idea to get ideas and suggestions.

Implementing these practical changes in the fourth part of the book will help increase the visitor experience and probably save some money or make more. I am not sure how many of the higher level folks read this blog.

However, volunteer, entry level, or mid career professions may be able to make some well placed easy fixes or no-risk suggestions to help improve the site, with permission of their supervisor of course.

Since decision level executives will probably not read this post, it is up to the lower level readers to influence them from below. Weaver lays out an eight step process to revamp the site without having to build. They are:

1. Invitation - starts when a visitor says, "Let's do something today", and ends when they park in your lot.    
2. Welcome - the second they walk in the door and are greeted by someone.
3. Orientation - after moving away from the greeter and the visitor decides what to do next.
4. Comfort - this is found throughout the site in its design, it is how comfy the use of the site is to the visitor - mentally and physically.
5. Communication - everything in the written and spoken language which the visitor experiences.
6. Sensation - how well you engage the visitor's senses, including their senses of fun and adventure
7. Common sense - how practical everything is; working smarter, more efficiently, and logically.
8. Finale - how does a visit to the site ends and what they take with them.

While commentary on each of these points would be long winded when completed with well thought out practical how-tos in this post, the sections really do speak for themselves. To go through each step would be redundant and better handled by Weaver's book. 

However, some points are worth a closer look.

The Welcome step has to do with discovering the entrance and the greeting. The greeting is the part that can be changed faster than renovating the building entrance. The first contact is the first impression, and having a grumpy volunteer is not the good first impression. Select a front-line representative, be it a volunteer or entry level position, or someone else who has some experience in being personable and helpful.

In the Communication step, layers of redundant edits and revisions are made so that all communication - written, spoken, website, radio, sign, wayside, advertisement, or whatever are clear and concise. Communication is closely tied to the Brand and the Theme of the site.

Common Sense is such a critical step because sometimes we make up such rules, dogma, and  bureaucracy that it gets in the way of the things that matter. One example of using Common Sense would be to ask the front line or floor people. These employees, volunteers, or contract help (like in the case of security guards not employed by the organization) who walk around the site - they know what the popular exhibits are, they know how long visitors stay in the galleries, and where the messes are made - so ask them for their input. Weaver cites the situation when the city of Seattle was building a new public library; the planners included someone from the security and custodial staff at every design meeting. Common sense is also creating partnerships with like-minded organizations or businesses that mutually benefit each member of the partnership.Take a step back and evaluate if the things that are done are done for a clear and simple reason.

Taking a step back and trying to experience the site for the first time and seeing all the things that a first time visitor sees will help the site come a long way in making much needed improvements.

In short, this is an excellent book for entry level professionals to make impressive suggestions. 

Creating Great Visitor Experiences is an excellent book for mid level supervisory folks to make practical changes in the planning and implementation process. Going through the book in detail and the exercises as a executive team would be a great way to revamp on a practical level. 

For executive level folks, it is a great way to be able to improve the numbers for stakeholders while increasing the profile of the site. Increasing the site's revenue and visitation numbers might be a headache, but it is a good problem to have! It means that the changes have been successful and that the site is relevant to visitors and can increase capacity for more ambitious projects.

If you, the reader, are looking to find ways to improve your site, increase visitation, increase revenue, the profile of the site, or to shake things up, this book is worth the investment, or the time it takes to borrow a copy from the library. This is a book which should be suggested to any site. 

Book Review: Creating Great Visitor Experiences by Stephanie Weaver, part 2

The second part of the Creating Great Visitor Experiences (here is the first) dealt with what visitors want and how to best utilize the site's staff. This post will be a little longer than usual because there are a lot of deep and tasty nuggets of wisdom and insight from this book.

Visitors come to sites for a number of reasons, including combinations of reasons. Generally they go and do something because they have a surplus of free time, but it is usually limited. The visitor chooses from their free time options based on six rewards for use of their time, according to leisure time studies:

What are these students motivated by in this image?

• Social interaction 
• Active participation 
• Comfortable surroundings 
• Challenging, new, or unusual experiences 
• Opportunities to learn 
• A sense of doing something worthwhile 

The author, Stephanie Weaver, asserts that if sites begin to understand these visitor motivations for coming to a site, your site, it will help bring in others in the target audience. Hopefully these motivations bring them back, but also attract new and repeating visitors. Look over the list and see what your site already does and how you can improve them, or add new ones.   

On the other side, sites offer four kinds of experiences to seek, meet, and hopefully exceed the six motivations of visitors mentioned above. A site can offer these kinds of experiences:

• Educational
• Entertainment
• Aesthetic
• Escapist

Four E's

Combinations of these make for a more attractive destination and can appeal to more kinds of visitors. Stephanie Weaver notes further that

visitors are looking for something meaningful, authentic, genuine, and quintessential. Some examples she gives would be allowing the "real thing" to move people, seeing real animals in their real environment, or providing products and services that people expect when they come to a place where the reputation has already preceded itself for being true to itself. 

