Yes, that Coleman:  the outdoor company famous for its kerosene lanterns that have adorned campsites across the country for decades.

What caught my eye about this ad?  Their new tagline:  “The Original Social Networking Site.”

Say what?

A great ad, in my opinion.

To the right is a thumbnail of one of their print ads.

Coleman is making the assertion that the campsite is an old-fashioned social networking site.  And they’re right.

This is the very concept that we try to get through to many of our clients.  Social networking is a decidedly “1.0″ concept that’s simply made easier and faster through technology.

In the “olden days” … news, traditions and stories were carried from town to town and generation to generation around the campfire.  Instead of gathering around the laptop for a Skype video chat, people used to gather around the campfire (or in the town square, or the barbershop, etc.)

You get the idea.  As Coleman states on its Web site:

At Coleman, we’ve been helping people get together to socialize and connect for as long as we’ve been making lanterns and stoves. All we wanted to do was create gear for camping. We ended up creating some sort of movement. Folks call it, “social networking”. A hundred years ago, we just called it a good time with friends.

A great way for this non-tech company to connect with younger consumers.

To top it off, the TV ad I saw as strategically placed during an episode of “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ in which the family took a “camping trip” in their backyard.

Solid, targeted advertising with a message that hits home with even a decidedly non-outdoorsman like me.

Good job, Coleman.

One of the keys to that perfect game was an amazing ninth-inning running/jumping/off-the-wall catch by center fielder Dewayne Wise to save a home run.

The catch was so amazing that I captured excerpted footage of it from WhiteSox.com and posted it on my YouTube page.

Within 24 hours, 1,000 people had viewed the video.  By last Monday, more than 5,000 had viewed it.  All the comments were positive.

Then — I got the notice from YouTube telling me that Major League Baseball had flagged the video for copyright violations and it was removed.

Now, I’m not naive.  I thought there was a chance this would happen.  But, quite honestly, I thought/hoped Major League Baseball (MLB) was smarter than that.

As you might recall, I recently posted on what MLB was doing right with their online efforts.

Well, this copyright issue is something they are doing wrong.

In their view, my posting of this video is somehow “stealing” audience from MLB.com.  I’m somehow intruding on their market share.

In my view, that’s total bunk.

Would your political campaign issue a copyright complaint over someone who posted your TV ad, debate footage or video from a speech on YouTube?  Of course not.

Would your company issue a complaint against someone for posting your TV commercial on their YouTube account?  No way.

That’s because the Web empowers every individual to be an evangelist for your brand or organization.  You should encourage them to share your content with their networks.  That creates a customer base, a bigger audience and, in the case of MLB, a fan base.

I’m an MLB fan, and I posted the footage of the Wise catch because I was excited about it — as were many of the more than 5,000 people who viewed it.

You’d think MLB would encourage this excitement.  I didn’t post a full game — or even a full inning.  I posted a clip that was roughtly 60-seconds of a two-hour game.

I understand that this is a case of letting the lawyers run the show.  But the marketing department at MLB needs to step in and do what’s best for the brand.

Because they just angered one die-hard fan … and prevented me from sharing their product with thousands of existing and potential fans.

Not a good way to build the brand.  MLB can and should do better.

Second, Lon provides a great case study and “non-techie” look at how the ALS Association is using social media tools to help the people they serve:

Now, the Christian Science Monitor editorial page is calling for Twitter to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. I’m not sure if we agree with giving them that prize — although the Twitter team certainly would be as deserving (if not more) than some recent recipients. However, we did want to share with you the first several paragraphs of the editorial, which are very powerful and on point:

The video gave substance to what seemed so far away. We saw the look in her eyes as they went lifeless. We heard the sounds of her friends and family as they begged her to hold on. And she became the personification of the struggle for democracy in a country where voices for freedom are quelled.

Her name was Neda Agha-Soltan, and without Twitter we might never have known that she lived in Iran, that she dreamed of a free Iran, and that she died in a divided Iran for her dreams.

Neda became the voice of a movement; Twitter became the megaphone. Twitter is a free social-messaging utility. It drove people around the world to pictures, videos, sound bites, and blogs in a true reality show of life, dreams, and death. Last month’s marches for freedom and the violent crackdowns were not only documented but personalized into a story of mythic tragedy.

When traditional journalists were forced to leave the country, Twitter became a window for the world to view hope, heroism, and horror. It became the assignment desk, the reporter, and the producer. And, because of this, Twitter and its creators are worthy of being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

As the editorial page states, Twitter was merely a megaphone that allowed the dissemination of the content and voices of protest in Iran.  As such, we disagree that Twitter is the “assignment desk, the reporter, and the producer.”  Those jobs will always belong to the people who produce the content — the brave citizen journalists.

In our opinion, Twitter is akin to the camera, the microphone, the television and the radio.

And we’d rather the Nobel Peace Prize go to these brave citizen journalists — rather than the mere tools they used.

We’ve written about the recent Iranian elections — and how citizens are using new online tools to effectively collect and share their content (photos, videos, twitter posts, etc. of government crackdowns and protests.)  These new tools have been vital to circumventing the government censorship of traditional media to tell the truth about what’s occurring in that country.

So, as we celebrate the Independence Day holiday this weekend, we draw attention to the years leading up to July 4, 1776 — and how the dawn of new content tools allowed ordinary citizens to communicate, protest their government and disseminate unique, compelling content that competed with the government-run press.

In fact, up until about prior to the American Revolution, there was only one newspaper in all of Virginia.  That paper was heavily subsidized by the royals and, as such, was a de facto government mouthpiece.

As this research paper (“Thomas Jefferson and the Originals of Newspaper Competition in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia”) points out, the dawn of the Stamp Act changed all that.  This new law not only hurt the taxpayers economically, it also served to silence opposition voices by making it tougher and more expensive to produce printed materials.

So — a number of enterprising Virginians decided to bring in their own newspaper to compete with the government mouthpiece.  The research paper mentioned above points out:

Great changes came to the printing business in Virginia in 1765. About the time that Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a second printer was encouraged to open another shop in Williamsburg, marking the beginnings of competition in that field. This was an important watershed for the culture and government of the colony, for it signified a shift in the power structure. Control of public messages began to relocate from the royal government to the consumer marketplace. This was a transformation that had a major impact on civic discourse in the colony.

And Thomas Jefferson himself wrote:

“Until the beginning of our revolutionary dispute, we had but one press, and that having the whole business of the government, and no competitor for public favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could be got into it. We procured Rind to come from Maryland to publish a free paper.”

In short, oppressive governments have always realized that truthful content is a deadly weapon.  So, as in the cases of pre-revolutionary Britain and modern day Iran, these governments moved to shut down the ability to disseminate this content.

And, as in the cases of the Virginian and Iranian revolutionaries — the citizens simply found ways to disseminate their content, anyway.

At first glance, there seems a world of difference betwee the Virginians’ purchase of a second printing press — and the Iranians’ use of YouTube, Twitter and FriendFeed.  But, while the technology is different — the end result is the same:  the effective production and dissemination of unique, compelling content.

“Curt is an invaluable part of our team, helping us to greatly expand our grassroots presence. Strong endorsement of his firm and their work.”

“Curt provides results driven consultative services on a variety of projects. Curt brings a proven background in grassroots and grasstops innovation and is a professional for whom social media is more than just a buzz word. Curt delivers measurable results, on-time and on-budget. More importantly, I trust his judgement and value his input.”