There were many stories to be told about what happened during the week when millions were trapped on the ground in flightless Europe thanks to the Icelandic ash cloud, but we couldn't let this one slip by without mentioning it.
On Tuesday, the U.K.'s Anthony Nolan trust faced a problem: The organization arranges to link up bone marrow donors with those in need of transplants and in the days that followed the volcanic eruption under Eyjafjallajokull glacier one of their couriers found himself on the wrong side of the English Channel with a cooler full of marrow.
With no flights, over-booked Eurostar 'chunnel' trains, and some rapidly degrading marrow the charity turned to Twitter to provide.
Many requests blasted into the maelstrom of Twitter along the lines of "Does anyone know" are inane, about shoes racks, or cooking, or just random trivia.
The Nolan request was a little different:
What followed was rather remarkable, less than an hour later Eurostar contacted the charity to let them know they made a seat available.
You can follow the rest of the chain on the trust's Twitter page, which culminates in photographic "proof" that the courier arrived safely:
From a monetary and advertising standpoint there was nothing gained, Eurostar had to bump someone to make that seat available, and the trains were selling out anyway.The marrow was transplanted.
But from a PR standpoint this seems like two things: Intelligent responsiveness, and karmic good will. The speed of the arrangement and the generosity of the people movers is sure to reflect well on the company in the months ahead. Now that's the power of Twitter.