Leadership is a word that is rarely defined. Senior managers talk about leading their organisations to success. Middle managers talk about leadership as a skill and a behavior. Employees often criticise their bosses for not being good leaders. Management gurus talk about dozens of different theories of leadership such as transactional and transformational leadership. And finally executive development outfits stake their reputations on developing or training leaders.Whether or not you believe that someone can be trained to lead depends on how you define leadership. Definition 1: If leadership is the combination of soft skills, behaviors, and traits that allow individuals to influence others, then the answer to the question: "Can you train leaders?" is likely: no. Definition 2: If leadership is the combination of tangible knowledge and situational approaches, then the answer to the question might be: yes, people can be trained to lead.In the executive development community the standard for leadership development programs is Definition 1, with only a few firms giving some importance to the elements in Definition 2. For decades, leadership training programs have focused on themes such as (1) coaching and mentoring, (2) leading teams, (3) managing conflict and collaboration, (4) creating engagement and commitment, (5) being aware of your own behavior and style, and (6) dealing with power and politics. Although these are useful areas in which to train leaders, they capture a very narrow part of leadership. This is evidenced by the reality that most leadership training is delivered by specialists in areas of organisational behavior, applied behavioral science, and industrial psychology. This approach, although well-honed over time, flies in the face of what most CEOs argue constitutes a good leader: 'someone who can corral the firm's resources successfully, repeatedly and in different ways to enable the organisation to make money in an ever-changing industry' - no mention of soft skills, traits or behaviors. In fact in the corporate board room, judging successful leadership is contingent on that manager's ability to create and capture value - profits are the ultimate measure of a leader's success. I suggest that when senior managers commission their learning and development teams to seek out leadership training, they insist that the themes presented above make up no more than 25 per cent of the content - especially since the jury is still out on whether you can actually train people to coach, mentor, lead teams, etc. However, senior managers must insist that 75 per cent of the content on leadership training focus on more tangible themes that will help managers gain a better understanding of how to create and capture value, i.e. lead with the intent of boosting the firm's performance. Learning and Development people must also insist that the firms they partner with to provide leadership training use specialists beyond the fields of organizational behavior and psychology to include specialists in strategy and financial management to deliver leadership training.When looking to train leaders, senior managers, must insist on the inclusion of the following themes:Managing Resources: Successful leaders understand a firm's resource strengths and weaknesses. They understand how people, systems and structure need to be aligned so that the firm can effectively compete in the market place. One of the most important jobs of a leader is to take the time to create fit between a firm's resources and opportunities in the external environment - this journey almost always leads to success. Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage: Successful leaders understand how customers define value, and are able to shape their own firm's value proposition to profitably take advantage of this understanding. For example, India's middle class is the fastest growing market segment. But it seems that India's largest retailers are not spending enough time to understand and design the next generation "Indian retail experience" preferring to copy the "western retail experience". Is this the best way to drive retail revenues in India?Strategic Thinking: Successful leaders think strategically. They are able to identify problems and issues in their own functional areas and understand the cross-enterprise implications of various solutions. Often managers define problems by their functional area i.e. "this is a marketing issue" or "this is a financial issue". The reality of business is that there is no marketing decision that doesn't touch finance or vice versa - managers without this level of insight and the skills necessary to think cross enterprise often lose the forest for the trees. Being too functionally tied can result in losing sight of how to create and capture value for the firm. Financial Management: Successful leaders not only think about the qualitative implications of their decisions, but also the quantitative implications. They know that every decision not matter how small or large has important financial implications - they understand these implications with great clarity and use this information to make strong value creating decisions. Nonfinancial managers often struggle with the numbers behind their decisions. For example, if a leader of a business unit is able to increase the level of commitment by his/her employees and make them more engaged, but is unable to successfully drive profitability - is he/she doing his/her job? Broadly trained leaders never lose sight of this balance.Can you train leaders? Leadership training programs that don't take a balanced approach to what it means to lead do not train leaders successfully. In today's business environment, leaders without the strategic skill set outlined in the above four points - are simply out-dated and cannot be trusted to drive bottom line results. Leaders without a honed ability to drive organizational excellence are like parents without the ability to discipline or guide their children - both enable disastrous consequences. The author is Strategy Professor & Managing Director, India - Richard Ivey School of Business
