Pop the bubble

A few weeks ago, I sat on a friend’s porch, beer in my hand, enjoying good company. The porch’s owner also invited an old college friend. He’s an architect, my friend is a transportation planner. And as any two people in similar fields would when you get them together, they talked shop. A lot. They were in their own little bubble, separate from the rest of us, solving all of the problems of road and building construction for our whole region.

The rest of us tried to pop into the bubble, to listen to the conversation, maybe even ask questions. It was clear that we were out of our league. The two inside the bubble talked a completely different language, foreign to anyone outside it.

Museum people have a bubble too. And ours is really tough to pop. At my most recent job, and very much inside the bubble, I had a hard time figuring out why we weren’t more integrated with our community. Why most people I met had barely heard of us. Why the small minority who had actually heard of our existence had no idea what we had inside.

I don’t work there anymore. I’m out of the bubble now. And the view is different out here. And you know, I understand now.

I recently came across an article about an event at a different museum. I have friends at that museum, and they do some good work. I could always appreciate how they find solutions to their unique challenges, how they work to interpret a subject to different audiences. But that was before the bubble popped. Now, as a visitor, I read the article and I felt nothing. The event didn’t excite me, it didn’t motivate me enough to get me off my couch and go there.

You see, just like my friends on the porch, the view inside the bubble is very different than the view outside. And if I’ve learned one thing since leaving my last job, it’s that museum people need to pop the bubble. We need to remember that the world outside cares more about gas prices today than, say, cars of yesterday.

Until we learn what motivates our visitors, what will get them off the couch and come visit, we’ll be stuck inside our little bubble.