Publicity: The Double Edged Sword

The publicity you want:

CA Recognized as National and Regional Leader in Sustainability During Earth Month*

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) honored CA with a Goal Achiever award for hitting its 30% energy savings goal as a partner in the Better Buildings Challenge. This significant reduction was achieved due to innovative energy efficiency efforts across CA’s 500,000-square-foot building portfolio.

In addition, CA earned a Green Community Leadership Award from Howard County’s Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Environmental Services. This award was presented at GreenFest, an annual Earth Month event that was held at Howard Community College on April 13.

The publicity you get:

Columbia Association has lost its mind!!! - - NextDoor

Supreme Sports Club Getting Rid of Women’s Gym - - Reddit/ColumbiaMD

I sometimes wonder if our local NextDoor consists of the people who dominated the comments section HoCo Times/Columbia Flier until both papers turned off comments. At any rate, if one imagined these two forums as newspapers, Reddit is the one where you’re more likely to find nuance. Nextdoor is a tabloid.

In neither place are you likely to see the kind of publicity CA would love to see - - its leadership in sustainability, for instance. That’s a larger, overarching commitment that’s probably invisible to the general public. That does not mean it’s unimportant. But it’s hardly going to stir up enthusiasm in an online forum unless people perceive personal impact.

You know what does get people excited? Do you want to see people spread information like wildfire? Try eliminating gym towels.

Now, the case of eliminating a space at Supreme Sports Club that has been dedicated for the use of women is, to me, a much bigger deal than gym towels. And I’m sure that the folks at CA knew they’d be facing some push-back. Someone on staff wrote a tactfully-worded statement here that hits all the right notes, perhaps in hopes of diffusing some of the immediate disappointment from Women’s Gym users.

I don’t know how well that’s working. I do know that I have some questions about the process that was used to make this decision, so I’m going to follow the helpful QR code and see what I can find out. I’ll keep you posted.

Village Green/Town² Comments

*Information from Columbia Association press release

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