Much of Weaver's work in this middle section is based on consumer studies, marketing, advertising strategies, and consumer psychology. While the site where you work might not be so concerned about ticketing prices and how much merchandise is sold in order to keep the doors open, they are still underscoring the idea that you want more visitors to come and must compete against other forces vying for visitor's time and attention. Essentially, one of the goals is to ask the reader how to get near the top of a travel destination itinerary, compared to being a peripheral stop further in the description.   

We want our action to change visitor behavior from their experience during their visit. The four behaviors that we want to change is:

• Frequency - How often do they visit?
• Duration - How long do they stay on site? In each part of the site?
• Engagement - What do they do when they are here?
• Off site actions -  What do they do about the site when they are not there?

The new Ryan's Interpretations logo

Branding is an essential part of the site experience. Branding was mentioned in the previous post so now is a good time to go over it in better detail. Branding is more than a logo on a letterhead; it's so much more.

Branding is a whole concept in advertising and marketing. It is the look, feel, attitude, quality,  promises, origin, and future of a place or thing to the visiting consumer. It is so penetrating that it affects the manufacturers of the products. For example, are the items for sale made in the U.S.A? Are workers being given a fair wage or are they held in wage bondage overseas? Are the employees nice and respectful, or do they have bad attitudes, show low morale, or are struggling financially? These things affect the perception of the brand. 

Or is this the new Ryan's
Interpretations logo? 

A re-branding can add life to a struggling organization. A fresh coat of paint, some new employee training, a logo revamp and/or a name change can add new life. How does the visiting public perceive the name? Does it sound stodgy and elitist? Maybe consider a new name. 

Visitors first experience branding by how the site invests in its employees. The front line of the organization at the site is the first impression to the visitor. How far do the staff go out of the way for a visitor? The further they go, the better impression, especially with the right attitude. According to Weaver, the interaction of employee and visitor makes or breaks the experience. One bad day can crash all the careful planning and preparing. 

Definitely the new Ryan's Interpretations logo
(just kidding)

So how does a site attract quality staff? Part of it is branding, but also careful selection of employees that help set the culture and tone of working there. It comes from a top down approach as well. If the brass are willing to invest in great employees knowing that it will improve visitor perception, then it is a good indicator that a office place cultural shift will take place soon. 

Weaver suggests that the inverted power hierarchy triangle approach is a great place to start; where the executives and managers serve the employees, who serve the visiting customers at the top. Listening to the front line and making action happen improves employee manager relations and empowers the staff as a whole. 

An empowered staff and a motivated visitor have the potential
to create some great visitor experiences the the conditions at
the site support it. More on that next month!

I encourage the use of empowering employees because not only does it give them additional skills and experiences, it also raises the next generation of managers, administrators, and executives that have had field and front line experience. It also has the desired effect of making a better experience for the employee because the office baloney on the sides does not affect their front lines customer service as much. Happy staff are more loyal, compliant, and engaging than demoralized, underpaid, and disposable employees.

Again, Stephanie Weaver stresses doing the exercises in Part 4 to help assess the areas of problem and areas for improvement. Do not read this book like a theoretical text that requires no practical application. Take her up on the offer to help improve the site through your application of this book and see where it can go!

Next month will be Part 3 of Creating Great Visitor Experiences and will finish the review. The need for change had been addressed, the visitors' motivations and rewards have been addressed, and the staff's training and improvement has been addressed. Part 3 will focus in on the site itself.

Book Review: Creating Great Visitor Experiences by Stephanie Weaver, part 1

The need to improve should be an ongoing consideration for a interpretive site, regardless of what kind of site it may be. In the modern contemporary world in which we find ourselves, interpretive sites, whether for profit, nonprofit, or state sponsored, find themselves in competition. This competition is for the the attention of the visitor. The potential visitor is time-poor; with all the labor saving inventions the modern world has given us, we are always spending our precious time on something, whether it is useful or not. For example, a potential visitor could take a nap, watch TV, mindlessly search the internet, read a book, go to a sports game, take a cruise, exercise, or visit a site. What makes them want to come to your site compared to taking a nap? What makes them select your site or a competitor's? Stephanie Weaver's book, Creating Great Visitor Experiences, addresses how interpretive sites, museums, parks, zoos, gardens, and libraries can improve their sites on a practical and affordable level to compete with other options and bring in more visitors.

Book review for Creating
Great Visitor Experiences by
Stephanie Weaver

There is so much in this little book that it really should be considered a workbook rather than an expose or a study. The book is divided in four parts, but for purposes of better understanding, the review of the book will be completed over the course of three blog posts, with Parts 1 and 4 being examined this month and Parts 2 and 3 in the next two months.

One of the points the author makes early on is that the culture has changed. While some have decried the "edu-tainment" industry, it seems that to a degree, it is here to stay. People want to experience a place, not merely be entertained by it or educated by it. Sites (used broadly in the book to include where ever you may be) are in the business of creating and selling cultural experiences. Think of a Disney-themed site and compare it to the last museum, Park, or library you visited; which is more appealing? This kind of thinking should apply to for-profit, nonprofit, and state sponsored sites.

