The Beach Boys, 1966.

I love music. Live it, breathe it. Like a courtship, I take days off from it, keeping it fresh and invigorating. Like a new love, I never stop unearthing new fantastic elements. Like a longtime love, the passion beneath never abates, however ragged, shopworn or overly familiar the elements may appear to be.

One of my great loves is The Beach Boys, who were the most popular American rock band during the Beatles’ halcyon days. Singer Jackson Browne once said that to be hip and popular at a certain time neccessitates a pendulum swing into extreme uncoolness at another, and The Beach Boys certainly suffered for their popularity.

1964. From left: Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Brian Wilson.

About 15 years ago, the pendulum swung back. Suddenly The Beach Boys became textbook cool. They weren’t cracking the charts or the MTV playlists, but the whispers about founder Brian Wilson‘s unmatched genius soon became an insistent chatter.

For his part, Wilson spent about a quarter century in a bewildered, schizophrenic haze, on a rollercoaster ride of medication (self-administered and otherwise), psychiatric observation and suicide watches. He balloned to 320 lbs. He didn’t bathe for months at a time. He heard voices in his head. He lost his wife and daughters to divorce and disarray. He lost his way.

Brian Wilson co-founded The Beach Boys 47 years ago and changed the course of popular music.

It wasn’t a tectonic plate shift like Elvis’s ascent or The Beatles’ cultural omnipresence that marked The Beach Boys’ best music. The strength and beauty that marked their oeuvre was best explained in a musicologist’s vernacular, although not for the technical terms employed when discussing this brilliantly complex music, but rather for the palpable sense of awe spilling forth from the most learned scribes. It’s hard to sound enraptured when using phrases like:

“The ear wants to hear the music in the key of A, and is just starting to feel that it’s okay to dismiss the horn note, but then the first vocal phrase arrives on a D chord, in second inversion, leading us to forget about A as a possible home key.”

And yet so many do. The writing or verbal commentary takes on a sort of blissful hue when discussing Wilson’s work. Music is, of course, at its best when it’s felt and absorbed naturally. I mean, it just flows through you. You could no more easily explain music’s irresistible pull to a non-convert than you could quantum physics to a toddler. The potential for understanding is there…but if they don’t get it, they don’t get it.

July 8, 2008. Brian Wilson at Fallsview Casino, Niagara Falls. Photo © Len Lumbers, 2008.

Last week I trekked down the QEW to Niagara Falls’ Fallsview Casino to watch Brian Wilson in concert. For nigh on a decade, Wilson has been a touring trooper, laying waste to the myth that he’d never be able to resume a life of creativity, or even activity. He has played music no observer ever thought they’d hear in concert ever since his retreat from workaday life in the late-1960s. He “completed” the legendary, abandoned SMiLE album in 2004, and toured it. He won a Grammy Award for that one.

Last week, I watched him rip through two dozen astoundingly well-crafted pop songs with the smallest touring band he’s used yet. There was no big event or CD to promote. He just doesn’t seem to want to stop now that he’s restarted. At 66, he’s even recorded a new album of typically ambitious baroque, harmony-drenched pop.

Wilson still sings acceptably well, in good pitch but without much intonation. He doesn’t play an instrument any longer, and leans against a stool for most of the performance. He cuts a curious figure, the centre of attention for an audience that is clearly besotted with his work, and himself. We are in the presence of a giant, they seem to be saying, as they stand and applaud wildly after every song, bathing the performer in a glow of love that has to be seen to be believed. I’ve seen him in concert four times since 2000 and it’s always this way.

I guess if there was something I’d like to share with the reader, it would be to encourage them to explore their curiosity about the artists that shaped the sphere in which they performed. Buy some used CDs. Watch some old clips on youtube. Buy a concert ticket. Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Al Green and The Who are just a sampling of the type of artistry approaching extinction. These were the giants that shaped the world we knew. Catch one while you still can.

In considering a list of “best practices” in the online world, I realized that there’s still a good amount of wiggle room to present your brand as one that champions creativity and personality. I can save the “obvious” stuff for my friends. We’ve known each other so long that we need parlour tricks and circus acts to refresh the page. But professionally? Best-foot forward. Always.

Theories

1. Establishing an online presence. Take care to present your brand with consistency. Consider who, what, when, where, why and how. Draw up a bloody Gantt chart if you must. An effective strategy for promoting your personal brand, or that of your organization, will take planning and targeted thinking. Research the types of sites or applications your audience uses to reach you, and tailor your presence to reflect their needs and expectations.

2. Reputation and Brand Management. I joined my first mailing lists in the summer of 1997, and even then I tailored my attitude to the audience. Disgruntled and curt on one list, bubbly and supportive on another. Guess which approach netted more friends? Callow forays into behavioural analysis aside, the respectable professional must craft a game plan and adhere to it. Because first impressions count, personal, multi-level applications like Facebook and MySpace really should be culled to present the kind of person your employer or field expects you to be. These are personal promotion tools. Embarrassing material on your personal sites is like walking around with your fly undone, parts spilling out all over the place. What would your mother think?

