Squidoo . . . Squidoo, what the heck is Squidoo? That’s actually what I asked the 1st time I heard the term. Another of those weird internet terms, I thought. Then I started to look at Squidoo and ideas started to come to me, a few ideas rolled through my head about how I could use this tool.
I started with this really bad Lens(this is what the Squidoo people call the pages made by Lensmasters-each person who makes a page) and from there I went back and just completed a new page on the Whispering Crane Institute, which I think has turned out much better.
So . . . why have I brought this up here. Because I think their is an opportunity here, a real good opportunity for those in the landscape profession looking for another (or 1st)outlet on the internet. This also comes about from some of those discussions at the Mgmt. Clinic about having a internet presence, or a Blog site, or something that folks could look at to give them an idea who you are. A Lens page on Squidoo is a simple option to this question. It’s a tool that could work.
It’s fairly easy to put together a page on who you are, or what you and/or your company do. The great thing about Squidoo is there are no cost involved, it’s fun to put together, very customizable, and allows you to show off some things you do-all in one page. Pretty easy.
You could even do a Lens on your 10 favorite tomatoes (Hanna are you reading this?), if you install you could do a lens on your 10 favorite installs and make sure those customers see that up there. How about a Garden Center on there 10 favorite Annuals, or 10 must have tools?
The more you think about this the more you can come up with. I haven’t seen a big Landscape/Garden presence over there yet, but it’s going to happen, I feel it. I understand Lens pages ranks pretty high in Google searches so the prospect of getting some hits is there . . . but hey, if we don’t try, how will we know?
The folks over there seem dedicated to make this happen in there words here’s what the Squidoo people have to say:
WE BELIEVE THAT WHEN YOU GO ONLINE, you don’t search. You don’t even find. Instead, you are usually on a quest to make sense.That’s the goal of most visits to Google or Yahoo! or blogs or Wikipedia. How do you make sense of the noise that’s coming at you from all directions?
You won’t take action, you won’t buy something, book something, hire someone, or take a position on a political issue until you’ve made sense of your options.
Searching online should really be called poking online. Because that’s what you do. You poke around. You poke in Google and you poke at some ads. After looking at a bunch of links and pages, then, finally, you get it. You understand enough to take action—to buy something or make a decision. The thing is, this takes a long time.
The Web ought to accelerate and even replicate that word of mouth phenomenon that works so well in the real world.
There ought to be a way to leverage the power of personal recommendation online.
There ought to be a way for you to talk about what matters to you, what 10 things matter to you, without the pressure of keeping it up daily (like a blog); and you ought to be able to make some money if someone buys something because you recommended it.
There ought to be a way for us all to benefit from what everyone else knows.
And so we built Squidoo.
Wow, that’s a lot of stuff to think about (their about page), and gives you an idea about what they’re thinking. Just so you know.
I have not been paid, prodded, pushed or pleaded to, in referring the Squidoo site. I offer this as an option to other ways of creating a web presence, or talking about a subject that you are excited about.
Comments? Will it work for some in our industry? Can we get folks excited about unique topics in gardening, landscaping, growing? I be interested to know?
Update: 02/11/07, I have completed several updates to the Design lens, adding a few more modules and a lot of links, a lot of links. I will tweak the link descriptions giving them some punch, or a better description of how I see them useful to someone who is looking for information on landscape design.
The Whispering Crane Institute 