The internet is the most fertile medium for growing community ever invented. The only question is, what do you want to grow?
Fertile Medium is a San Francisco-based online community consultancy founded by the husband-and-wife team of Derek Powazek and Heather Champ. They help companies develop strategies to engage their audience, enable user-created content systems that actually create great experiences, and generally avoid the problems that so often strike when companies meet communities.
Derek Powazek has worked on the web since 1995. He was creative director of Blogger, Technorati, and Collecta, and wrote Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places (New Riders, 2001). He is the cofounder of JPG Magazine and the Chief of Awesome for HP’s MagCloud, advises a handful of startup companies, and edits Fray, the magazine of true stories and original art.
Heather Champ built her first homepage in 1994 and has worked online ever since. Enamored with photography, she created The Mirror Project (1999–2005), a website that celebrated self-portraiture, and cofounded JPG Magazine, the photography magazine made by its community. She recently left her position as Director of Community at Flickr after 5 years. She never leaves home without a camera or three.
Our clients include HP’s MagCloud, Etsy, Photojojo, and Longshot Magazine. If you need help with a community-oriented project, you can or follow us on Twitter.
Expertly hosted by Media Temple.