I’m sure you find Captain Lewis as cool as we do? Can you imagine that a police captain in your country would be as open as Captain Lewis and just show you around his police department? Do you think the police captains in your country are ready to give an interview on camera and then allow you to share it on Youtube? As for me, I’m from Germany and unfortunately I don’t know any German police captain who would be willing to have him filmed and put on Youtube, so thumbs up, Captain Lewis and thank you very much for sharing this with us.

• Collaboration with a Team
• Sharing of Ideas
• An Environment without Domestic Distractions
• The Atmosphere of Focused Work
• And More

The Rise of Coworking

With more numbers, those who work from home started banding together as coworkers. The name of this new trend is coworking. The aim of coworking is to provide a working environment that restores the benefits of a group without re-introducing the drawbacks. Office politics is eliminated because rarely do coworkers share the same company or profession. There’s no jockeying for position or rank. Likewise, you’re free to come and go as you please, so the schedule places your life first.

At the same time, coworking encourages the benefits. Those who share working space adopt a culture of collaborating with each other. A focused atmosphere built around work eliminates distractions and allows you to work better.

Coworking vs. Executive Suites

Some people, when first introduced to the idea of coworking, say, “isn’t this the same as executive offices or suites?” In some instances, the appearance of a working environment triggers this response. However, it’s the culture of coworking that differs.

Executive offices often encourage solitude in an effort to prioritize professional image. Coworking, on the other hand, emphasizes people first. In most instances, the group organizes before the working space, and the synergy of the people becomes the backbone of the environment. Many coworking groups have started out of small apartments with like-minded entrepreneurs feeding on the energy of innovation.

Benefits of Coworking

In his study of wealth, Napoleon Hill identified the “master mind group” as a common trait among successful business people. Birds of a feather flock together, and your direct peer group has an enormous amount of influence on you. The single most important benefit is the association with other people striving to perform at their absolute best. By doing so, your work output and performance improve naturally.

The second greatest benefit of coworking is the availability of new ideas. Not just the encouragement from others who believe there’s always a way to do it, you also get the advantage of minds who may perceive solutions you never knew existed. In turn, your creativity improves. More benefits include:

• Increased Sense of Belonging
• Growing Your Business Networks
• Shared Office Expenses
• Mobility without Long-Term Contracts
• Enhanced Personal Confidence
• And So Much More

Coworking is on the rise, and it only shows signs of growing larger. With coworking centers available in most major cities in western countries, you may want to explore what coworking can do for you.

The new version will have improved functionality. For example, you will be able to see what your actual TOEIC score in both sections — listening comprehension as well as reading comprehension will be. In addition, you can compare your level of English with other learners from around the world. There will be a host of exciting features so watch this space: iOS TOEIC Test Simulator by English-Team.

Actually, our new logo needs to have the ‘TM’ sign because TOEIC is a registered trademark by ETS:

Now, there are a number of things you need to do to improve your speaking skills and one of them is this: Start speaking English for at least 20 seconds a day. Record a voice message on our forum and share it with native speakers of English and other learners. Our forum is the only forum worldwide where you actually have the opportunity to record your own voice and listen to the voice messages from other other people.

[FRIEND], are you ready to start improving your spoken English? Then click here: Speaking English for 20 seconds a day?

Are you a winner? In other words, are you happy with your English? Yes, the quality of your life depends directly on your level of English: the better your English, the more job opportunities you get, the more money you can earn and the more freedom you have. Since you live your life only once, your level of freedom is the most important thing. Freedom means a lot of different things: for example, it means that you can choose whom you want to work with. Imagine, you can select the people you deal with on a daily basis. Do you like your boss and all of your co-workers? Are you getting along well with all of your customers? If not, you should change something immediately. Don’t wait until your life is over. Don’t hope for things to change themselves. Take some action today. You can take full control over your life by starting to change your habits.

A couple of years ago I was facing the same situation as you. I wanted to learn how to speak English like a native speaker but didn’t know how. Through trial and error I finally figured out what it takes to learn English like a winner and I want to share my experiences with you, [FRIEND]. That’s why I created English For Winners for you. As of now, the information is available in English and English For Winners in Russian.

Dear residents and friends!

Tuesday, March 12 saw the first presentation of the start-up companies hosted by VOOMY COWORKING.

Each team had 3 minutes to talk about themselves as well as their project:
What is the idea, what kind of tasks is the start-up completing, at which stage is the project? After that, the VOOMY jury and the audience could ask questions and give their feedback.