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"It's like someone you know, personally, has died," said an Apple fan. And that's exactly what millions of people are thinking today. The incomparable, irreplaceable Steve Jobs has gone, and even though his battle with cancer has been known of for many years, his death comes as no less a shock and he leaves no less a chasm behind. Everyone feels a connection.The world of technology will probably never see someone remotely like Steve Jobs ever again. And I rather think that to the modern world, he is every bit a Mozart or a Beethoven, making something of a work art of the products that were created at Apple. Over the years, we've known Jobs to be arrogant, autocratic, rude or just plain off his head. But we also know that the same traits fueled his conviction and the sheer unshakeable self-knowledge that he was right in whatever he did and that was the only way he was going to do it. Mix that with genius. Mix that with mystery. And you have the weird and wonderful Steve Jobs. Except that now, we don't, and something has changed forever.Being rather travel shy, I never attended an Apple event. I'm sure if I had, I would have been even more deeply saddened by Jobs' passing away than I am from my corner across the world from a country which wasn't terribly important on Apple's world map. The loss feels personal because, like no one else, Jobs has managed to get Apple to give us product after product designed to be ‘humanly". With the people he'd collected around him and the unwavering vision he led them with, even if was a tyrant, Jobs took product design to the level where it created a worldwide cult. It's not just about the clean lines and sensuality of the build of Apple's devices: it's about their usability. And that is how Steve Jobs has changed all of our lives and is with us in some way all the time.From the day I had in my hands my new black and red U2 version of the iPod so many years ago, I was inseparable from it. Many iPods late, I'm inseparable from many Apple devices, not the least of which is my iPad. That's when I consider myself a fan of no company in particular – not even Apple. But when I lose myself in a safe, beautiful world of just me and music, that's Steve Jobs. When I find to my amazement that I can see on the iPad, things I can't any longer in print, that's Steve Jobs. When I spend hours absorbed with playing with photographs on my MacBook, that's Steve Jobs. A Twitter-mate couldn't have put it better when he said that somehow, every Apple device has a Steve Jobs soul.When I see a Steve Jobs bio or timeline, I invariably find facts that make me gasp in surprise. What a life, and what an impact on lives. But what was Nature thinking! This was no ordinary person.
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Mileage points, discounts, rewards. Words that should be music in the consumer culture we live in. But not all loyalty programs — in essence goodies that encourage greater consumption — are the same. Many companies make a business out of designing and implementing loyalty programs for banks retailers, airlines and sundry other consumer-oriented businesses.Accentiv is one such Chennai-based company (if its name sounds similar to ‘Incentive', hard not to guess why) that focuses on financial services, mainly banking. Its corporate client list includes HDFC Bank, Citibank, SBI Life Insurance and Standard Chartered Bank. M.S. Ashok, chief operating officer (COO) Accentiv, says his firm is going beyond just consumers to include the business-to-business (B2B) segment too. He met with Businessworld's Tanushree Pillai to talk about his firm, the business, and what his firm sees as opportunities. Excerpts:Why was Accentiv started in the first place?Accentiv is part of the Edenred group (listed at the Paris Stock exchange), which is the largest company in the employee benefit space. We also have a very strong rewards and incentive package. We were earlier called Accor Services, but we re-branded ourselves as Edenred about a year ago.The rewards and incentive business of Edenred is called Accentiv. We were already engaging with various corporates and we found out that most of them wanted to reward their employees on special occasions, for jobs well done. So the relationship which we already had with corporates, was extended to B2B incentives as well. So the channel partners came in and the program got extended to customers as well.Today, Accentiv is into B2B2E (Business to Business to employee), B2B2B (Business to Business to channel partners) and B2B2C (Business