Origins of Deprogramming 101

When I retired as the Cintas Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami University in December 2011, one reason for the decision was a desire to explore questions and issues without the pressures of academic deadlines and requirements. In my final lecture, I provided the following examples.

• What is the correlation between Congressional inaction and the increase in female Senators and Representatives telling us? See POLITICS for the full discussion.
• Who said, “The rally in October was a worst case scenario. It brought the S&P back to the black in 2011?” See ECONOMICS for the answer.
• How can three books which purport to be the divine word–Old Testament, New Testament, and Koran–all be right if each claim to be the only path to salvation? See RELIGION for the full discussion.

Three and a half years passed before I realized I had not acted on my desire to take advantage of a more relaxed lifestyle to explore these and other questions which deserve our attention. This website is my attempt to make up for lost time and provide a space in which I and others can explore the bigger issues of our time.

Who is Dr. ESP?

Dr. ESP is the nom de plume of Jay Kayne.  This is how I became Dr. ESP.

In 2005, the entrepreneurship program at Miami University became independent of the Marketing Department in the Farmer School of Business. This new status included identification of entrepreneurship courses with their own three-letter prefix. The obvious choice was ENT. Except that prefix was already used by the Engineering Technology program. So we chose ESP, inspired by former Apple executive Guy Kawasaki who wrote in The Art of the Start, entrepreneurship is the mindset of individuals who want to alter the future.

As the only Ph.D. in the program at the time, some of my students began to call me “Dr. ESP.”  In response, I ordered the the vanity license plate shown above.

As the opinions on this site are personal views, I did not want them associated with business, community and charitable efforts in which I participate. Therefore, I chose to use this alias. Though some find it humorous, it is not intended to diminish the seriousness of the content or opinions contained within.

Thank you in advance for allowing me this latitude.