King-Maker or King: What Squidoo Can Teach You

I'm SO GLAD I'm NOT a politician!

As groupmaster, it falls to me to be sure that as many of my group members know about important community events as possible.

Why? Because Squidoo is ONLY AS GOOD AS THE COMMUNITY MAKES IT.

As community members, it seems to me to be important to give everyone all the opportunities possible to make it better, more responsive and give greater chances to everyone to succeed, increase traffic, improve sales.

As a community member I've been disappointed in the participation level in the Lens of the Year award. It is an important, VERY IMPORTANT contest that gives the internet pubic something promoted as the BEST of Squidoo.

Those are the things that determine how squidoo looks to outsiders! Those are the things that help determine the quality of traffic that comes into squidoo from elsewhere. Those are the things that determine whether we will have people wanting to shop, visit stores, check out our informational pages, even create lenses of their own and become another member of our community.

So, taking it seriously, I have been emailing many, many members who, it seemed to me, to have a real interest in the outcome of that contest.

The response has been dismal at best. There are many business people who don't even have their 'contact me' function enabled.

So, while Squidoo has itself received an award as a community that has 'Passionate Users,' it surprises me how few within that community are passionate at all, even about their own businesses.

I have discovered, about myself, that I am a campaigner. A King Maker, not a King. If I wanted to have someone be passionate about something, I would want someone like me to get involved.

Now, back to doing what I can to make Squidoo the best it can be....