to Business to customers).When did Accentiv come to India? We have been In India for about 10 years now. We picked up two companies, one of them being Royal Images Direct – started in Chennai to work with Citibank credit card – about 4 years ago.In which sectors is Accentiv present in India?Accentiv is very strong in the banking and financial sector particularly, with the pedigree being Citibank's rewards program. Today, we handle programs for 6 credit card companies in India. We also have a presence in the IT, retail and B2B space.Do you think the banking and financial sector needs a loyalty program like this?The credit card sector has traditionally been a good sector for the loyalty program business. What makes every customer take out one particular credit card from his wallet is the number of points she has on that particular card. Customers try to accumulate points on one particular card in order to be able to redeem those.So is this loyalty program both for the credit card salesman and the end consumer?The credit card loyalty program is only for the end consumer. Credit card salesmen are typically employees of banks, and banks themselves have an employee rewards program. We separately have tools to support employees' rewards and recognition program with banks. These influence employees to do better in terms of cross-selling, up-sell your present credit card, say from silver to gold.Rewards and recognition programs are gaining traction in India, as attrition is becoming a critical issue. When you talk about loyalty, you also need your employees to stay with you, for your customers to have a good experience at the touch point.What sort of loyalty programs do you typically offer credit card customers?Traditionally, we started off with a point-based program, where for every 100 rupees that a customer spends, she gets points which can be redeemed for a wide variety of rewards.Banks eventually realised that a percentage of points got redeemed and the rest lapsed. So the business model itself had some components built into it. The power of the loyalty program is in the customer redeeming the points that she accumulates.For credit card customers, the catalogues they receive are customized for the kind of credit card they hold. The base level, the silver card, would mostly have Rs 2000 reward along with some aspirational rewards, for those customers who want to move up.A gold catalogue will have some premium brands and experiential rewards, like holidays, spa treatments. Gold customers also receive airline rewards, wherein the points can be added to your existing airline loyalty membership, if you ever fall short.For platinum and above card holders, the rewards are more like privileges, like lounge access, invitations to golf tournaments. These customers want to be pampered.Is the upgrading process (from silver to gold) also part of the loyalty program?Loyalty data throws up a humongous amount of data – from customers' profile to his transaction data – which shows she is a heavy user and might have to be upgraded.Loyalty programs' return on investment comes when you start leveraging this data to offer meaningful rewards to the customers. It could be up-gradation, co-branding or certain privileges.Is there any data sharing with Accentiv?Banks typically do not share data. We typically get card numbers along with transaction history while the name and address of the customer is not shared with us. Our analytical tools help us dissect the customers and we extend the loyalty programs accordingly.Which other sectors in India are in dire need of loyalty programs?The telecom sector stands in dire need of this program. With number portability coming in, a lot of companies which felt that had a strong value proposition are seeing a good jump of customers. The longer a customer stays with a brand, the more profitable she becomes for the brand. There is a comfort level that is achieved in transacting with the brand over a period of time.Retail is another sector which will grow substantially in terms of loyalty programs. With the proliferation of brands coming in to the country, customers will feel fatigued in carrying too many brand membership or loyalty cards. To ensure that a customer walks into your store, you will have to differentiate your card from the others that are there in the customer's wallet.Do customers actually use these loyalty cards?Wherever there has been good amount of communication to promote the card, the customer does end up using it. Typically, the cost of communication becomes expensive over a period of time. But if done correctly, the response from the customers can pay for the cost of communication for these loyalty cards. It is just a question of leveraging these tools and techniques.How do you ensure a credit card customer uses the same card over and over again?The problem with credit cards is it is too difficult to break through the clutter. What one card does, the other can do with equal ease. A good percentage of customers receive their credit card statements with momentary shock. The challenge is to soften the blow. If you can front-end the points earned part, that is the power of communication. It is important to create aspirations in the customer's mind and sustain them. It is increasingly going to be difficult for banks to retain their core customers and keep adding new ones.