So here are the teams that took part:

Mash.ua – offers complex services for sales, social networking and training aimed at Ukrainian handcrafters and marketing experts of handcrafts.

Pics.io – a system that processes photos and images in the cloud. Pics.io allows any owner of a digital photocamera to access a powerful set of tools taking photo processing to its next level (ease of use, reliability, co-working and co-operating, photo quality). With pics.io you can edit and manage large image files (RAW, DNG) direclty through your browser.

Traffic Control – an interactive web service with mobile apps for drivers, providing precise directions by using GPS and information of other drivers’ behaviors.

Plan B – a mobile social networking app for anyone who visits such places like cafes, restaurants, pubs, etc. helping users find other people to join them on their visits. Plan B uses a search algorithm that is based on a variety of profile criteria ensuring the app finds your perfect match.

In addition we heard of an idea for which we still need a project name. It’s a visual site editor for users who want to create websites without having a lot of technical know-how and web development skills. It allows anyone to quickly and easily create and manage a website about themselves, their services or their companies directly through their browsers.

The participants and guests at the event experienced a pleasant surprise when they saw a virtual presentation by Vitaliy Stavropolskiy, founder of VOOMY IT-Park, who could not attend physically. Via video conference he introduced his guests to his latest start-up company — VOOMY.BIZ which is one of the elements of the large VOOMY project. VOOMY.BIZ is a web service that provides any start-up entrepreneur with the necessary tools to start their business while they are still working as full-time employees for their current employers. Most start-up entrepreneurs need to keep their 9 – 5 job while they are creating their own company.

The first event by VOOMY COWORKING was a huge success and most of the participants stayed on after the official part to continue sharing their experiences and discussing questions related to their start-ups.

Мы благодарим всех выступающих, гостей и экспертов, которые внимательно слушали, задавали правильные вопросы, тем самым давая пищу для новых размышлений над проектами наших резидентов. До новых встреч!

We want to thank all presenters, guests and experts who took an active part in the first VOOMY COWORKING Event. See you all next time!

As a matter of fact, these examples are still rather general requests but I think you get the drift: people are rarely interested in reading about another company’s successes. In most cases people are looking for a solution to their own problems. That’s why as an IT company you simply can’t afford not to have your own forum where your developers, programmers and project managers discuss problems, share ideas, ask and answer questions and simply provide information and support. There should be different sections in your forum: one for programmers and IT specialists, one for existing clients, one for prospective clients, etc. For example, if a potential client wants to know what existing clients think about your services, they should find the answers on your forum.

Most Ukrainian IT companies are afraid of sharing information. The reason for this is because, especially in Ukraine, you simply don’t talk much about your success as a company because this attracts racketeers who force you to pay as much ‘protection money’ as they can possible squeeze out of you. That’s why on Ukrainian IT companies’ websites you usually don’t find any information as to who owns the company, even if the site is in English and caters to American and British clients. However, a few Ukrainian companies have started to give their clients more information about how they work and learn, which is a vital step towards growth. If you are in the web development industry your level of success largely depends on how effectively you manage and share information.

If you want to work in the United States you should listen to and read the following interview by Michelle of English-Team:

Interview with a Human Resources Representative

Hello English language learners, this is Michelle with English-Team and today I’m here with Julie. Julie, how are you doing today?

- I’m good, thank you.

- Well, Juli can you please tell me a little bit about yourself?

- Sure, my name is Julie, I was originally born in Michigan, but moved around a lot as a child, lived in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, finally settled down into Florida and I’ve been in the Central Florida area for about ten years now.

- Ah, that’s a long time.

- Eh, yes it is.

- So Julie can you tell me what you do for a living?

- Sure, I work in the human resources department at a company, I’m human resources records manager.

- OK, can you explain to me what a typical day is like for you?

- Well, a typical day, there really isn’t such a thing as a typical day because you really never know sometimes what you’re gonna be walking into but the normal thing is that in the records department we approve a lot of job actions so if somebody is going to be hired or if somebody is going to get a pay rate change, or somebody is leaving the company, we then have to go through and approve these job actions.

- OK. So now I’d like to ask you a few general human resources questions. Is that OK with you?

- Sure.

- OK. The first question is what documents does a person need to provide to a company to legally work in the United States?

