Inspiration: Phillip Toledano's "Days with My Father"

© Phillip Toledano

My brother, Jason, emailed me the other day a link to a photo essay by Phillip Toledano. If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s a wonderfully produced piece about Toledano’s last days with his aged father. And more than anything, it’s yet another great example of the power the Internet has for allowing storytellers to get their content out, in ever increasingly effective and in innovative ways.

Jason, who works on the business side of the media industry, found the link through a great website called paidContent.org and specifically in a piece by Upendra Shardanand, who is the CEO and founder of Daylife. His article is worth a read, but here’s a choice quote:

Speaking to publishers every day, I’m struck by their openness and eagerness to revamp so many parts of their business. IT? Distribution? Revenue? All subject to radical change. There’s surprisingly little trepidation about experimenting with the latest and greatest web phenomenon. But one aspect of their businesses that very few seem to question is the actual craft of writing and telling stories

In his article, in his small list of examples of experiments with new forms of storytelling, I think he’s left off one of the most innovative storytelling operations out there: Brian Storm’s Mediastorm. But whatever else, check out Toledano’s piece…it’s great.