First Words ended today on a high note with a feature article in a major Australian newspaper. We could’ve kept the competition going on for a few more days and tried for some more publicity, but I felt that it was best to finish the competition and get the results published while we still had some good momentum. It accomplished its purpose and more, by attracting the attention of thousands of people around the world to Mars and also spreading a bit of fun around – there was no point squeezing the idea dry.
So, what now? Well, the competition has to be judged, of course, and luckily I have a few people helping with that considering there are about 3700 entries. All of it will be over in a few days though – we’ll announce the winners, send out a press release and that’ll be that. I’ll have a rest from Mars activities for a few weeks, maybe edit an article or two for New Mars. After that, I’m planning to set up a Mars Wiki which in theory should only take an hour or two. I’m tending towards projects that leverage the ability of other people to do work and create content these days – as you’d expect, they require less work (but more thought in conception) and produce more powerful results.
mssv 