Lensmastery by Linda

There’s an infinite amount of money available, and we’re all entitled to a share of it.

“An INFINITE amount,” you say?

There’s a lot of money tied up in BANKS right now, as we all know. …But there’s PLENTY left for us. We just need to leverage our time and efforts to be able to get money flowing in our direction. (Or, for you who are here for charity, to get the money flowing in the direction of your dearly loved charities.)

Money, however, likes to flow. It is like a fountain… the water moving, changing, refreshing itself constantly. When held tightly in one place, water stagnates. Money does the same – and that’s not what we need. We’ll all be better off if we can help get that money flowing in all directions… to make a fountain of money… something beautiful to look at, be refreshed by, and to share.

There’s one great way to help that happen, and that’s to work hard at helping each other succeed.

A few days ago there was a phone conference for Giant Squids to talk to Seth Godin and Megan Casey. BDKZ (Bonnie) moderated, and we Giant Squids who could attend gathered in a chat room while listening to Seth and Megan answer some of our questions. A question I asked prior to the phone call was answered – it was “What can we do for Squidoo?” I wanted to know if there was something we could do to help make Squidoo a better site — to give back to this wonderful site and community that helps us so much. Megan’s surprising answer was that we should take a few minutes each day to promote someone else’s lens.

Someone else’s lens? Why????????

LOL

Seth explained that people tend to tune out a lot of self-promotion. I’ll bet you do that too. I know I do. But when someone plugs someone else’s site or book or Squidoo lens, people listen. When someone takes the time to point out someone else’s work, it is a signal that it is worth looking at.

He said that when the recommendation comes from someone else, it is much more likely that people will read it. When he promotes someone else’s book on his blog it sells three times as many copies as when the author promotes his own work.

This brings into play a whole alternate awareness of how prosperity happens. Too many people think that shouting “Look at me! Look at my lens!” is the answer, and it really isn’t. Self-promotion is boring! We all know that.

But this place, Squidoo, is a wonderful community adventure. A place where we can come together to help one another in many ways. Promotion is one of those ways that we should be helping each other.

I’m so excited about this. I like to promote other people’s lenses by Twittering about them, or adding them to Tagfoot. Ohhh, how I LOVE Tagfoot! I’ve also been known to plug other people’s lenses on my blogs. I really need to do that A LOT more.

I intend it, and so it is…

follow my footsteps

There’s a new Senior Center in town… right here in the Squidosphere. All lensmasters age fifty or older are invited to participate. Our new logo is the creation of Drifter 0658. I was surprised how many of our Senior Squids have artistic talent!

Quite naturally I’ve made a lens for the Senior Squids, though most of our networking takes place in a Ning.Com community. It is all explained with a link on that lens.

Fortunately lensmaster Katherine, another artist, is helping to make the community warm and welcoming as she’s administered other Ning groups and knows what she’s doing more than I do (this is my first Ning admin experience.)

So why do lensmasters over the age of 50 like to hang out together? Well, there’s some comfort in knowing we’re not the only ones of our age group getting into this Squidoo thing. Also it is fun to share with others who have the same world-view as you do . . . and anyone not born that long ago won’t have the same perspective of the world as it was in the fifties and sixties, and how much it has changed since then.

We’re a fine group of old-timers who are still very young at heart. . . . young enough to appreciate all the opportunities Squidoo gives us. We’re embarking on a new series of challenges and will be thrilled to welcome new members to our “older but no less bolder” group.

What are you feeling when you hit that ‘publish’ button and wait to see what your new lens looks like? Do you feel relieved to have it over and done with? Do you feel excitement? Trepidation? Exhaustion?

Producing a new lens is like having a new baby. At first you look on it as a strange new entity, albeit one you’ve loved and become familiar with as you put it together, wrote the words, and chose the images to go with it.

Tonight I finally finished a lens I originally set up back in the summer of 2007. It was the last WIP lens I had from last year. I was SO happy to see it finally ready to leave my WIP list and enter the big world of Squidoo.

I felt joy, relief, and fear (of it not being perfect yet)… yet a great weight lifted from me. The topic was Lao Tse – the Chinese philosopher who wrote the Tao Te Ching more than 2000 years ago.

What made me think I could write about Lao Tse? I didn’t know much about him though I enjoyed occasionally leafing through the book and trying to understand the philosophy.

Honestly, writing this lens required a lot of research. I read several pages about him out there in Internet Land. I had to list references on the lens.

It is easier to write lenses about a topic you’re intimately familiar with, but then I’d be stuck writing about what we do at work while we’re waiting for customers to arrive. Personally, I need to expand my consciousness and thought doing research to learn about Lao Tse wouldn’t hurt me at all. I was right about that, and enjoyed finding photos of Chinese paintings in the public domain that I could legally use on the lens.

So now it is over. The lens is alive. The die is cast. The words are written, and the public can see it. I feel SO very pleased.

What is your most recent lens? How do you feel about publishing it?