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Last week - September 26-30 - was one in which no one knew whether it was coming or going. Yes, there was volatility ahead of the expiry date for September F&O (futures and options) contracts on Thursday. Earlier, traders had gone short following global markets uncertainties, thanks mostly to the European debt crisis, which they had to cover y Thursday. In the first four sessions of the week, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex) rose nearly 3.5 per cent or 536 points. On Friday, shozrt positions were built up again, because of continuing fears of a global crisis and domestic macroeconomic concerns. On Friday the Sensex lost nearly 245 points to end the week at 16,453.76, a gain of 292 points. "A small up move is no major reason for rejoice. The small rally was akin to a relief rally and gives the opportunity for investors with long side positions to exit their long stuck up positions," says Vivek Gupta, CMD at GEPL Capital, a Mumbai-based financial services firm. "Equity investors have become jittery and there is a flight to safer assets due to global and domestic problems." The fear of a double dip recession in the US is back, while at home untamable inflation has brought the Indian economy to a slowdown, dampening market sentiment. Then the government announced an additional Rs 52,800 crore in its market borrowing program, a 13 per cent increase over the numbers announced in this year's annual budget to Rs 4,70,000 crore. That will take the fiscal deficit to 5.3-5.5 per cent from the budgeted 4.6 per cent. "In such a scenario we do not see markets advancing from here and it may test previous lows," says Gupta. There are no positive surprises from the September quarter's corporate performance either; quarterly results will start coming in from the second week of October. Nor is it likely that good news from will act as a trigger for an upward move in the market indices. Gupta, among others, expects markets to move 'sideways'. So what should investors do? "Given the current uncertainty in the markets and other asset classes I would park my fund only in fixed income funds for the time being. I would rather sit on the sidelines with 50 per cent cash and invest at the right valuations," says Gupta.
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Godrej Consumer Products MD, A. Mahendran, discusses the path ahead with BW's Suneera Tandon and explains how the company plans to double its revenues in the next few yearsPost multiple acquisitions, what is next for Godrej Consumer Products?The last three years were the years of acquisitions; 2011 will be the year of consolidating acquired business, interchanging process and policies between domestic and international businesses. 2012 onwards (i.e. 2012-2015) we will look at a long-range plan for the next three years. Our target is to double revenues in the next three years from Rs 3000 + crore to Rs 6000+ cr. Over the next year we are also looking at the organic growth of our acquired businesses. What are the most dominant categories for Godrej Consumer Products?Currently household - insecticides comprise 45 per cent of our revenues with brands such as Good-Knight, Hit and Jet; personal care constitutes close to 30-32 per cent revenues, with Godrej No1 and Cinthol as dominant brands. Hair-colour comes third with a 15 per cent share in the business, whereas non-core categories comprise 7-8 per cent. Currently hair care and household insecticides remain growth oriented categories, since the market for them is still in their growth phase. In Q1 2011 we launched two variants under Godrej expert hair colour, Care and Advanced (gel based variant). Soaps on the other hand remain a highly penetrative category (at 90-95 per cent) both in urban and rural, so it is purely a market share game (currently Godrej is behind market leader HUL in soaps with 10.1 per cent market share). In the household insecticides category, rural is a buoyant market. Currently penetration for insecticides in the urban market stands at 75 per cent while in the rural market it is 25 per cent. We are working towards developing a lowered priced product to cater to the bottom of the pyramid consumer. Good Knight remains a dominant brand both for Godrej and the market, followed by Hit (market-leader in the aerosol category). What price-hikes have you as a consumer company taken over the past 1 year?Commodity inflicted category is only 1 Vis-vis price points the most affected category has been the personal wash (ie soaps category). Since we import our palm crude oil from Malaysia, price hike has been inevitable. On an average we took a planned price-hike of 10-11 per cent across categories over the past 1 year. Since we are not the market leaders we cannot go beyond what the market leader (HUL) decides. But Q2 has seen commodity prices a softening, the trend is looking good. However the volatility of commodity price is unpredictable. Will there be any cross-pollinisation of products from the acquisitions?We have recently taken our powered hair-colour Expert (under the Renew brand) in South Africa. We are considering taking products to markets, maybe Indonesia. Vis-versa we will also look at bringing acquired brands into India.Any new product launches in the pipe-line? We will be entering the air-care category soon. For now it is a very small market at an embryonic stage. (Godrej sold rights of Ambi Pur to Proctor and Gamble last year, as part of Sara Lee selling global Ambi pure rights to P&G)
