Pi-Consulting

Despite a recent spate of anti-US rhetoric from the Kremlin, a newly-prosperous Russian middle class seems to be re-visiting its liking for things American. Russia just became the 43rd country to open a Starbucks (a Venti Mocha will set you back $9, almost double the Stateside price). This year’s surprise TV hit in Russia is a re-make of America’s favorite tacky family sitcom, “Married With Children”, here re-named “Schastlivy Vmeste” or “Happy Together”. Sample dialog: “Honey, take your clothes off”. “Heyyy, after all these months, suddenly you want sex?”. “Naw, I’m hungry. I thought the sight of you would kill my appetite”. Local analysts’ take on the new show’s success? “TV is now training Russians to forget about politics”, they solemnly aver. Says one: “People are getting used to living like children, in the family of a strong, powerful father. Everything is decided for them”. Sounds like Putin’s influence over the media goes way beyond the newscasts alone. Source: New York Times, Pi.

Why do people have sex? If you think you already know, psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin have news for you. They interviewed a random sample of 2,000 people, analyzed their responses, and determined that there are a total of 237 reasons for jumping someone’s bones. These ranged from the sublime (“I wanted to feel closer to God”) to the eminently practical and altruistic (“It seemed like good exercise”) to the brutally frank (“I was drunk”). To bring order to this chaos, the study’s leaders devised a system of four basic categories. First was physical attraction (“He was a good kisser” and so on), second came goal-attainment (“Getting even with my cheating partner” and the like), third was emotion (“I felt we had to communicate at a deeper level” or whatever), and last but surprisingly common was insecurity (“I wanted to boost my self-esteem”). And YOU though there was only one thing on their minds…. Source: New York Times, Pi.

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.

“You want time off? Sure, kid, but what are you telling me for? Just go, tell me about it when you get back to work”. Some employers, including IBM and Netflix, are telling their workers they can take as much vacation time as they want, whenever, so long as they get their work done. It sounds like a dream, but many employees offered this deal are keenly aware of their ultimate accountability, and typically take less time off than they would formally be entitled to. Another result, though, is people saying “This is a great place to work”. The fact that they are trusted makes for greater commitment. A Netflix HR chief puts it this way: “When you have a workforce of fully-formed professionals, you have a connection between… the work and how long it takes to do it. So you don’t need the clock-in-clock-out mentality”. At IBM, that’s an advantage, considering that 40% of the workforce have no dedicated office, toiling at home or on-site. So who would be watching them anyway? Source: New York Times, Pi

Some time ago, by order of the hip-hop community’s high arbiters of sartorial taste, it was decreed that Thou Shalt Wear Thy Jeans At Half-Mast. Sagging pants, revealing at least eight inches of the boxer shorts worn underneath, became an almost mandatory fashion statement among young male African Americans with attitude. (Not all of them knew where the idea came from: it started in jail, where oversized prison uniforms were issued without belts, to prevent suicide. After the cons stopped laughing, low-slung pants became a wordless invitation to the ‘screws’ to “kiss this”). Now states like Louisiana are invoking indecency laws and trying to criminalize the habit. Wearing your trousers below the Plimsoll Line can cost you a $500 fine in some towns, even get you thrown into jail, where of course the fashion originated. The NAACP takes a dim view. “To criminalize how a person wears their clothing is more offensive than what it is trying to remedy”, says a former executive director there. Source: New York Times, Pi.