One of the most gratifying parts of working at BusinessMirror is the act of telling stories. Because most of us are journalists by background, it’s what we love to do. But the fact is, stories are more effective than other kinds of presentations because they take less mental energy to understand.

This columnist tried to illuminate Smart’s Life Made Extraordinary story contest by focusing on how Smart’s technology/innovation has changed your life (open to all Smart subscribers until June 30). This project is about understanding the context and meaning behind the participants sharing their personal stories, making the experience more powerful and intimate. Telling stories can facilitate creating an environment where the customer’s voice is honored and involved.

Stories may be submitted in any format, through www.smart.com.ph/extraordinary in either video or text format; participating radio stations; drop boxes in any Smart Store near you; and Smart Extraordinary Lives booth in upcoming Smart events.

How do we share our stories to make them as impactful as they can be?

I, myself, had to deal with the most difficult situations. When I was asked to speak at a conference, I went to the podium to turn my computer on and set up as the audience was having lunch. For some reason, my computer crashed and would not turn on. A couple of days before, I had made a CD of my presentation, but in the 48 hours before the speech, I had changed the material radically. Fortunately, someone loaned me a computer. I was able to use the CD to rebuild the story in a half hour. The only way I was able to pull it off was because I knew the material so well that I could retype every slide from memory. I owned the story.

While a great story can engage the audience, most of the time, the magic that makes the story engaging comes from the way it is told. Think about reading stories with your parents when you were a kid. The best stories are those about which your parents were passionate and so told with excitement.

Your stories can be greatly enhanced with the use of strong visual and audio tools. Video—which follows the storytelling guidelines—is definitely the strongest way to share a story. Smart’s video submission is via YouTube link. Videos must be uploaded in YouTube then link to be entered in the Video Submission Form of the web site. Videos must be 3 to 5 minutes long only, up to 2GB in file size and in any of the following file formats: mp4, mpg, mov, avi.

On the other hand, all text story submissions must consist of at least 200 words to qualify. Acceptable entries from all channels will be posted on the microsite. All approved entries submitted via Smart Stores or radio stations will be forwarded to Tribal DDB for encoding and uploading on the Entries Gallery on the Promo Microsite. Participants to the promo may only win once.

Featured stories will be based on the following criteria: Relevance to the theme (It should be a Smart service or innovation)—40 percent; Creativity (How the story is told)—30 percent; and Originality (How unique is the experience)—30 percent. For each criterion, judges give their rating from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.

Deadline for submission of entries in on June 30 at 12 midnight. At the end of the submission period, the three highest rating based on the weighted average of the judges’ combined score sheets will win the following prizes: P100,000 (first prize), P30,000 (second prize) and P20,000 (third prize). In cases of tie, judges will re-cast their votes.

From July 1 to 15, people can vote for their favorite entries among all those posted on the microsite. Registered users simply log in to vote. Those not yet registered are required to do so. In the registration page, user must fill in the required fields with their name, address and Smart mobile number. After registration, voters then go to Stories and Videos Gallery where each entry posted will have a “like” option. Users simply click on the “Like” button to vote a particular entry. The number of likes per posted video/entry is displayed. Users may only vote once.

At the end of the voting period, the highest vote-getter wins P10,000 cash prize as the “People’s Choice” winner on July 20. Winning stories may be featured, in part or in full, in Smart’s new TV commercial.

The best stories are stories that are actually true. I don’t mean true in a scientific context but true to the participant’s experience. The trust is amazing when you feel others saying that they’ve been in the same situation. True stories evoke them an attitude of “I can do it, too—how Smart made my life extraordinary.”

Stories play an important role in making this happen.

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Not so (extra) ordinary

An advertising executive recounted the story of his first boss. A pending audit had caught them unprepared, and she asked him to do an inventory of all the computer equipment in the office. It was outside his job scope, and a little entry-level for his tastes. So that night he stayed late and tallied everything. By the next morning, the list was on her desk. The lady manager was skilled in holding people accountable without having to use the whip. This ad guy didn’t really think of that. He just said she was a great boss and he would have hated to disappoint her. But alas, the manager was badmouthing the ad guy saying, “He really screwed up!” This lady manager rose from the ranks, from strategy planning to head of HR and corporate communications. She leads people by assault, not leadership.