3. Writer’s Creed: Commenting and Carping. As soon as you hit ‘send,’ you’re a published author. Your words (advocacy, beliefs, promises, recommendations) are a matter of public record, and you cannot expect to control where they land. That’s a little scary. Think for a moment about that picture of your bad side that got posted online last month. The moment you saw it you cringed, texted your buddy and asked for it to be taken down, and hoped that cute little so-and-so didn’t see it. Your words have the same effect in the workplace. Prepare your thoughts before you publish. Consider them for clarity, purpose and relevance. If you can’t find a suitable expression for your thoughts, or if someone’s already said it for you, don’t post. Don’t pile on. Don’t contribute to an already distressing signal-to-noise ratio of quality to quantity. Save your energy for the next time. You’ll get your chance tomorrow.

4. Test-drive unfamiliar applications. The sheer number of new social media applications is mind-boggling, and not every one of them is going to have a broad-based appeal along the lines of Facebook. I have already found online platforms like Ning and pbwiki to be useful for dynamic member-access document editing and sharing, but I’m less convinced that I’ll still be using Twitter in 2009 to send cellphone text-length bursts of information to colleagues. Your mileage may vary. So, for the interval between ‘first contact’ and ‘seasoned user,’ test-drive any new app. with a fake account. A popular approach among the cautious set, this allows the user to post comments or view layouts before pulling off the training wheels. The likelihood is that you’ll pass on more than a few apps while creating your online presence, and fake accounts will leave less of “you” hanging around the dusty corridors of neglected accounts.

Tools

5. Social Bookmarking. For the organization of important sites and articles. Del.icio.us (and similar utilities like Diigo) is a must-use utility for social bookmarking. Its strength is the facility to track your bookmarks from any computer. The social element comes from the option of tracking users (from within or even outside of, your network) who have bookmarked the same site, and digging into their list of tagged bookmarks for other sites that may interest you.

6. Blogging. In PR, writing is a must-have skill. Blogging has provided writers a forum for honing their talent in a public crucible. Blogs have a high degree of value in the workplace as well: they create a sense of community, encourage free discussion of issues, and in the corporate sphere, encourage employee participation.

7. Vlogging. A face and a voice is a compelling online presentation tool. And sites like BlipTV and seesmic are the new youtube. It’s an exciting new tool that can be used to great effectiveness by talented, creative commentators.

Tricks

8. Google Alerts. For monitoring your organization, your brand and your output. An easily created tool for the practitioner to create e-mail alerts that collate every mention of selected keywords. On a regulated basis (where one chooses the frequency of data delivery), the user can receive any mention of his organization, target group or area of interest.

9. RSS Feeds. Similar to Google alerts, RSS (“really simple syndication”) feeds facilitate the creation of a news feed that delivers online mentions to your virtual doorstep.

10. Amalgamation: Friend Feeds. When your social media network threatens to collapse under the sheer weight of account passwords, URLs and grammatically incorrect site names, find something that gathers them up into a tidy stream of information. Friend Feed is a little bewildering at first, but it’s a cool one-stop shop for connecting with your personal life at the end of the day, after you’ve earned your daily bread by being responsible, mature and mindful at work.

Rather than feel that I’ve been force-fed a series of Web 2.0 sites and applications, I’ve been encouraged at the volume, variety and creativity of choices laid out before us. There’s a definite cultural gap developing between those who “get it” and those who never will, but the new world wide web order is here to stay. Although we may not recognize the ever-shifting landscape were we to close our eyes for a month or two, “best practices” are like homilies from grandma: they’ll keep your head even when all around you are losing theirs.

Get Satisfaction is a free, interactive website that encourages and archives interaction between companies, their representatives and customers. The interface is simple yet modern; the what-you-see-is-what-you-get design appears to be pop-up free, which pleasantly surprised this reviewer, who otherwise expected his first experience with the site to be a series of product pitches.

Instead, Get Satisfaction is refreshingly straight-forward: after registration, the user may seek out his company of choice and post questions, comments or complaints in an open forum that (ideally) is monitored by company representatives. So yes, Get Satisfaction is a virtual help desk without borders.

Of course, just because it exists doesn’t mean that every high-volume producer or distributor uses it. One of the most active companies listed on the site is one I hadn’t heard of: Timbuk2, a manufacturer of messenger bags and backpacks that just happens to share the same San Francisco area code as Get Satisfaction. Timbuk2’s cachet is made-to-order bags, and it caters to a seemingly savvy and demanding customer base: students, young professionals and weekend adventurers. Timbuk2’s Get Satisfaction profile is extremely active: five “official reps” are listed alongside 32 employees. All have active profiles and a traceable record of replies to customer queries, and appear to have invested some thought into their responses. A good proportion of the customers seem to be product shopping, which suggests another element to the Get Satisfaction experience: it’s a little like approaching an in-store salesperson to ask whether the dress goes with the shoes. This is a great use of the site’s strengths.