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Outbound investments from India have increased significantly over the last few years, largely due to the government's conscious efforts to encourage Indian entrepreneurs to tread the global path. These efforts have further taken shape in the form of more recent regulatory changes made by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). In particular, these changes are focused on providing a further boost to joint ventures and liberalise regulations that relate to outbound investments. These changes have been welcomed by corporates as they provides for far more operational flexibility when it comes to expanding operations in overseas jurisdictions. Some of the significant changes have been discussed in the following paragraphs.Performance GuaranteeCurrently Indian corporates are allowed financial exposure up to 400 per cent of their net worth in an overseas Joint Venture (JV) / Wholly Owned Subsidiary (WOS). Earlier, the issue of a performance guarantee was treated akin to a financial investment wherein the amount of the guarantee was reckoned for calculation by of the ceiling of 400 per cent of their financial commitment, overseas. As per the revised regulations, only 50 per cent of the amount of the performance guarantees will be considered for the purpose of computing a firm's financial exposure. The change is a significant move as it will endow Indian entrepreneurs with greater flexibility in enabling them to issue such guarantees to their overseas ventures/subsidiaries which are quite routinely required if the overseas venture/subsidiary was to contemplate any serious business other than acting as a marketing limb. Furthermore, having recognised that the invocation of guarantees by the parent (Indian) company should be an exception rather than the norm, the RBI has now provided that in cases where the invocation of the guarantee breaches the financial exposure ceiling of 400 per cent, the Indian corporation shall be required to seek prior approval from the RBI before remitting funds from India. Writing Off Capital And Other ReceivablesThe RBI has also provided greater operational flexibility to Indian corporates by allowing them to write off capital and other receivables, provided they have a stake of at least 51 per cent in an overseas JV/WOS. The write off is permitted up to 25 per cent of the equity investment under the automatic route for listed entities and under the approval route for unlisted companies. Indian corporates are required to comply with the reporting formalities and are also required to submit the prescribed documents to the RBI for scrutiny. Guarantees To Step Down SubsidiariesAs per the new regulations, the RBI has now permitted Indian corporates to extend corporate guarantees on behalf of the first generation step down subsidiary operating company, provided the latter is within the overall financial exposure limit irrespective of whether the direct subsidiary is an operating company or a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). Earlier, the benefit of providing the guarantee on behalf of the step down subsidiary was available only in case where investments were made through an SPV. Divestments Involving Write OffsDivestments involving write offs will now be allowed under the automatic route subject to conditions specified. Similarly divestment under the automatic route is now extended for listed Indian companies having net worth of less than Rs 100 crores provided the investment in JV/WOS is not more than $ 10 million. The ideology of 'going global' is not preserved for a select few corporates - indeed, it should not be as India Inc is aspirational - there is a genuine hunger to grow and to establish overseas ventures and/or subsidiaries. The latest RBI regulations are a sign that regulators are more than happy to do their bit in encouraging Indian corporates in their quest to become MNCs. N.C Hegde is a partner with Deloitte and Falguni Sheth is manager at Deloitte Haskins & Sells
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Since its launch in November 2010, interbank mobile payments service (IMPS) has been gaining traction in India. Just last month, it was announced that over 10 million Indians have registered for the service and the number of banks supporting the service has grown to 20, with another 15 in the testing stage. In addition, the Reserve Bank of India also approved the routing of merchant payments through the service, which was initially restricted to person-to-person transfers. This move has made it extremely simple to pay utility bills, shop, pay fees and premiums and transfer money through an SMS. All you need are a mobile money identity and a PIN. In fact, according to an Informate Research study in India, 26 per cent of respondents said mobile banking has made life easier and 20 per cent are planning to