It’s the middle of the week, we all could use a little boost to get us to the weekend, so welcome to Wednesday🔥🔥Takes, our newest weekly feature where we offer … Let’s call it constructive criticism. Or big ideas we’d like to see in Flint. Or maybe just a rant about something. If you have an idea and would like to write one, pitch it to team@flintdaily.news.
Today is Wednesday in Flint. Even I, someone who struggles to keep track of days of the week in the midst of whatever new dystopian nightmare seems to pop up on a daily basis, knows that because every week like clockwork I get a friendly robot voice who is (in fairness, correctly) concerned about my cholesterol reminding me that it is once again Wellness Wednesday in Flint and if I head over to “Cleo” Road I can get free health screenings.
The alerts come through because I signed up for CodeRED, an objectively very good idea that the city launched in 2023 that allows residents to opt into voice, text, and email alerts about a wide range of emergencies. From the initial news release:
With this new free system, individuals can choose to receive alerts via cell phone, landline, text, email, TTY, and/or social media. The high-speed system can reach people across the city in seconds, ensuring critical information can be quickly shared for situations like:
• Street maintenance activities
• Boil filtered water advisories
• Missing children
• Active shooter
• Natural disasters
• Community updates
All things I, and I imagine other residents, appreciate having information about! However, that last bullet point, ‘community updates,’ is a little problematic. In general, I like being updated about my community. But my idea of what is an important ‘community update’ might be very different from what someone else considers vital enough to get a simultaneous text, voicemail, email, WUPHF alert, or whatever other platforms CodeRED updates are sent on.
In fact, that ‘community updates’ section was a late addition to the list. Shortly after launching, a message about an Easter Egg Hunt angered some residents who felt it didn’t meet the original intent of the emergency messaging platform, hence according to reporting by Sophia Lada for Flint Beat the press release was edited to add that phrase as a catch-all for updates that could be non-emergency in nature. I assume the Wellness Wednesday announcements fit in that category.
Even as a proud hater, I actually don’t hate the alert system. It seems to work fast and efficiently. Good, important information about heat indexes, air quality, water main breaks, and other issues over the summer were things I appreciated. I also don’t hate Wellness Wednesdays – I’ve been to one, and they’re a great idea and positive resource for people who need it.
But using an emergency alert system to promote them isn’t a correct way to use that type of platform. Not everyone is like me, a person with no self-discipline who steals all my kids’ lunch snacks when they go to school thus creating a situation where I do actually need to more carefully monitor my cholesterol. Some people have work or childcare or other commitments that would make it impossible to ever make it to a 10 a.m. event. Some people have their own private healthcare so an event like this isn’t applicable to them.
Wellness Wednesdays are the type of events that belong on a community calendar page or social media rather than getting promoted through an emergency alert system. (And … we do just so happen to have a great community calendar on this very website, and we also promote Wellness Wednesdays on it).
This is admittedly a relatively minor annoyance in the sea of major annoyances and disruptions to our lives many of us are coping with right now. But here’s why I felt this was a topic worthy of writing a column about: I’ve seen numerous people in the last two weeks post their frustrations with the Wellness Wednesday messages on Facebook, both on a Flint politics page and on my private friends list. I’ve worked in communications for about 15 years, and one thing any communicator will agree on is that few things are more valuable than your list of contacts that you can send things to directly. When people start getting annoyed with you to the point that they’re opting out of your list, you truly have to evaluate your content strategy.
Those opt-outs are an even bigger problem when the most important intent of the platform is emergency communications. An increasing number of people don’t like getting phone calls. Some people work second or third shift and are sleeping during the time the phone rings. Some people might just find the minor disturbance or distraction annoying. The reason actually doesn’t matter much, whether it is significant or trite, if it is causing people to opt out. All that matters is you’re losing a contact from your list.
The alert system and Wellness Wednesdays are two good ideas and good uses of government resources. The city should take those wins and not diminish how people view both by bundling them together.
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