Another Squidoo Success Story!

Director Tom writes to me:

Greeting from Tom :-)

Here's some quick news to keep you up-to-date on my latest happenings. Feel free to forward this email to those who might benefit from it...thanks!

1. I will be re-joining Moving Pictures in Middletown, CT, starting June 4.

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future direction of corporate television. The recent emergence of social media and web video outlets will propel personal stories captured from employees in corporate videos to even greater audiences. Corporate stories captured on DVD will now be just the beginning of sharing that story.

2. "Director Tom" website: "Bringing Brands to Life"
In an effort to help others "bring brands to life" through min-documentaries and to acknowledge the power of employees as "heroes" and "storytellers" in corporate videos, I launched DirectorTom; Branding with Remarkable Corporate Videos nine months ago.

That first month had only four readers! Thankfully, with a lot of help from folks sharing and spreading this conversation, the readership has soared! It's incredibly rewarding to know that people across the globe have been touched by this concept. The "heroes" in my films over the years have certainly taught me, in fact, that each person's story can change the world for the better.

3. Award-Winning Videos are Changing the World with "Heroes."
Speaking of "heroes" and "changing the world," the four teen "heroes" in the two videos I recently produced for the Epilepsy Foundation are, indeed, changing the world.

The two videos are used thoughout the junior high and high school national public school system to help change the misperceptions many people still have towards those with epilepsy.

Both videos were entered in two film festivals. The film, "Take Charge of the Facts," has already recieved two awards; a Telly Award and the Ad Club of Connecticut Award.

"Out of the Shadows," a day-in-the-life of documentary featuring four teen "heroes" with epilepsy, just received a Telly Award, as well.

The stories of these "heroes" are truly remarkable and are, indeed, changing the world.

That's it for now.

The conversations are happening...the stories are spreading. Feel free to jump into the pool (you won't get wet...promise!)

:-)

Thomas R. Clifford
Corporate Documentary Filmmaker & Story Katalyst
"Let's see that again!"

Pocahontas, Her Majesty the Queen & Squidoo

Dear Margaret,

I wanted to drop you a line to tell you about this amazing cameo order and my recent trip to Virginia. My original enquiry cameo via my Squidoo lens on gemstone portrat cameos. So Squidoo really works - Go Figure !

This has been such a busy two months. I was contacted in late March and asked if I could make a copy of a cameo brooch first given to Pocahontas 400 years ago by the King while she lived in England.

I was flown over in early April to examine the original which is at the Jamestown museum in Virginia. I stayed in Virginia for a few days and made time to visit some previous customers who live near Washington D.C.

I then returned to Wales and made the cameo brooch. This was carved out of natural layered agate and set in a Palladium frame set with natural American seed pearls.



I flew over to deliver the cameo to the museum in early may. It was given to the Virginian Indian nations who performed a ceremonial blessing and then presented it to the Queen on May 3rd in Richmond.

I saw the Queen during her visit to the Jamestown museum on friday 4th, May. This is an amazing museum and you really must visit it if you are ever in the area.



I had bought over my family and we had a short break in the Shenandoa national park and then re-visited my previous customers around Washington D.C. We also made time to visit the Capitol buildings, the Smithsonian natural history museum and the air and space museum near Dulles airport.

It was such an amazing time and now I have the satisfaction of knowing that one of my cameos is in the Royal collection in Buckingham Palace, England.

I have put up a quick page on my website that has a picture of the cameo. Visit it here: Queen's Cameo

Thanks, Gareth Eckley.

1001 Members! Very, Very Busy!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. As you can see, I've been very busy. We have 1001 members in the Mall group, and I'm working on some new projects to promote you all.

You will begin seeing some real differences between all the ecommerce groups as Squidoo grows, and I hope the Mall will stand out more than most of the others, in its own unique way.

We're all hoping to make a living with our internet merchandizing, and my projects are just for that purpose.

If you have any suggestions, please email them to me. We will all need to stand out more and more as time goes on.

Congratulations to all of you for a successful group so far. The proof will be in our incomes as we move forward.

I admire and enjoy all of you!

New! Live Dashboard Traffic Stats!

Wow, thanks to Gil, today he announced in the squidu lounge that the traffic stats on our dashboards are LIVE! Now when you sit starting at your dashboard, you may have something to see!

It seems the upgrades were an enormous project, perhaps that tiny staff bit off more than it could chew for a little while! However, it seems that they've gotten a handle on all of that and provided us a new surprise. Well done, Gil!

He reports that there are three people per second looking at a Squidoo page, which is awesome, and that there are some new dashboard design plans in the works.

Stats 2.0 is STILL ON THE WAY.

Read it for yourself. We have a lot to look forward to.

953 Lenses in the Mall Group Today

Yes, I'm VERY behind! Today there are 953 lenses in the Mall group, and I expect it to be 1000 by next week. Since I look at every lens that applies to the Mall, this huge number of new lensmasters is keeping me very busy.

This month I'm a Citizen Squid, doing what I can to help out in the lounge, and various small projects that headquarters would like to help with.

I also inherited a project that I would like you to help with:
NAME THE SQUID!

I got this project by purchasing a large number of lenses from the former Citizen Squid, Angela Harms. This lens was started in January as an effort to name our mascot, but it didn't get far.