use mobile banking. However, 23 per cent of respondents indicated that they don't consider mobile banking to be safe. This simplicity of using mobile devices for financial transactions also increases security risks. As banks provide multi-channel banking they should be able to provide customers with a secure environment and adequate trust and confidence in transactions.Perhaps the biggest challenge in mobile banking is protecting a customer's financial information over the air and on handheld devices. For example, a secure mobile banking infrastructure requires security for - handheld device, the application on the device, authentication of customer and the device with the service provider before initiating a transaction, encryption of the data being transmitted over the air, and encryption of the data that will be stored in the device for later review by the customer. Clearly, it is a complex process!Symantec has observed a 43 per cent increase in mobile vulnerabilities in 2010, according to the latest Internet Security Threat Report XVI. Symantec documented 163 vulnerabilities during 2010 that could be used by attackers to gain partial or complete control over devices running popular mobile platforms. In 2010, most malware attacks against mobile devices took the form of Trojan Horse programs that posed as legitimate applications. While attackers generated some of this malware from scratch, in many cases, they infected users by inserting malicious logic into existing legitimate applications. The attacker then distributed these tainted applications via public application stores. For example, the authors of the recent Pjapps Trojan employed this approach.Symantec has already observed malicious software targeting ATMs. As non-PC devices increasingly connect to the internet and are used for financial transactions, cybercriminals are likely to exploit them for profit. From internet transactions to cash withdrawal, physical and virtual money need to be protected against a growing number of targeted and sophisticated attacks on bank brands. Only an integrated, 24X7 approach across multiple delivery channels can deliver the needed level of monitoring and protection against the current threat landscape.Specifically, security for mobile payments requires multiple stakeholders – from banks, telecom operators, m-retailers to consumers – to work in tandem, deploying an approach to secure information and identities through all the layers of transactions that are involved. Today's need is to seamlessly secure information from the individual to the device to the enterprise to the network. To ensure that we protect and manage identities and information, regardless of the device, the location, or the infrastructure, we need to take a holistic approach that brings together identity and device security, information protection, context and relevance and the benefits from leveraging the cloud – the critical enablers of confidence in a connected world. Secure the device: Ensure that the endpoint – in this case the mobile phone – is secured from malware attacks, and the data on it is safe even if the device is stolen. Device security protects individual endpoints and ensures devices and the information on them are protected.Use two-factor authentication: Authenticating the transaction with just the mobile app can lead to malicious money transfers if the device is lost or stolen. Two-factor authentication combines what a user has with what a user knows to provide an added layer of security. Identity security enables users to trust they are connecting to the services they want without fear of data theft or misuse of their digital identities. It also enables network and service operators be able to trust users are who they say they are, while easily provisioning and managing their identities.Encrypt the data at rest and in motion: This protects information on the device if it is lost or stolen, and while it is in transit wirelessly. Information protection helps ensure the wrong people don't get access to information and sensitive information doesn't go where it shouldn't. Strong encryption ensures that data does not fall into the wrong hands when it is at rest on devices, or when in motion on the network.The combination of encryption, data loss prevention and identity assurance provides an information-centric approach to security — ensuring all security controls work together to verify that access is authorised and movement of information is regulated. Today while we leverage technology to improve convenience and productivity, let us not forget that our information, identities and money are at stake. The Author is VP and MD, India Product Operations, Symantec
