As our site grows every day we want to share some information with you on the way we are operating the project. We call this section «Business Blog» as it is similar to doing a log book where data is recorded in a chronological order. «Blogging» is gaining popularity with more and more people picking up the habit of publishing their experiences and thoughts on the Internet. Our Blog covers various topics — from TOEFL, TOEIC, MBA, GMAT, ESL/EFL test preperation to cultural traditions and current political events.
There will also be some Internet marketing terminology and if you have any questions regarding the information simply let us know.

The Business Blog is written by Torsten Daerr and edited by Alan Townend.

2003 — November 21
If you compare English language based websites with German ones, you will soon notice that the latter in most cases have a separate «Imprint» or rather «Impressum» section. The Germans were the first to introduce a law that makes this information obligatory on any website of a commerical nature and this is very typical of the Germans: They love to major in the minors. A couple of weeks ago I started teaching a group of unemployed German engineers and at the end of our first day I gave them our URL www.english-test.net
The next day I mentioned the TOEIC test to them and of course our website came up in the conversation and the first thing they told me about it was the missing «Imprint». They were so proud at having detected this «error» and I just had to point out that this imprint thing is very German and somewhat conservative. As if indeed this information makes a website more valuable! We are an official media partner of Google — and their requirements are quite high. Yet, they accepted us even without an imprint. Instead, I think an «about» section with some background information on the people behind the website as well as how and when it started is much more useful than this dry imprint, wouldn't you agree?

2003 — November 20
I want to tell you about something that happened to me almost exactly a year ago: I was teaching a group of adults in a small town near Leipzig. The purpose of the training program was to enable the participants to learn English for themselves using the internet, so our class took place in the computer lab as apposed to an ordinary classroom. Back then our site wasn't in existence yet so I had to rely on other resources. A couple of years previously I had come across an EFL website with lots of explanations and exercises: www.ego4u.de

After the introduction which included a short review of the grammar basics we started using ego4u. A couple of minutes passed when suddenly one woman said out loud: «Hey, I know this guy from the website — he used to go to school with my daughter.» It turned out that the webmaster of ego4u was from the same village as the woman herself and the village is very near the small town we had our class in. It didn't take long though before the two ego4u owners moved house and now they are living round the corner from my place.
Who said the internet turns the world into a global village?

2003 — November 19
You wouldn't believe how many interesting people live in this city. Today we met one of them — Yuri who is from the Ukraine and has managed to set up a company that employs 8 people. He first came to Germany in 1993 as a tourist visiting friends. Shopping around for a cheap car he came across a German car dealership where the owner spoke fluent Russian. Yuri became interested in one particular car and asked the businessman the price. The German suggested Yuri should quote a figure. After estimating the car's possible value again Yuri said 500 marks (about $ 300) and Yuri was very surprised by the German's reaction: «You can have the car for 20 marks and I'll help you deal with the documents». As it turned out the German had lived and worked in Russia and now he wants to continue his relationship with this culture.
Now Yuri and Lothar (that's the German's name) are very good friends and business partners and they communicate in both — German and Russian. Also, they told us that more and more of their customers are from Italy, Spain and other EU countries and then they of course speak English…

2003 — November 18
Almost two weeks ago we sent out enquiries via email to about 10 printing companies asking for their quotes as we were looking for a long term partner that would print our newspaper «Leipziger.RU»
How many out of those 10 do you think have responded? Well, it was just one company that made the effort to send us their pricelist — unmodified or individualized. Although the other companies all have a website with their email addresses published there has been no reaction from them whatsoever. I suggest they write something like «Please do not waste your time by sending us email — we won't respond to any of your queries made through this channel». Our region has been facing an unemployment rate of about 20% ever since reunification. Still, most companies behave as if they don't need any more customers. Sure, many businesses spend lots of money on expensive advertising campaigns but when potential clients enquire, those companies prefer to ignore them.
Such is the current business culture in East Germany…