Lensmaster PattB Interview

Squidoo Lens Reviews: What makes you passionate about Squidoo.com?


PattB: I’m passionate about Squidoo because I find it to be the best place online to find information that is pre-filtered, by someone who has experience with the subject. (I usually search in Squidoo before I go to Google.) That in turn has inspired me to share things I care about, and Squidoo gives me great tools to do it. Because of the tools available I can make a much more interesting presentation than I could in just writing an article. But the real spice to Squidoo is the great community, who will give you support if you are doing a quality job or making a valiant effort, and will give you help if you need it. And once you get to know the other lensmasters, you begin to trust what they have to say, and they begin to trust you–which really helps you get more traffic to your lenses.


Squidoo Lens Reviews: Is Squidoo perfect already or what could make it better?


PattB: Squidoo’s great development team is coming up with new tools all the time, making Squidoo more versatile and easier to use. A few improvements I’d like to see are:

1. A list of the fan clubs I’ve joined on my favorites page


2. The option to have a “follow me on Twitter” button in the side bar (without HTML)


3. A Wysiwyg interface- Whoa, wouldn’t that be nice!


4. Sales royalties kept separate from lens royalties on payday, and sales royalties detailed by item in the stats. Maybe this isn’t so important once you are making lots of sales, but for Newbies, it would be inspirational.
   

Squidoo Lens Reviews: What inspires you to make a new lens?


PattB: I’m inspired to make a new lens when ideas come together that include images and content of something I’m feeling connected to at the moment. Images are important because I like to make lenses that are visually appealing, not only because I think it gets the message across better, but because I know that those are the types of lenses that hold my attention the most.


Squidoo Lens Reviews: How many lenses do you have?


PattB: I’m a relative newbie, and have only 6 lenses up and running so far, but many more brewing.


Squidoo Lens Reviews: What is your most popular lens?


PattB: My most popular lens is “Stress Reduction Simplified”, but I would like it to get a lot more traffic. It really does have a lot of good tips that can help people.


Squidoo Lens Reviews: What one sentence or one word describes your success?


PattB: Patience


Squidoo Lens Reviews: What should a newbie do first?


Read lots of lenses. Search for things you are interested in and see what other people have done with their lenses. Go through the top 100 lenses to see what works. Or go through the top 10 or so in any category, especially Squidoo Tips–these will really make your lenses sing.
And join the conversation in the forum-introduce yourself, start reading posts, and making posts. You don’t need to know anything to participate, and the more you do, the more you’ll find what a great resource Squidoo is.


Squidoo Lens Reviews: Which of your lenses do you want to make sure the whole world knows about?


PattB: I want to make sure the whole world knows about “Stress Reduction Simplified.” While some stress is a good thing as I explain in my lens “Stress Junkies Unite!”, there is way too much stress going around right now, and I built this lens to bring attention to the imperative of moderating stress levels, and to help people with some simple tools they can use to make their life better, and healthier, without a lot of investment in time or money.
I also would like the whole world to know about “Who Is Michael Masley?” because Michael is an unusually creative musician, and a very interesting character. The lens provides information about the documentary that is being made about him, “Art Officially Favored.” Michael is the musician whose very relaxing CD I have featured on “Stress Reduction Simplified.” It’s wonderful for Stress Reduction and taking your mind off things. One of my Yoga students had painful surgery and said listening to Michael’s music over and over is what got her through it.


Pat aka PattB