Improving visitor experiences creates repeat visitation, increases duration of visitation, increases education value, creates word of mouth advertising, and increases revenue. All of these things in turn help fund more services, programs, materials, and opportunities.

Likewise, a poor visitor experience is also likely to lead to a poor financial situation. Many missions of the places where visitors go have a preservation, protection, or conservation mission and improving visitor experiences leads to more care and concern about those places.

Weaver argues that the visitor experience has a larger scope than interpretation. Interpretation effort is wasted if the visitor has a frustrating time, like trying to find a bathroom, or not finding a parking space or the front door.

Part of the goal of the book is working with what you have. Sites are not rolling in dough, so improving the visitor experience can be a cheaper and more effective way to bring in more visitors than remodeling. If the customer service is lacking, a new wing and a fresh coat of paint is not going to bring visitors back.

Everything that the site has to offer needs to be evaluated for branding aimed at supporting your message, whether it is called a theme, goal, or mission.

Likewise, a bad visitor experience crushes the financial bottom line. Bad publicity is more likely to be by reported word of mouth than a good experience. One star reviews last longer and tend to hold more weight than five star reviews on travel sites and forums, thus the need to evaluate the entirety of the site, from advertising, parking lots, bathrooms, programs, personnel, and branding. Spare nothing and evaluate everything.

Studying up and taking notes 

Weaver suggests that there is an inside and outside visitor experience. No two visitors are the same. The inside experience is all the things that each visitor brings on the day of their visit, the bad and good days. A visitor may perceive things differently than originally intended by a site. The site cannot really fix what is inside a visitor, but can change the outside experiences of the visitor. That outside visitor experience begins when the visitor decides to visit the site and lasts until they drive away.

The visitor experience does not start at the door. In evaluating the site, step back and look at the whole picture. Everything matters. Your brand, your name,  and your mission is what your site is. The brand is the experience and your brand is only as good as your visitor's worst part of the experience. The exact definintion of brand is discussed in later chapters. All aspects of the experience fit together like a puzzle to form a whole. One bad or missing piece can ruin a puzzle.

Skipping parts two and three for now, part four is the practical side of the book. It gives suggestions for action groups and exercises to be completed to review what each site has, what it does well, and what it could do to improve. The exercises are grouped by each chapter, so an action group could read a chapter and discuss it, or do their "homework" between meets. However, the author suggests reading the whole book beforehand and then go through the book slowly, chapter by chapter, in the action groups. If you are serious about creating a greater visitor experience, this is where all the action is, so do not gloss over the exercises and questions; your site will be better for it.

I found the book useful and thoughtful and worth turning into a blog post. Next month, Part 2 of Creating Great Visitor Experiences will be the focus. One part will be about learning more about the visitor and what they want and what they need. The second part addresses preparing the staff for customer service and investing in them to improve themselves and ultimately, the site.

6-16-2019 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Five years can be a long time. It comes down to relativity, in one sense. Five years can be a long time in jail, or it could be a short time watching a child grow up. I'd like to think it to be the latter rather than the former in the case of my blog.

Five years ago, I had toyed with the idea of starting a blog to highlight my career as a historical interpreter and show off all the neat things I get to do or participate in. In some way, that is what this blog has done, so my original intent is still here.

2014 Ryan worked as a seasonal interpreter on a farm.

Over time, it became more of a place where I can show my depth of interest, concern, and understanding of the art and skill of interpretation and the issues surrounding it. Like all things in five years, it has changed. It has changed in becoming deeper, more impacting content than a fun and flashy "look at me" self serving showcase.

Because of this change, it has also been difficult to continue to provide meaningful content. The need to make content interesting, relevant, and important became a struggle to be able to do it. It is one of the reasons why the blog became less spontaneous and a more metered monthly publication.

2019 Ryan is still seasonal but with the National Park Service

Finding content and committing to a monthly deadline has been an education and a discipline that I have had to cultivate as the low hanging fruit of my imagination began to run out of readily available ideas and I have had to look for things that inspire from my career and daily life.

Over the five years, here are five things that I have learned in blogging:

1. Pictures are worth a thousand words. If you look back on my very first blog post, there is not one image. Actually, neither did the second post. Honestly, those were a little boring. They were my first ones, so that can be easily overlooked. More often than not, I have added too many photos and not enough text. I generally plan for between 5- 7 images but only end up using 4-6 depending.

Editor-in-Chief on location in Atlanta

2. You have to make your own noise. Not many people are going to be in your cheer squad, so recruiting people to share and spread is essential.However, I must admit this is an area in which I can improve. I presently only self advertise on Facebook and LinkedIn, but I have to learn more about Twitter. Networking with other bloggers and people who do things that you do helps create community and shared experience. It also seems less like "crying in the wilderness" where no one can hear me make noise. One way for me to improve is to explore better advertising and sharing platforms.

