1. What s Your Story?
Interpretive Planning with the 5-M Model
Lisa Brochu • lbrochu@interpnet.com

2. What Makes Your Museum Meaningful?
• Collections
• Compelling Stories
• Emotional and Intellectual Connections
(Tangibles and Intangibles)

3. Why an Interpretive Plan?
• Keeps the project on track with clear
objectives.
• Provides a way of explaining the project to
funders, supporters, designers, fabricators
and others.
• Provides an evaluation tool at every
phase.

4. The 5-M Planning Model
Management Message
Media
Markets Mechanics

5. Management
• mission, goals, objectives
• policies & regulations
• key issues
• revision and update strategies
• operational resources
– staffing
– budget
– facilities & equipment
– maintenance

6. Logic Model
• Impact (benefit you’re trying to achieve
over the long term - for the resource,
agency, or individual)
• Outcomes (observable behavior changes,
either immediate or short term)
• Outputs (what you provide through media
choices)

7. Markets
• product - what you have to offer
• price - perceived value
• place - relationship to what s around
• promotion - how do people know about
you
• publics - market segmentation
– users & support
– existing & potential

8. Message
• Why is this place or
collection significant?
• What interests
visitors?
• What is management
most interested in
communicating?

9. Theme = Power
• It s what sticks
• Thorndyke s 1978 research
• People forget facts, but remember themes
• Ham s Lindblad study

10. Message Development
Resource
Management
Audience

11. Developing the Message
• Central theme - the message behind the
collection
• Subthemes - framework for stories
• Storylines - individual ideas

12. Thematic Framework
Central Theme
Subtheme A Subtheme B Subtheme C
Storyline Storyline Storyline
Storyline Storyline Storyline
Storyline Storyline Storyline
Storyline

13. Central Theme Characteristics
Ü Should include tangible/intangible connection
Ü Should include visitor, management, and
resource considerations
Ü Should be a simple sentence
Agriculture sowed the seeds of change for 20th
century Boulder County.

14. Subtheme Development
Ü Groupings of stories
Ü Miller s 7 plus or minus 2
Ü Should reflect the language of the theme
Ü May dictate development of site or building
layout, but may not

15. Storyline Development
• Theme of the piece (exhibit, brochure,
sign)
• Message elements
– Facts
– Anecdotes
– Quotes
– Illustrations
– Graphic design

16. Mechanics
Large Scale Design Balance
– Site or landscape features
– Facilities and buildings
– Interpretive stories

17. Visitor Experience Model
Decision
Entry Connections Exit
Commitment

18. Mechanics
Smaller scale
– Functional
relationships
– Accessibility
– Space programming
– Placement
– Physical opportunities
& constraints

19. Media
• Publications  Products for children
• Signs  Demonstrations
• Exhibits  Living history
• Souvenirs  Audio tours
• Food items  Landscape features
• Visitor centers  Art & sculpture
• Auto tours  Playscapes
• Guided tours  Drama & music

31. Texas State Aquarium

39. China National
Tea Museum
Hangzhou#

53. The care of
rivers
is not a
matter of
rivers,
but of the
human heart.
--Tanaka Shozo