外国人最想和你聊的时事话题：在家上班族

　What is SOHO　什么是在家上班族
     The modern concept of small office/home office, or SOHO, refers to the category of business, which can be from 1 to 10 workers. SOHO can also stand for small or home office or single office/home office. A larger business enterprise, one notch up the size scale, is often categorized as a small business. When a company reaches 100 or more employees, it is often referred to as a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME).
     A home office emerged in the mid-1990s, the advent of the personal computer, and breakthroughs in voice and data communication, created opportunities for office workers to decentralize. Decentralization also benefits employers, in lower overhead, and in many cases, greater productivity.
     At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the term "Small or Home Office" and its variants -along with the acronym"SOHO"- have been used to a great extent by companies who market products targeting the great numbers of small businesses that have a tiny or medium sized office.
     Several ranges of products, such as the Armoire desk and a few other desk forms, are often designed specifically for the "SOHO" market. Several kinds of books are written and marketed specifically for this type of office, ranging from general advice texts to specific guidebooks on setting up such things as a small PBX for the office telephones.
     Many consultants and the members of several professions such as lawyers, real estate agents or surveyors in small and medium sized towns operate from such home offices.
     The 36 hour or 48 hour cycles[citation needed] of much of software development has led many practitioners in this domain to do their work in home offices given the difficulty of the traditional business world to adapt its "normal" hours to some of the more extreme needs of software engineering.
     Technology has also created a demand for larger businesses to employ individuals who work from home. (See also home sourcing.) Sometimes these people remain as an independent businessperson, and sometimes they actually become employees of a larger company.
     In popular literature, the home office has not been the topic of as many works as the "normal" modern office. Brian Basset, the author of the newspaper comic strip Adam, has sometimes described its more humorous aspects.
     The small office home office has gone through a great transformation recently since technology has enabled anyone working from a home office to compete globally. Technology has made this possible through webinar systems and telephone connections by VOIP and the like. The Virtual Office concept has been expanded to enable anyone to do globally what they could do locally before. With a global reach through the use of technology, the [SOHO] small office/home office now has a better chance of emerging as a greater challenge in the world marketplace.
     SOHO专指能够按照自己的兴趣和爱好自由选择工作的、不受时间和地点制约的、不受发展空间限制的白领(white collar) 一族。更重要的是反映在能否按照自己的兴趣和爱好去自由地选择工作，反映在所选择的工作是否有着极大的发展空间。特别适合SOHO的是一些基于信息的制造(manufacturer)、加工(processing)、传播类(communication)的工作。SOHO代表先进的生产力(advanced productivity)，代表活跃的新经济(new economy)。SOHO作为一种时尚、轻松、自由的生活方式和生活态度，可以专注一职，也可以是兼职工作(part-time job)，都可被称为SOHO一族。于是，我们把SOHO叫成Super Office (and) Human Office。即超级的办公室、人性化的办公室。