3.Editing matters! Writing is hard work, especially under a deadline. I try to use the Hemingway App to help improve my writing style. About my biggest complaint is that it does not like passive voice. Since much of the content I write about takes place in the past and sometimes by course of natural action and not active participation, the passive voice is simply part of the writing style. I also have an head Editor-in-Chief! She has helped me untangle some frazzled threads that made it onto an editable region on the blog software and turn it into something that makes sense to someone reading it. She has her own blog that she adds to when inspiration and time allow. 

David Connon, the author of the "Maserati"
guest blog post and author of his own blog
Confederates From Iowa

4.Snazzy titles. Perhaps I have yet to learn this one. My most visited and popular post was not written by me, but by a guest. The Me in a Maserati blog post just celebrated its release just 3 years ago. This post has been very popular in Europe, especially in Russia. I think it is because "Maserati" shows up in the title and the search engines worldwide pick it up. Or, maybe it is because David Connon's winsome blog post and his network far outshines my readership ."I think...that it has been your most viewed post because of the wording of the title, and probably particularly because of the word 'Maserati'. " I corresponded with David about the popularity of his post, initially to look at what made the post the most successful one yet but he also had this bit of advice about titles,"I think that writing good, snappy, and/or interesting titles is important if we want to attract readers. But it is hard to do, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth."
5. L shape writing. This kind of writing is similar to using the Hemingway App, in that the short curt sentences are broken up into smaller paragraphs that are easier to read. I still need to revise my earlier posts that use full paragraphs and break them into smaller chunks.

With all things, it is hard to say how much longer this blog will continue to bring the reader fresh content, but it is my intention to keep it up as long as I am able.

If you are a regular reader, then thank you for reading. Please continue to read and learn and give feedback. I appreciate all the help, support, and inspiration over the years!

The back-half

One of the most frequently asked questions that I would receive as an interpreter or as a National Park Service employee would be how I got my job. Depending on what job I was in at the time would depend on the answer; interpreting for private enterprises is much easier to get into than getting into the NPS, for example. They are usually asking for themselves or for friends or relations that want to get into "this sort of thing." As I talk more and more about my experiences, it becomes clear that the giving programs and talking to people portion of the job is the only part that they see. Speaking with new employees as well, giving programs and tours only were what they were expecting in a job. Having a high demand "fun job" is the "front-half", the part that everyone sees, but there is another part of the job the public does not see, the so-called "back-half". The back-half is where the office politics and meetings and paperwork resides. The essential part of the business that sees the interpreter as an employee, rather than a public figure. It is a necessary evil as without it, nothing would get done; there would be no budget, no paper towels, no approval for programming, no clean up. New employees are so often thrown off balance by this whole other world on the other side of the wall which frequently they are unprepared to meet that it has become clear to me this must be addressed before more new employees are burnt out from their encounter with the back-half of being an interpreter. Therefore, I have decided to share some tips about surviving in the back-half.

First, what do I mean by the back-half? The back-half is home to office people. Depending on the organization it could be a building complex or a cubicle or two in a trailer. Often there is a head honcho of some sort. The exact name will be different depending on the organization but that person could be called a president, supervisor, owner, superintendent, or executive. There are also secretaries, budget and accounting people, Information Technology (IT) and graphic design people, Human Resources (HR), and supervisor managers. The climate controlled jungle is their turf and the interpreter, used to being outdoors and in all forms of weather, usually treads here but very little, usually to pick up checks or to called into meetings or performance reviews. Often these kinds of people simply do not understand what it is that you do and there can be some tension in expectations. For example, the "numbers" people want you to provide them with numbers, things like how many people went on a tour or participated in a program. As a result, the interpreter must not also give a program but track how many people participated in it. However, sometimes they ask questions that cannot be tracked. For another example: asking why more visitors visited during the month last year compared to this year. It cannot be done. The people who visited last year are gone. The ones who visited this year do not coordinate with the visitors this year and not all visitors will visit annually.

Tip # 1 Play nice. A classic organizational clash is the tension between programming and maintenance. Programming throws parties and Maintenance cleans it up. No matter how much the programming people take time to clean-up after the program or event, there is always a mess, according to maintenance people. There are never enough paper towels or toilet paper and the maintenance people take two hour breaks, at least according to the interpreters. On and on it goes. In rare instances do Maintenance and Interpretation get along well, so be prepared to deal with that. It is always in good taste to try and help Maintenance when you can. It may not absolve your department of all past wrong doing, but having them like you may get things done for you with less grumbling. Getting involved in interdepartmental pettiness is going to lead to less-than-professional problems that will affect your workplace. You work on a team, so be a team player.

The elusive Office Ninja evading a meeting

Tip # 2 Get out of a meeting if you can. Meetings are the necessary evil of any organization. Interpretation meetings are usually done standing as it prevents long and unnecessary material. Meetings in the back-half are usually done sitting and tend to drag on longer than necessary. Only under rare circumstances have these meetings been short and worthwhile. As a result, try to get out of meetings as much as possible. Someone will always find you later on and give you a quick briefing that will be more informative than actually being there. If you have questions, you usually go to the person with the problem or your immediate supervisor and get it taken care of much faster than trying to set up a meeting. Some meetings you cannot get out of, like a performance review.