With that in mind, I searched fruitlessly for other apparel or tote bag distributors before finally settling on Sears. The iconic “broadline retailer” has a Get Satisfaction profile replete with logo and official company link, but its entire profile can be summed up thus: one six-month old “welcome” message, one product-recall news release and one irate, 430-word-long customer complaint. There has been no response to the latter entry. Where Timbuk2’s company profile sports 37 employee profiles, Sears’ profile reads “No Sears employees are here yet.”

Whether Sears can weather its lack of a Get Satisfaction presence may be immaterial in 2008; Sears is an institution whose customer base is probably not stocked with early adapters. It’s a middle-of-the-road distributor, whereas Timbuk2 is hipper and edgier. I imagine that as certain social media gain mainstream acceptance more companies will clamber aboard.

I won’t pretend I’m 17 years old all over again and start gnashing teeth over the CBC’s decision to allow Canada’s iconic ‘second national anthem,’ The Hockey Theme, to take up residence on a rival network. I can’t summon that fearsome, youthful anger for what amounts to the same product being heralded by the same song on a different channel. I mean, oh well.

But for every lapsed hockey fan like me, there is one who can’t focus on the Sunshine Girl today because CTV Inc. has paid up for the rights to air the song during its hockey broadcasts, meaning that the stirring, orchestral march will no longer be heard Saturday nights on Hockey Night In Canada (HNIC). Instead, it’ll get lost in the mid-week crush of reality shows and early bedtimes. Yuck. No pomp and circumstance there.

What’s unsettling for me is how little tradtion exists in our culture nowadays. I’m old enough to remember lax indoor smoking laws, retailers staying closed on Sundays, “Merry Christmas” as a seasonal phrase free of denominational grumbling and people paying for CDs. I’m enough of a traditionalist to get rankled when the ground beneath my feet shifts a little. Even when, presumably, I don’t care.

Amid negative PR, the CBC has announced a $100,000 contest to find a new theme for HNIC. I have visions – okay, these are full-fledged NIGHTMARES – of either The Barenaked Ladies or Nickelback winning the contest. It’s either excrutiatingly bad punning couplets, or Chad Kroeger’s musclebound yodelling trampling over soggy, mid-tempo rock, and there’s nothing memorable or appropriate about either option. Worse yet, the CBC could choose a new ‘theme’ every few years, thus ensuring that tradition never again takes hold during the titles of Canada’s best-loved homegrown show.

Now consider this solution. It goes against my yen for an instrumental theme. But it’s Canadian. It’s even called The Hockey Song, although we know it better as The Good Old Hockey Game, by Stompin’ Tom Connors. It’s been around since 1973, so it’s only five years younger than the outgoing theme. And it wasn’t written for a contest, either. It was written out of love for the game, a complex emotion I only wish had been present during the negotiation process. Choosing The Hockey Song might save the CBC some face as it prepares to stare down some irritible traditionalists over the coming weeks.

Sing along with me, now:

Oh! The good old hockey game,
Is the best game you can name;
And the best game you can name,
Is the good old hockey game!

It’d do.

And I bused back into Toronto Monday afternoon, dressed business casual, with a newly issued company laptop-plus-tote in hand, and it felt good. 2008 has been about an aging boy playing at student, fighting every week against the memory of how good it felt to make money, to spend it, to make it again, to spend it again.

Scaling back, then steering away from a career path I’d planned to walk for the rest of my life was frustrating, and I went kicking and screaming into the new year, galvanized by equal doses of righteous self-pity and time-is-now desperation.

Neither of these are pretty hearts to wear on sleeves, and since the back story was hardly unique the message got massaged into digestible sound bites for polite company.

Like practically everybody reading this blog in its nascent stages, my life revolves around Centennial College. Most of this audience is fine-tuning or perhaps even re-inventing itself. It tumbled out the starting gate five months ago like marathoners do: experienced entrants minding a measured pace, keeping quiet and revealing little, while younger legs charged ahead with giddy enthusiasm.

I wasn’t sure which approach best suited me. I’ve always throught of myself as a middle-distance runner, possessed of both speed and smarts, though perhaps not having quite enough of either to win without some luck. I’ve sprinted from wire-to-wire before, burning the bloody candle at both ends until the wax and wick singed my fingertips. I’ve also started out at such a languid gait that I’ve been lapped by the field before I even realized we were keeping score.

We’re keeping score now.

It’s funny how muscle memory works. Leaving the confines of school behind for a day with a client should have been jarring, but instead it felt like old times. Workplace culture isn’t imposing if you’ve lived in it before. There’s more conformity. There’s an assumption of competency. You hope for a fair shake. You hope for challenges. You hope you brought a decent lunch.

For my part, I’m thankful that the race is on. It’s been lonely, churning in neutral.