CDT's Squidoo Achievements!

My very first ever Squidoo lens started life as a (very) amateur attempt at promoting my business (I own a driving school!). When I eventually found my feet at Squidoo, I wrote some considerably better and more specific promotional lenses for my business - which left me with my original lens devoid of content and cooling it's heels doing nothing!

I thought the URL was usuable, so I totally re-wrote the lens - I did all the things you're not supposed to do from an SEO viewpoint - I changed the title, the content - the whole lot...I choose a subject very dear to my heart - Driving Instructor Training!

In the UK, on certain TV channels, never an advert break goes by without adverts from a large national driving instructor training company. These adverts paint an exceptionally simplistic picture of how easy it is to become a driving instructor and what it's like to work in the driver training industry. These adverts are so wide of the mark as to be laughable to those who know better - and, more worryingly, as a member of several industry forums, I'd come across an increasingly worrying number of disillusioned trainee driving instructors who kept saying the same thing:

"I wish I'd known what was really involved..."

So I wrote this lens to explain in some detail, everything that the TV adverts don't mention...such as the cost, the low pass rates and how to prepare for self-employment in a highly competitive industry with a surplus of supply over demand.

The complaints from disillusioned trainees continued and eventually a TV company decided to do an investigative programme about people facing redundancy in the current economic downturn and how many were finding that adverts for so called "easy and lucrative" careers turned out to be markedly different from the impression given by adverts - they chose driving instructor training as one of the areas they would investigate.

I was contacted by researchers from ITV (the largest national terrestrial commercial TV network in the UK) who had come across my lens during their research read it and wanted my input to the programme!

I think this demonstrates the power of a Squidoo lens - to inform and educate and to reach it's intended audience and do some good!

* right click on the lens title below to open in a new tab or window

My first purple star was awarded for my lens about rescue dogs. My own three dogs were all strays which I adopted via a rescue centre. I adore dogs and the thought of unwanted dogs being euthanised makes me want to cry :(

Here's my effort at publicising the plight of unwanted Lurchers in the UK and educating would be owners about these wonderful dogs...

I took part in the Giant Squid Summer School 2009 and this lens was an assignment I did for Summer School.

It is, by far, the most personal and emotional Squidoo lens I've ever produced. I'm a pretty private and rather shy person, so this is the closest anyone in cyberspace is likely to come to seeing me share something intensely personal...

Making this lens was quite a cathartic experience - it cleaned out a lot of cobwebs in the dusty attic of my mind!

This lens was another Summer School assignment.

I really enjoyed writing this lens as it brought back happy memories of fun days out when my sons were younger, the sun shone brighter and life was a lot less complcated!

This lens is currently my top ranking lens and is my most popular lens overall in terms of visitors.

I've always been a person who celebrates individualism and I think the whole Goth "thing" is diverse, beautiful and all round fab!

...and I've never met a Goth who wasn't nice!

I have to admit I was surprised when I got the Purple Star notification for this one...it was certainly unexpected!

I own a driving school and I have written lots of lenses on the subject of learning to drive and passing the UK driving test.

This lens is part of a series of 5 lenses specifically about the manoeuvres required for the driving test. I don't know why this one was singled out, but I'm not complaining and am very honoured that it was considered worthy of a Purple Star :)

If I was surprised to get Purple Star number 5, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I got number 6!

This one was for a lens I'd made in one of my more "frivolous" moments...my homage to Fuzzy Dice :)

The Purple Star came out of the blue as this is a lens I made quite a while ago and doesn't get much traffic...it's one of my favourites though and I'm really pleased that the Purple Star Gods & Goddesses liked it and I'd like to thank whoever nominated it :)

My first Purple Star in over a year ...funnily enough for yet another of the lenses I created for the Giant Squid Summer School 2009!

Big thanks to whoever nominated this lens!

Purple Star number 8 on one of my favourite lenses!

Big thanks to whoever nominated this lens!

Purple Star number 9 for a lens about my home town!

Big thanks to whoever nominated this lens!

Purple Star number 10 for a lens on a subject directly associated with my working life!

Big thanks to whoever nominated this lens!

On 2nd June 2010 I published my 100th Squidoo lens

SquidooHQ entered everyone who made at least 5 new SquidBoo lenses into a competition in October 2010 to find the King Of SquidBoo and the lens below was one of the 40 finalists!

If you want to know more about me (not that I'm that interesting!) read my lensography!

Right click on the lens title to open in a new window or tab