The general rule is for Ryan's Inverse Relationship Model of
Fun and Responsibility is that the less responsibility one has,
the more fun you will generally have. Conversely, the more
responsibility one has, the less fun you will have.

Tip #3 Know what you want from this organization. Staying with an organization longer will bring on more responsibility and sometimes a promotion. But the strange thing becomes with more responsibility comes more likelihood to being a back-half person. Sooner or later the job you love to do because you get to be outdoors becomes the job you never wanted because you wear a sweater indoors since the air conditioning is so cold, but it is a bright, hot, sunny and sweltering day outside. This is a concept that I call "Ryan's Inverse Relationship Model of Fun and Responsibility", seen to the side. The less responsibility you have, the more fun you are having, whereas the more responsibility you have, the less fun you are having. I have known great interpreters that do not do programs or tours because they have been given office work to do. When they do these programs they do them quickly because they must get back in and get their work done before the deadline. To be honest, I do not want to end up there. For some, riding a desk is what they want to do and that is fine for them, but it is not why I want to be an interpreter. With the Park Service, being a GS-7 (or at big parks GS-9) is about the last grade where being outside is an expected part of the job, and anything higher means the only time you get to be outside is to get from the parking lot to the building.

Tip# 4 Math never goes away. Perhaps you got into interpretation because you hated numbers and math and got burnt out on business. Surprise! You still have to deal with math and business practices. That day may come when they ask you to run the register, close it out, or deal with ticket purchasing. What of merchandising and questions asked in the Visitor Center or Gift Shop? You will still be asked about prices, products, and inventory by visitors. Customer service is still part of your job as an interpreter, even if you are not working in sales specifically.

Tip #5 Don't get burnt out! The office is also a place for office politics. Pettiness, passive-aggressive behavior, interdepartmental squabbles, and clashing egos all manifest in the office. It can be a place of dread but if you be a positive person, help out, and do your best. The other office people will start to like you and are therefore less likely to mess with you. It is not always the case, but it does put you on good grounding. Find what you like about the organization and enjoy it and if need be, do what you need to do in order to remind you of that rather than become jaded by the bureaucracy. Visitors do not want to meet with unhappy workers instead of inspiring people who do what they love. Keep that passion for what you want to do and fight for it.

The back-half is in nearly every kind of service job. Some of it is better integrated than others, while others are more distant and allow interpreters and program people to focus on their jobs and less on paperwork. While it can be daunting, it is important to realize that it is there and it is essential to the job that you do, because without the office, there would be no organizational infrastructure to support interpreters and program people in preforming their jobs.

Interpretive Toolbox: Verbal techniques,part 6

The sixth and final installment in the series of verbal techniques for use in Interpretative Programming, here are the last ideas in alphabetical order that help give the interpreter more techniques and methods to work with for a better program. Despite coordinating another location move, this is the third blog post this month and a little later than planned but now complete!

Creating tension can push some personalities to the breaking
point so be mindful your effect on the visitors

Tension - Unrest, suspense, or anxiety that provokes a emotional reaction within a performed piece. There is a problem or a need that every program needs to address and that puts the tension on the visitor to find out how it resolves or find emotional release through the interpretive experience. This technique can be used as a hook to draw in visitors and make a narrative compelling.

Testimony - Description of first hand experience, often a confession in this case. Telling the visitors of the interpreter's own experience helps give authenticity to the program, a candid confession of the "expert" learning from experience, but also can be used as a procedure to introduce new ideas or ways of thinking and share experiences with the visitors.

Tone - A stylized manner of relating information that can set an emotional mood for the program, such as speaking in a lighthearted and easy manner compared to creating a heavy, sad or anxious mood for any given program. Approaching the material in this style will cause different reactions with the visitors that may cause them the experience the resource in a different manner than had it been done without any thought as to how the material is presented.

Transition - A verbal or written change in topics often is a signal that one discussion is ending and another one is beginning. This is a kind of foreshadowing that indicates that something new is going to happen as the location or the discussion topic changes. It is a good habit to get into when writing the script for a program to include a sentence or two on the transition from one segment to the next. Try giving the visitors something to think about as they move locations, give them a question to ponder or a riddle to solve so that they verbally anticipate what is going to happen next before the next thing happens. Transitions are essentially continually introducing the next big thing.

Triad - A triad is the rule of three's. "I will give you three examples", for instance, or "There are three things to remember." There are three options. Three's an odd number, which tends to stick in the mind better than fours or even numbers. Examples of groups of threes include things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner; Lee, Stonewall, and Stuart; "I came, I saw, I conquered." Such groups help give ample examples to the point illustrated. Having one or two triads in a program is excellent, but avoid over use.

Trip Hammer - "A repeated word, phrase, or gesture that serves to reinforce a concept". One example is the use of the phrase "water is vital to survival" when discussing something like the adaptations of animals and plants in desert ecosystems. Every time an adaptation or feature is brought up ending with the catch phrase, the message will be reinforced.

