The Tool lens definitely needs:
- a selection of the best 2 or 3 Tool albums, so I know what to buy at Amazon. If you include a short review of the album, that would be great too.
- some (live) pictures of the band (Flickr?)
- a short bio of the band (Write module)
- and, I agree with Wu Ming, a better introduction

I must agree with Heath, it is great feedback.  Thank you for the suggestions! 

Wu Ming, you are right, I do need to explain who they are, one common theme I've noticed in all my lenses is that they're all a bit weak in the intro department.  I will work on it.   I've noticed that my first instinct when making a lens is to put in as much info as possible, which makes things pretty cluttered.  Editing and deciding what to take out is definitely the hardest part for me.

Skef, I agree, reviews would definitely be helpful.  I guess I just got lazy.  I had some flickr pix up but for some reason they stopped showing up for a couple of days and I couldn't get them to come back up until today.  Hopefully they'll hang around for a while.

On a side note, one thing I like about Squidoo is that it makes you focus on what is really essential to a topic and how to organize it so someone with no prior knowledge can get a grip on it.  This is a good excercise for a scatterbrain like myself.

Thanks to you both!  I'll be sure to rate a couple of each of your lenses for your time.

DM

I've evolved a working method that's helping me get my lenses organized before I even start plugging stuff into the workshop. All my ideas for a lens go into a text file. I just pile them in until I have a good mess to work with. Then I start moving them around as they seem to develop into categories. Once I see some categories developing, I create titles (subject to change, but good enough to keep me focused.) Once I have the titles, it becomes clearer where everything belongs, whether ideas are being developed fully, and what I need to make them more useful. That also lets me see whether some categories might not have enough content.

Hope that gives you a little bit of a hand.

Catana wrote:

I've evolved a working method that's helping me get my lenses organized before I even start plugging stuff into the workshop. All my ideas for a lens go into a text file. I just pile them in until I have a good mess to work with. Then I start moving them around as they seem to develop into categories. Once I see some categories developing, I create titles (subject to change, but good enough to keep me focused.) Once I have the titles, it becomes clearer where everything belongs, whether ideas are being developed fully, and what I need to make them more useful. That also lets me see whether some categories might not have enough content.

Hope that gives you a little bit of a hand.

What a great message! For those of us who write, this should be second nature (or should be anyway). But it is easy to get off track. Thanks for giving such a clear structure to the lens development process.

May I make one addition: The title-writing step is the process of establishing a purpose for that module. The structure of the modules themselves help this process. Be sure that you are using the right module for the purpose and content.

Happy day,
Anne

Einsteinium - I found this to be a quick and easy way to re-order modules: While in Edit Lens mode click on Add Modules, then click on Preview Lens Layout. You can easily drag the modules into the order you want. It's much faster and easier to see what you're doing than trying to do it in the lens itself.

Jeffry - Maybe we should team up on a 'how to' lens!

Rachel - How do you use it? Whenever I click on it nothing seems to happen. Barrie

Reorder Modules is just an open and close button. It collapses the modules so that only the titles show. You can skim around more quickly that way, and don't have to drag modules over long distances to reorder them. Do your rearranging, click on Reorder Modules again, and they're all open.

baretree wrote:

Rachel - How do you use it? Whenever I click on it nothing seems to happen. Barrie

What I see when I click on it is that all my modules collapse down to just their titles.  Then they become instantly mobile, and I drag and drop them to my heart's content.  And since they collapse down, it's easy to see most or all of the larger modules at once for editing.

Then I hit "save as draft" or "publish" when I'm done.

BTW, Einsteinium, great choice of a name.... atomic weight 99... not as good at Molybdenum, atomic weight 42, but nobody's perfect... :-)

Here's my feedback as a disabled mom of four.

I want to look at that lens and feel like a person I know has done these things and done well. I can get a list of ways to earn money online anywhere, and I can get hype from a pro anytime. I think some more personal experience would be really helpful in making the lens convincing.

I'd really like to be convinced!

Angela

Looks like you are headed in the right direction. Work on spelling, grammar and such, and your lens will be more credible.

Happy day,
Anne