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When I was a young girl and for some reason wished my name was Christine (it wasn't, particularly) and wanted to be ' delicate and elegant' (I think I managed delicate), I remember working hard to beautify my handwriting. This wasn't difficult because my father is a marvel at calligraphy and taught me many tricks of the trade. I experimented for hours with specially modified nibs and expensive calligraphy pens and get to the stage where the uninitiated would ooh and aah over the results. This happy state of affairs lasted until I acquired a butter-smooth jade green Hermes typewriter. Then everyone had to endure my constant tap-tap late into the night. Relief came in the form of my computer (even though it hardly had any RAM). And that was the beginning of the end for my handwriting. A year or two in the company of keyboards, and it turned into a procession of spiders.And now, out of nowhere, tablets and smartphones are luring me to write again.Typing on mobile devices is no cakewalk. Some people find their two-thumb equation with the Blackberry QWERTY keypad, but I just find it impossibly cramped and fiddly.Using SWYPE on my Galaxy was enjoyable until I messed up the dictionary by being too lazy to feed in corrections. I've written some of these columns on my phone but today my contacts find themselves scratching their heads to decipher my messages.On the iPad, typing with the virtual keyboard has been a look-down one-letter-at-a-time process. Not fast enough and too prone to errors. I tried the keyboard with case options only to find, to my horror, that hitting the keys generally amounted to hitting the leather. I managed to get very little work done. Carrying around a separate frill- sized keyboard seriously cramps my mobility.Finally, I decided to try a well-known handwriting recognition app, WritePad, from PhatWare, a company that makes several such applications for a variety of platforms. WritePad is a very powerful piece of software, for a mere $10 on the App Store. You get yourself a nice blank page and use your finger to write and the app will turn it into digital text the moment you pause for a breath. You have three input modes. One is a regular keyboard mode. Another is a full-screen handwriting mode. And a third is a precision writing mode where you have a special input panel. There's also one reading mode where there's no danger of accidental touches getting into the text. What is impressive is the speed and ease with which the app digitises your writing. What's not impressive is your handwriting as it struggles to be precise given the creamy smoothness of your finger on the screen. I soon discovered how my N's and R's were indistinguishable, and how even I couldn't tell the difference between my I's and my J's. But two days of using the app gave me a much better handwriting -and an arm ache. The thing is I began to enjoy myself and was soon quite addicted. How well you fare with this application now depends on your discipline and patience. You and the app have to get to know each other's ways and that takes a little while. WritePad has a lot of features to help the initial learning happen, so one must explore those. There's a feature that lets you see alternatives for every word you write. A day or two of using that hill bring the writing in line. You can even choose to deal with known words only, with one separate word at a time and with cursive writing turned off. You can edit the user dictionary, set Autocorrection for your own selection of words and even choose the letter shapes closest to your writing style. Because you can write anywhere on the screen and as large as you like, you can keep correcting your writing for bettor legibility — it doesn't have to be delicate and elegant. In a bit you can turn off the learning tools and pick up the speed. Set your paper style, colour, font size and style, and go.There are a number of features to aid the speed. In the full writing mode, you can use gestures A big diagonal swipe up and back will just select everything. An l with a long tail inserts a space. Flipped, it works like Enter. Cut, copy, paste, delete etc. all have their gestures. A swipe can also call up spelling or punctuation.A real useful feature is the Shorthand. You can assign an action to a bit of text. So, if I write 'sign' and make a circle around it my signature text will insert. You can set these macro-like actions for just about anything you do. frequently. WritePad is too feature-filled to be described here is much more detail without sounding like a manual, but I'll just run through a few. Writing a phone number makes it dialable; tapping a link makes it browsable; you can update your Facebook and Twitter status from the app; you can share files via Dropbox, Google Docs, email, other devices on your Wifi network using the app and you can convert to PDF. On the iPad however, I do not see files from other applications offering to open up in WritePad.WritePad is available for several languages and is any case offers translation to many languages. The full-writing mode has a palm-rest that should help with the arm ache, but on my device it's come up accidentally rather than allow me to enable it.WritePad is not without its frustrations, and neither is handwriting recognition in general. But all said and done, it should be built into the OS itself. Still, it's an explorable option to squeezed typing. And who knows, my writing may finally get that much-needed elegance.This piece was entirely written on WritePad.Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professional. Contact her at mala@pobox.com and @malabhargava on Twitter
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