Understatement - the restraining of commentary on a topic for a rhetorical effect. It is almost the exact opposite of exaggeration or hyperbole. It is the action of the phrases "The less said, the better" and "Less is more". This method works on serious topics or a topic that have been talked to death. Delivered just right, the effect can be used to be amusing. 

Voice Modulation - The control of emphasis or volume in the voice. This includes things like whispers, exclamations, funny voices for animals, onomatopoeia, speaking fast or slow, round tones, or other acoustic skills the interpreter may possess.

Word Choice - Selecting the vocabulary with intention for effect. Word choice matters. When working with children, the words you use will help them understand complex ideas and concepts if the interpreter can bring it to their level without "dumbing it down". It can also dance around sensitive and difficult topics. It can be precise or vague, depending on what the intention is behind the choice for a word.

Captivate them with your eloquent and vivid description

Word Picture- A vivid description that gives allows for easy imagination. Choosing to be descriptive can take a visitor "there" in their minds and mentally "see" what is being described. Select sensory words to make a clear picture. There apparently is a hierarchy of using senses interpretively : "The sense of sight first, the sense of sound second, the sense of touch third, and the senses of taste and smell next."

Word Play- Amusing verbal plays on words like puns an double meanings. It is an excellent amusing technique; the "dad jokes" and puns do some work for you. On the other hand, be aware of some of the meanings of double entendres as it may show up on a comment card afterwards.

Once the main portion of the program is over, every great program needs a conclusion, a way of ending that closes the program. Conclusions provide emotional release and closure that we have been conditioned to expect. Books, plays, TV shows, movies, research papers all conclude and so must the program. Ending with a "That's all folks!" is not a conclusion. Think about how some of the most impacting TV shows, movies, plays or books end and see if you can do the same but for your content. When ending a program, there are a few techniques that work very well that helps reinforce your message and leave the audience satisfied.

Analysis - An evaluation of the whole and parts. Analysis is a evaluation of everything that has been done or discussed and making a determination or a judgement about it. This technique is really a conclusion technique because information and evidence needs to be gathered first before it can be analyzed. Looking at the interaction of parts and the whole help reinforce the relationships and functionality of a message. Posing the analysis as a question helps open the matter to discussion and exchange of opinion.

Summary - A condensation of information or distillation of it that rephrases the message of the program. Remind the visitors of the main points of the program and how what was talked about or done at those points reinforces the interpreter's message. This review also serves to reinforce. Repetition is a powerful learning tool. Use summary as a method to gather your evidence one last time for a call to action!

Get the word out!

 Call to action - A forceful and persuasive comment about what to do next. Tilden's principle #4 said that interpretation is provocation. What was the message of the program? Did you answer their "So what?" What can be said to provoke them to take the next step without explicitly telling them to go do something? Telling them what to do ruins the learning and discovery part of learning. Perhaps by telling them what to do curtails their own ideas about what to do that might be better than the suggestion! Ending on a strong impacting note make a lasting impression.

This is the end of the portion on verbal techniques at long last. The techniques and methods described are many and plentiful, and involve coordination in order to be effective. This portion has been relatively exhaustive, but by no means contains the only verbal techniques available. Being that we humans communicate in such complex manners, remember that it take time, practice, and careful planning to make each and every program presentation effective, memorable, and fun. Using these verbal techniques in concert will help give the interpreters a wealth of knowledge and ideas to play with as they fine tune their programs. Next month the topic of discussion will be active participation techniques. The information will center of low level activity with increasing ability to the highest forms of activity that can be engaged that anyone has thought of. Stay tuned for next week as we get active!

I relied on Handles: A Compendium of Interpretive Techniques to Help Visitors Grasp Resource Meanings by Peggy Ann Scherbaum for ideas and material to share and is a great resource for ideas and examples and I could not have done this series without it. I do not claim to have some up with the techniques described since I used Handles as a resource; all I did was arrange the material in such a way as to make the concepts categorically available.

Origins of Ryan's History obsession, Part 2

Last month I revealed my early interest in history. This month the two themes I wish to explore are Passion and Professionalism. Passion comes from passio- meaning 'to suffer' in Latin, and I am using it to describe the trials and tribulations through determined effort and enthusiasm on my journey until now, 'my journey' meaning how I transitioned from being an amateur enthusiast into a professional.

Remember 1998? I had been a reenactor

for a year that year as this old-school 

photograph illustrates. 

