The one constant that I found about part-time business students is that they are wiped out by the end of their workdays and before the start of classes. Unfortunately, business classes tend to greatly increase the lethargy experienced by all but the most hardened business gurus-to-be. Last night’s brand management class was no exception.

Our professor did include some really interesting videos at the end of the class that at least brought me back to life. The first one was a scene from the movie, A Beautiful Mind. It was meant to be an introduction to a discussion on game theory, in general, and on understanding competition, in specific.

Hmmm… Maybe Adam Smith wouldn’t have a good understanding of this type of situation, but that doesn’t mean that John Nash has a good grasp on it either. Remember, he ends up spending all of his time being nuts and doing math. The problem with this application of Nash’s equilibrium is that the women in his example could choose not to go with any of the guys. They all could be lesbians. Maybe they’re into guys, just not these particular guys. Unfortunately, most guy’s egos (especially when beer-enhanced) won’t let them fathom these possibilities. Thus, began John Nash’s decent into insanity. Nash’s friend was at least right on one thing when he said you can lead a girl to water. You can also make her drink, but this will earn you some jail time.

Not a lot of people were feeling A Beautiful Mind. Howver, everyone was totally into the next clip. In it Stephen Colbert offered his thoughts on Cingular changing their name to AT&T.

I forget what the exact context of this video was, but it drew a lot of laughter and woke the remainder of the class up. I mean, who doesn’t love Stephen Colbert? If watching Comedy Central made people smarter, Colbert would be the answer to educators everywhere. Just string together a bunch of videos from The Colbert Report that are united by a singular topic. I’m sure somebody’s done a study on humor and intelligence. Anyway Colbert has my vote over Nash as an educator. He’s got nice insight and good delivery. Nash, not so much, although I’ll give him kudos for being kooky in a really smart way.

While I was prepping for tonight’s brand management class, I read something in my textbook that made me think. It was about Paul Newman, his own personal brand and how it carried over to his products and causes that he supports. While that was very interesting, the following hit close to home:

That’s not to say that only the well-known or famous can be thought of as a brand. Certainly, one key for a successful career in almost any area is that co-workers, superiors, or even important people outside the company know who you are and your skills, talents, attitudes, and so forth. By building up a name and reputation in a business context, you are essentially creating your own brand. The right awareness and image can be invaluable in shaping the way people treat you and interpret your words, actions, and deeds.

For years this has been something that I completely ignored. When I was younger, I thought that if you really care about others and do a good job, that people will highly regard you, reward you for being the best and seek to have you around. Additionally, as I got older I developed a deeply entrenched streak of individualism that made me not want to play other’s games or join their cliques because I’m genuine and no-compromise in my focus of doing good.

Maybe commitment and individualism are virtues, but somedays not seeing the rewards makes it hard to see them that way. I find myself constantly questioning my achievement on one hand when I know that I’ve done some really awesome things that a lot of people would never be able to do. I just don’t see the results I’m wanting — whether they be cohesive career security, freedom to choose the projects I want, money, fame, influence, the ability to change things, etc. So it’s just not the fact that I have a particular brand, but I need to sharper about expressing it. Even though I could use some help on getting the word out, failure to see results makes me feel like I need to do develop a better brand. I know myself, but ultimately in a professional sense, my brand needs to be in line with those things that others, such as prospective bosses or team members, want from me.

No one is going to hire me based on who I am. Being myself, even though I’m a pretty okay person, is the worst thing I can do. This has been a bit disappointing to realize, but it will be useful in my future endeavors in a “professional” sense. I guess I’ll just confine myself to being me on my own time.

When I was a senior psychology major, I had the opportunity to take a class in parapsychology. I know, I know, most people looked at me oddly when I told them that. It involved a lot of archival research and looking for various studies on clairvoyance, specifically those that had some element of replicability. Unfortunately, psychic experiments that could be replicated were few and far between. I spent a lot of time in parts of the library that I didn’t know existed combing through crumbling volumes of the Journal of Parapsychology from the 1960s. With every volume I could have swore my own psychic abilities were getting better.

My professor was supremely knowledgeable about the history of parapsychology, just as he was about more accepted mainstream psychology. He always mentioned two things — his time in the military and his research on a sensory deprivation technique meant to enhance ESP called ganzfeld. I forget if there was a connection between both sets of stories, but I was reminded about this period of my life when a recent article about do-it-yourself ganzfeld experiments was published (and referenced by a number of blogs that I regularly read). Since I’m much more daring than I was back in college and a side effect of ganzfeld’s sensory deprivation is mild visual and auditory hallucinations I knew I had to give it a try. All I needed were ping pong balls, tape, good headphones, a radio and a quiet room.

The hardest part of the process was taping half ping pong balls to my eyes so that I couldn’t see the outside world. I probably overdid it on the tape, but at least I wasn’t self conscious about the ping pong balls falling off. Once that was done, I put on my headphones to loud static and relaxed. After what may have been ten minutes (I wasn’t sure since I couldn’t see the clock), I could pick up an image swirling around in front of me. Soon it came into clear focus — a well-defined, beautifully feminine eye. Occasionally I would hear a woman’s voice that sounded far away calling my name. I thought that was going to be it, but soon after a cloudy formation floated up from the bottom of my field of vision. It eventually took the shape of a pyramid that floated upward until it merged with the eye. I was really perplexed why this is what I was seeing, but continued until my eyes started to itch.

It want exactly the way I was hoping for it to be. A part of me wanted it to be like that episode of South Park where kids were getting high off of cat pee. I especially felt that way after I brought someone else in to try it. She said she was on an airplane looking down at a city. Her vision had animal faces in the clouds too. Anyway, I might shoot for something like that and try again. It’s probably not as good as drugs (which I wouldn’t know about anyway), but at least it’s a relatively harmless natural reaction to a lack of visual and auditory stimulus.

Hat Tips: Dvorak Uncensored and Wehr in the World