Teeth gratingly angry at that monster of a client who has rejected your presentation 17 times in a day and you are scratching your head over how to reply to yet another one of his mails in a calm manner? Captain technology flies to rescue, this time with a software called ToneCheck, which will scan through your mail, checking the tone and point out if it reads too angry, sad, happy or excited.
Launched by a Canadian tech start-up, Lymbix, it can be used as an add-on with Microsoft Office and is sure to come handy. Being promoted as an emotional spell check, this software highlights sentences and phrases that run the risk of reading emotive and provides a more business-like, work suited alternative.
Shyba Babu, who works as a freelance photographer, feels that it will be best for people like her husband, who often end up sounding rude without meaning any harm. “We have gone global in every sense and different cultures interpret messages in different ways. What might be considered funny here, might be offensive in some other part of the world,” she says adding that this would help new recruits as well, who often end up committing e-mail gaffes.
ToneCheck comes armed with a skill that is often imparted to MBA graduates through various classes in business schools. Ashish Mittal, a second year student at one such B-school, feels that communication is of prime importance in business dealings and even if things go slightly wrong, then it could lead to wrecking major deals. “A small mistake made in a gesture towards a senior could be taken as a wrong message. One can even be tarnished for a long time,” he says.
However, Aayush Jyotishi, a lawyer by profession, maintains that it will save embarrassing situations at the workplace. “One of my colleagues has a habit of asking his secretary to print documents. So, while sending a document, he accidentally pasted the same line and sent it to his partner instead, who promptly got it printed and brought it to the table. He had no other option but to look sorry faced and apologise profusely,” he tells us recalling an incident.