The first bit I want to share is when I started doing Civil War Living History. I talk about it a lot on this blog but it is important to understand why it is important to me. I had seen reenactors and living historians before on one of our trips. I saw my first Civil War Living History demonstration in Yorktown, VA, where a Confederate battalion demonstrated firing techniques. But I had not yet seen a battle reenactment and it would be years later before I would see one. It was when my father went to a Boy Scout leader meeting with other troop leaders and one of them mentioned going with his boys to a Civil War reenactment at Irvine Regional Park, in Irvine, CA, that day, and it would be there all weekend. My father and I went over there to see what we could see, and what we saw impressed us. At the time it was something fun to do that was appealing to me. As I got more and more into the hobby, the more I began to learn about it in fine detail. The truth was that it was given deeper interest by research and brought to life with imagination. I had previously experienced the Civil War in books and maps with red and blue arrows and sepia-toned photographs of frumpy men with beards. At a reenactment or Living History, history could be interacted with on a personal level. A curious public could ask a Living Historian the questions about why they were the way they were and receive a personal answer. Such learning fosters more learning while providing "customer service". Since joining, my interest in the shooting and running around part of the 'war' has waned, but new things take their place. Some of these new things included taking leadership of a unit and researching an officer's roles and responsibilities, civilian life, looking into 19th century past-times like Faro, and other similarly related topics. I've also branched out to other time periods like early 19th century mountain man as well as World War Two French Foreign Legion and Australian impressions. One of the elements that demonstrates passion is that this is all funded by myself. I own all my own gear; nobody bankrolls me and my impressions. I cannot calculate how much time and money I have invested in my gear. These experiences and interests remind me of a few things: we can learn to understand some of the past by walking in its shoes and that history is made up of people and not impersonal forces of nature.

My WWII Aussie Impression for the 50th
anniversary of the closing of the Kokoda
trail. The 39th Bn AIB was nearly nearly
destitute, threadbare, and starving but
saved New Guinea from the Japanese. 

Since I had a pretty good idea that I excelled at history, I decided to pursue it as a major course of study and become a teacher. I thought that if I could get kids excited in history that they would be more excited about school in general and be better, more wholesome people. Plus, I'd get summer vacations! So when I went to California State University Long Beach, I knew what I was going to major in. I attended a number of exceptional classes that challenged me academically and intellectually and all together were a fantastic experience. Once I neared the end of my undergrad, I got into the introduction to teaching classes. As I started doing my teacher training, I learned about classroom management, how to come up with lesson plans, and the education system. However, I realized that the teaching profession was not what I expected or what I wanted. Also, for years California had been clamoring for new teachers to replace the retirement aged teachers supposedly phasing out of employment and claimed there was a great need. Either the rush to retire was less than expected or the educational system had not anticipated such a response to the call and suddenly there were no teaching jobs, no funding, and a surplus of well qualified and trained teachers without jobs being dumped into the job market every May with graduation. So rather than go into teaching, I wrapped up my undergrad without the teaching credentials.  Without much direction after graduation, I went back to work at summer camp as I had done every summer of college. I had watched their outdoor education program change over a few years and I asked to join when summer was over. Steve, the program director, had been moving the program to be from a 'science camp' experience to a 'using history to teach science camp' and I liked the idea enough that I worked in this program for four seasons. The outdoor education teachers were called Trail Leaders and we led groups of 6th graders in week long camps. 

2006, it was a start.

We dressed as 'mountain men' to teach outdoor science like fire building and mammal biology in activities. We dressed as lumberjacks to teach tree ecology and geology, with activities like 'panning for gold'. Since I had experience in Living History culture, I was able to help made suggestions for costuming and curriculum corrections that helped with future programming. The informal structure of the classes really appealed to me because it was education that the student could engage in while doing an activity outside of the classroom and the strict eye of 'formal education'. I and my Trail Leader friends put in long hours for months on end to make the greatest experiences for the students, parents, and teachers. My experience with Outdoor Adventures further shaped the kind of educator I wanted to be and helped prompt me to go back to school to get my Masters degree from California State University Fullerton.

M.A. History with an emphasis in

public history, 2011.

It was there at California University Fullerton where I was introduced to public history as a discipline and historical interpretation as a vocation. At first the idea did not register with me; the term was unfamiliar to me and it was not explained very well at the time. As I spent more time in the History office (as a student office assistant) I got to know the professors better and understand a little bit more about what they did. I explained my background in Living History and Outdoor Adventure and someone asked,"Why don't you go talk to Dr. Rast about public history?" I did so and was soon enrolled in his Intro. to Public History seminar class. As we explored topics from Culture Resource Management, Archives, Historical Interpretation, Museum Curating, and all things in between, I realized that this was what I really wanted to do as an educator and a History enthusiast. I switched my emphasis as a Master to public history shortly afterward, but I needed to do an internship as part of my course of study for my Master's degree. I was blessed enough to be selected to go to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. The link describes what I did there and my thoughts about it. In preparation for my work at Harpers Ferry, the Rangers directed me to the Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands website to take some online courses on the National Parks, the foundations of interpretation, and the federal government. Since then, I have taken additional interpretive courses to further my education and to make myself a better interpreter.