The entire lens benefits Chimp Haven and so I have enlisted the help of chimps to encourage visitors to vote.

Help us name the Squid that is our mascot and trademark! Go to the lens and vote on the names and even suggest some yourself.

If you would like extra links to your page, this is the arrangement. Anyone who lensrolls the Name the Squid page can put any links they want to on the page plexo. One lensroll, one link.

For any Mall on Squidoo member, I will also provide a link here to your website or squidoo page.

UnSpun by Amazon: Best Squidoo Lenses

Tag Lensrolls

Looking at our current top Mall on Squidoo lens, the Dooney & Bourke handbag lens, by thestyleguru, I see that the lensroll was probably chosen by Squidoo based on designer handbag tags alone.

In that lensroll are 5 directly competing Squidoo lenses, two with ugly placeholders.

The first one is Coach Handbags by KC.

Next Wholesale Designer Handbags by pspdownloads. This lens has no avatar or intro module picture and so it looks very ugly on this page.

The third lens in that lensroll is the Brahmin Handbags by athomesource. This one has a beautiful picture of a crocodile handbag in their intro module.

Next is a very clever take on a designer handbag lens by jaguarjulie, called Bag Lady on Squidoo.

The last one in that lensroll is "I found this great website to buy handbags at up to 75% off," by tonyt. This lens has no pictures, so our lensmaster has ANOTHER ugly placeholder, but it also has no product, only a link to an unknown website that promises amazing savings for new handbags.

Now, if you add to that the 4 paid Google ads for Dooney & Bourke handbags, including a discount ad, you can see that it is a formidable amount of competition for this lensmaster to overcome.

Thestyleguru also says in their bio: "I'll save you loads of time by helping you find information on all of MY interests. Free or at the most affordable prices for You. Whether it be fashion, books, the hottest trends, or just helpful tips on info we all look for and want to know. Let me be of service to you... Enjoy!! -thestyleguru".

From this we get the impression that everything, including the lensrolled pages, are all condoned or recommended by this lensmaster!

The power of Squidoo has been, at least up to now, THE POWER OF PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION. In this case, and in the case of all other lenses with serious competition, that personal recommendation has been DISEMPOWERED.

You can say, 'this is a performing lens, otherwise it wouldn't be so high in Squidoo Lensrank.'

I say, yes, it peformed BEFORE the layout change, and BEFORE the lensroll became so prominent. The old layout ignored it if you had no lensroll. The Google ads were much less prominent, and your intro module was larger and more striking to the attention. Now, it puts a lensroll in place FOR YOU if you haven't done so already, maximizes the Google ads and diminishes the introduction module in every way.

Tomorrow I will discuss options for this particular lensmaster to help save their lens from obscurity.

I hope that you will look at this lens, compare it with the others, and offer your own suggestions. We will all benefit from improving our lenses, and this lensmaster isn't the only one having this difficulty.

Spare Cycles & Squidoo

On the long tail blog, Chris Anderson discusses 'spare cycles'. He has described spare cycles as an 'awesome power.' This is his primary explanation of why there is such an explosion in blogging.

Spare cycles are also being used to begin building small businesses, and an opportunity to create an additional 'royalty' income for people who may otherwise be wasting their time with television or non-essential matters.

For example, no one would accuse Janet21 of having much time to waste, as a mother of three children. Yet she, too, seems to have enough spare cycles to build lenses like her Novelty Pillows lens, and a website, and to begin growing an extra income for her family.

Janet doesn't have a LOT of spare cycles, but she certainly makes good use of them! This lens is #8 in the Mall on Squidoo group, and she is already producing income from this lens, even though it is a new one. Your spare cycles, like Janet21's, can really turn out some performers!

No matter who you are, your 'spare cycles' are probably always unpaid time. One of the wonderful things about Squidoo is how fruitfully you can use your spare cycle time to build something that will enrich your future.

New Layout, New Lensroll!

It is a very important layout change of our maxed pages at Squidoo!

The lensroll is now much more visible to your visitors, and is much more important. While we don't know all the details about the new lensroll feature, the longest lensroll I have, on Michelangelo's David, shows 7 items in its lensroll.

The lensroll is meant to be a 'tour-guide' around Squidoo, of your personally recommended lenses. Up until now there hasn't been a limit on how many other lenses you could put in your lensroll. Now, it will require some thought when selecting other lenses.

First, to keep the look of your page as attractive as possible, try to choose lenses that have pictures uploaded into the introduction module. Without that, the lensroll shows an ugly orange placeholder with a question mark. (If you are wondering why your lens doesn't featured in the Mall group, this is most likely the reason).

If you don't have a lensroll, Squidoo chooses the lenses for you. They could be according to topic or tags. These may not be the best selection for your lensroll.

With the many duplicate product offerings, for example, coach handbags, you could end up with all of your competitors in your lensroll.

It is time for all the lensmasters in the Mall on Squidoo group to begin considering how to best use their lensroll. The clutter of the new layout means that anything that will help you keep the visitor's focus on what you want them to see, and what will most benefit them and you, will be much more important as the time goes on.

Next I will discuss various strategies about lensrolling and how you can best use it.