Pi-Consulting

Charitable donations in the USA are on the rise, provided what you’re looking out for is support for truly worthy causes like culture and the arts. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University reports that last year Americans gave over $12 billion to organizations for the arts, culture and humanities, an increase of 10%. However, giving to international causes fell by 9% to $11 billion, and donations to human services overall were also off by 9%. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof noted recently that pictures of sad puppies with big eyes and floppy ears are far more effective in stimulating public generosity than reports of human suffering, particularly when thousands or millions of people are involved rather than one individual story. Returning to New York after a visit to Darfur, he was “flummoxed” by the public obsession with saving a red-tailed hawk evicted from its 5th Avenue nest, “which aroused considerably more public indignation than two million homeless Sudanese”. Sources: Wall Street Journal, WARC, New York Times, Pi.

Safe and Healthy Thanksgiving wishes from the Staff at Pi-Consulting and Pi Market Research.

The internet, among the many dubious benefits it has bestowed on Mankind, has enabled us all to lead double lives. No, we’re not talking, for once, about sneaking peeks at porn, but about virtual reality sites.

If you want to know more about the real world, take a closer look at virtual worlds, and the way people inhabit them. Join an online game world like Second Life, for instance, and you’ll see what Pi means. Second Life is a 3-D world jointly created by thousands of internet users over time. Once you’re there, you can re-imagine yourself as taller, better-looking and considerably more dashing than the prosaic reality you see every morning in the mirror. Re-cast as your cyber-double or virtual avatar, you can even sprout digital wings and fly, if you’ve a mind.

All of which would suggest that players who inhabit such virtual worlds might choose to leave behind the boring everyday business of working, shopping and hanging around in bars and restaurants. How wrong that supposition would be, however! (more…)