By the end of the internship, I knew that historical interpretation was for me and I have been working to getting a permanent position ever since. It has not been easy because while seasonal and part time positions are relatively available, the permanent jobs are few and the competition fierce. My experience at Harpers Ferry showed me what a great organization the National Park System is, and it has since been my goal to get in. I was warned beforehand that it was not easy to get into the Park system, but I failed to understand how hard it would be. Unfortunately for me, I made a number of mistakes. The first was probably leaving Harpers Ferry, but there has been no indication that I could stay. I had to finish my degree, after all. The next hindrance was the reorganization of the Pathways program. While Pathways makes getting a federal job easier if you are a college student, it was late in getting jobs ready for recent graduates. Even with an extended grace period from graduation, the amount of Park jobs available to recent graduates was practically non-existent. Consequently, that time ran out before I ever saw a Pathways opening for a Park Service position that I was qualified for. My only ways in were to be a veteran (which meant boot camp, uncertain futures, possible deployment, and years of service I simply don't have) or national service with the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps VISTA program.

Stationed interpretation at the Guard House

While I worked as a director of my own outdoor education program in 2012, I simultaneously applied to VISTA and the SCA. The SCA (Student Conservation Association) is attractive on a resume in pursuit to a National Park job since many of the positions partner with the National Parks. It is primarily a conservation program, the positions extended to cultural and historical conservation as well. While I am more history focused, a interpreter with a will to interpret the environment would also benefit from a term of service with the SCA as well.While Fort Scott National Historic Site selected me and I had a great time there as well. I was charged with putting together a 30 minute activity lesson on the Quartermaster Depot during the Civil War which ran about twice a week for a month. I created my own tour of the site at their behest. Since it is the only NPS site that includes the 'Bleeding Kansas' time period, I thought it was an excellent topic for my tour and I focused on the events in Fort Scott in 1858 when the town was directly involved in the conflict. This time on the old frontier helped hone my experience and training into something that was much more professional. The problem of it all was that the 3 month appointment would separate me from my wife since she had an excellent job and it would be a tough time for her to find a new job for just 3 months. So with a heavy heart I headed to Kansas without her in pursuit of my career.

As a VISTA, I managed the

Northeast Iowa Food Bank Garden

and recruited and trained volunteers

and quadrupled the production from

900 lbs. in 2014 to 3,896 lbs in 2015

After Fort Scott, my career started to take new turns. The summer after Fort Scott, I worked at Living History Farms in Iowa and really took my Living History game to another level. You can read about some of my experiences here on this blog. It was also during this time that I started this blog, which was originally supposed to be about my experiences at Living History farm and take each week as a lesson, but as I examined the vast internet further, I noticed a lack of historical interpretive websites that were really meaningful or explored the topic further, so I decided to gear this blog into that gap in a way that demonstrates my web-savvy, some of my technical skills, and creates more of an 'online presence' for me. As before, my time at Living History Farms meant another period of separation with my wife, this time it was for 8 long months. While in Iowa, I finally got into VISTA in August of 2014 at a Food Bank.  VISTA is a segment of the AmeriCorps that fights poverty in America by increasing program capacity rather than directly serving. I use this example to explain: If my task is to teach middle school students how to improve their reading abilities after school with them, that is direct service. If I recruit, train, place, and manage volunteers in a program that teaches middle

school students to improve their reading ability, that is increasing the capacity. What I did was recruit, train, and manage volunteers in a garden program for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. I talk about that experience a little bit here. Rather with be separated with my wife for a whole year on top of 8 months, my wife and I decided that she would join me in Iowa and live on my 'living stipend' until she was able to secure work. Now that my term of service is done, I now have the much sought after thing I need to finally get my way into the National Parks: Noncompetitive Appointment Eligibility with the Federal Government.

Within the Federal hiring system there are several special hiring authorities that essentially 'short-list' job candidates into a separate pool from the average U.S. citizen. Some of these special hiring authorities include Veterans' Recruitment Appointment (VRA), 30% Disabled Vets, Schedule A (persons with disabilities), and Peace Corps and VISTAs. These are usually in separate categories or have jobs especially open for these candidates. To date, I have not been selected for a status candidate job or other related hiring path, but am working seasonally for the Park Service now. Hopefully, I will continue to get some more phone call offer from some great parks, as I know they would love having me and I think that I would have a lot to contribute based on some of the things I have outlined here and hopefully get into a permanent position. If you are interested in trying to get into the National Parks or other parts of the Federal government, all their open jobs can be found at usajobs.gov.

Professional but fun-loving

The culmination of my experiences in college and teaching formally and informally helped define where I wanted to use my training, talent, and experiences in order to share my excitement about history and help shape visitor's experiences into meaningful memories. My work experience with two National Parks, and a historical interpretation site gave my practical lessons on working with the visiting public and an appreciation for the craft of interpretation. My time in VISTA helped me to become more empathetic with other people in situations similar to mine. It also opened my eyes to the poverty and need embedded deeply in America and that while I have suffered separation, low wages, long hours, long drives, and pressing need, I have seen the suffering of others in people lacking the ability to get enough resources as to be able to feed themselves. While I talk about passion as my intense drive and willingness to to go to places for low wages for my future, I interacted with people who have to suffer limited or no choices in how they live and whether they can afford to eat in true passion.

It has been a long road to here. As this new year is already underway I hope that the time, money, learning, and passion will produce a good result in a site that can recognize that I am a truly devoted and unique person who wants to live and love my passion for history and is willing to go long and far for what I love to do.