As Farm Aid’s resident webmaster, today is a very exciting day. A few hours ago we launched Top of the Haystack (internal code name: Project Buzz). You may have already seen a link to this from our home page. It is a contest seeking the ultimate Farm Aid fan.

Project Buzz started last September with the question of ‘how can we generate more interest and word of mouth excitement for the web cast and web site in the months leading up to the concert’.

We did a lot of research and looked at the creative ideas other organizations were using online. This research was educational and fun, as we all got to enter in a lot of contests. The staff favorite was the Blue Fly Bag a Day Giveaway (sadly, nobody won a bag). We also had some productive (and fun) brainstorming sessions . The staff’s favorite meeting involved shooting anyone who violated the brainstorming rules (putting down someone else’s idea or being negative) with a play gun that shot foam discs.

We then got down to the real work of building the contest. There are many people who helped make this project a reality on a shoestring budget — ISITE Design donated all of the creative work and Ning put in a lot of time customizing one of their applications for us at no charge.

That brings us to today, when for the first time in its history Farm Aid is having an online contest to give away front row tickets to the 2006 concert. It just launched a few hours ago, but the response has already been overwhelming. I’d love to tell you more, but my day is completely occupied with approving all of the entries and forwarding the invitation to everyone I know. Are you the ultimate farm aid fan? See if you have what it takes!