The Power of a Blog Post

eat_natural_breakfast_rice_almonds_raisins

Not quite Dell… but it works…

Jeff Jarvis begins his book What Would Google Do with an anecdote about a problem he had with a Dell computer.

Getting no satisfaction from Dell, he blogged about it.

Soon enough, a respose both from blog readers and from the company.

OK.

Well, that’s Jeff Jarvis. However….

Two months ago, I was in England and tried a new breakfast cereal – EatNatural.  It’s a mix of seeds, oats, dried fruit… all healthy stuff.  (I like it with yougurt and pomegranite seeds).

I liked it so much, I brought a bag back to the US with me.

As I got to the bottom of the bag, I started to search US stores for a supplier. No one, not even my local Whole Foods carried it, so I went online.  No one in the US carried it, so I went to the website for Eatnatural.co.uk

They didn’t have any mechanism for ordering online so I emailed them and requested a few bags, saying how much I liked it.

I got back a pretty much form letter from their customer relations department suggesting that I buy their ‘breakfast bars’ in the US instead.

I didn’t want ‘breakfast bars’ ( a thoroughly revolting concept if there ever was one…), I wanted the bag of seeds and nuts and stuff.

Unhappy with their response, I decided to blog about it.

Here.

I didn’t think too much about it until I returned from a trip to DC Monday.

There awaiting my return was a box shipped from the UK, (at a cost of £24!). I opened it and inside found four bags of EatNatural cereal!

The cereal hadn’t come from the EatNatural company, but rather from one of my blog readers!!!!

So first, big thanks to Doug Siegel!!!

Let me put that one in bold Big Thank You to Doug Siegel!!

Then… I got a phone call in the office from Marcella McGinn at Eat Natural.

She explained that while they can’t ship the cereal (or sell it online apparently), they would be happy to send me a case the next time I am in the UK.

Well… there we are.

So I urge you, if you are in the UK, go try a bag of EatNatural Breakfast.

However, I am still not prepared to endorse breakfast bars… of any kind.

Michael Rosenblum

For more than 35 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital video journalism revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for video literacy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State's Government's broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the VJ paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on this paradigm (1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996). Other clients include Spectrum News, Verizon and CBS News.