- Well, whether you’re a US citizen or an international employee you have to provide proof of identity and authorization to work in the United States. So for international employees there’s usually documents that they’re provided whether it’s an unexpired foreign passport or the arrival document, and then there will be some type of work authorization document if they’re an international student it’s usual an I20, if they’re coming in the United States in different statuses they would have a different type of work authorization document.

- OK, can you tell me what the current minimum wage is?

- In the United States it’s $7.25 an hour but then there’s also state minimum wages and since I live in Florida it’s $7.79 an hour.

- OK, can you tell me what are some company benefits and how does one qualify for them?

- Well, every company is different but most of the time if you are hired into what’s called a ‘line benefited position’ you’re usually offered things like health insurance, dental, life insurance, there’s usually some type of retirement plan, whether it’s a 4O1K or a 43B and usually on your first day of hire or your week, the first week you’re there, you sign up for all these different types of benefits.

- OK. Can you also tell me what an EIN is and a taxpayer ID and how they’re different?

- Sure, an EIN an employer identification number so when you start a company, for tax purposes you have to acquire one of these numbers and it’s usually done through the IRS. Now the taxpayer identification number, that’s usually when you’re talking about international individuals who are coming over and they need a tax number for different tax purposes but they don’t qualify for a social security number. So that’s basically the difference.

- OK, so besides of course US citizens paying taxes do foreign nationals have to pay taxes?

- The majority of foreign nationals will pay taxes, now, there’s two types of taxes: You have your federal taxes and your FICA taxes and FICA taxes is what we call social security and medicare. Now, for international students such as F1 students or J1 students, for the first five years they don’t have to pay social security and medicare or FICA taxes. For your J1-none students, your researchers, your professors, for the first two years they don’t have to pay it either. After that, they do have to pay the FICA taxes but there’s also something called federal taxes. The majority of foreign nationals will have to pay federal taxes unless there is a tax treaty which exempts some of your income.

- OK, are there taxation differences between US citizens and foreign nationals?

- There really isn’t a difference in taxation so if a foreign national doesn’t qualify for a tax treaty they would normally pay the same rate of taxes as a US citizen.

- OK, well going back to the tax treaty, can you tell me a little more about it?

- Sure, a tax treaty basically if there was a tax treaty agreement between the United States and the country in which the foreign national resides prior to coming to the United States. So, it’s not actually based on where you were born, it’s based on where you last resided. It’s, so, usually, within the country there’s usually a tax amount that you can be exempt from so for instance, for some foreign, national, international students it’s usually for a set period of time and there’s a dollar amount, so maybe it’s 5000 dollars, so the first 5000 dollars you’re not taxed on but after that you’d pay taxes. Or, if you’re coming in as maybe a J1 scholar, a J1 research scholar, H1B individual, it could be for like two to three years and you’d be exempt from all your income, so say you made 80000 dollars a year, you wouldn’t have to pay any taxes on that for the first couple of years but it’s very specific to your status in the United States and what country you last resided in.

- OK, just one question: What is an H1B?

- An H1B is for foreign workers who come over and work with their companies so maybe you’re an engineer and want to come over to the United States and work for a couple of years, so it’s employer specific meaning if an H1B petition is done by your company that you want to work with, you can only work at that company and usually it’s for about three years and it can be extended for another three years normally.

- OK. Again, going back to tax treaties. Can you explain to me what publication 901 is?

- Sure, publication 901 can be found on the Internal Revenue Services website www.irs.gov and basically it tells you all the countries and all the potential tax treaties and the specific countries, tax amounts, how many years, and of the different caviats, who can have it or who can not have a tax treaty.

- OK, can you explain to me what ‘equal opportunity’ means?

- Equal opportunity means that everybody has the same playing field meaning that you can’t be discriminated for a job or pay rate change or promotion based on, you know, your gender, your race, your age or any of this type of protected statuses.

- OK. Alright. And Julie, the last question, OK?

- Hmm.

- Unfortunately, some people view the human resources office in a negative light and why do you think that is?

- Well, unfortunately for human resources we’re in compliance meaning we have to make sure that we do what the IRS wants us to do, the US Department of Labor and all these different agencies and the majority of the human resources’ job is that we need employees to complete paperwork and sometimes it’s lots of paperwork and sometimes people do not like to complete all that paperwork.

- Right, I know what you mean. OK, Julie thank you so much for your time today, I really appreciate it.

- OK, thank you.