Giant Challenge for September Closed

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Image by Kathy McGraw via Flickr

September 30th saw the final deadline to make Squidoo Giant or a Giant 100 Clubber. The Wiwon Team did well and I think many of its members will qualify with either 50 or 100 lenses. They’ll know later this week. In the meantime, I know from experience, it’s quite worrying wondering if your lenses are good enough even though you hit the target number.

The members of my small coaching group have improved a lot over the course of the last 8 to 10 weeks. Some people’s work has changed enormously and for the better. Even though I was coaching them, I learned from them too. It’s always a learning experience to look at other people’s lenses or web pages. Sometimes you learn a new technique or an unusual way of using modules that you’ll find useful, sometimes you see what people do wrong and that teaches you something too.

Squidoo won’t be using the different challenge groups like Wiwon for the next round of people going for Giant or the 100 Club. Instead, it’s one big group run through the Ning Forum network.

It will be interesting to see how this will work. It appears to me as if there will be a lower ratio of mentors to prospective Giants or 100 Clubbers. I think many people benefited from the small groups last time because they got almost individual attention and help. I had just eight people in my coaching group, for example, so it was relatively easy for me to take a detailed look at every lens each person made and I had the time to give a detailed critique when necessary.

A lot of the Squids from Wiwon and other Challenge teams have said the think this kind of attention helped them enormously.

Well, we’ll see in January whether the new system works as well or maybe it will work even better.

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6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Steve  •  Oct 4, 2009 @11:28 am

    My public thank you Stazjia.
    My contributions to the group were minimal, yet your time to me was always there
    Apologies and the very best
    Steve aka oneskms

  2. Stazjia  •  Oct 4, 2009 @11:34 am

    No apologies needed, Steve. I liked your lenses and so it was no hardship at all to look them over. I really enjoyed your Looney Tunes lenses and they taught me something too – how to drill down and concentrate on a topic and get everything out of it rather than going off at tangents, like I do sometimes. That’s a habit I’m slowly curing, I hope.

  3. Bonnie (JustBon)  •  Oct 4, 2009 @11:17 pm

    Speaking as one of the Giant Squid Greeters, I’m sure the new group of potential Giants will continue to benefit from a hands on approach by a wonderful group of Lensmasters. Each Greeter will be focusing on and helping with one aspect of lens making, so the individual attention really hasn’t disappeared. Of course, during the Challenge, I’m sure the GSOs will be assessing the effectiveness of the changes made this time.

  4. Stazjia  •  Oct 5, 2009 @8:48 am

    I am sure you are right. On Wiwon we are so pleased with most of our candidates for the last challenge and most of them expressed their thanks for all the help they received. It’s hard when you’ve been part of a successful team (or so it seemed to us) when you have to give up. I know how hard all the Squidoo volunteers like Greeters work so I know that everyone trying for Giant or the 100 Club in December will get as much help and encouragement as they need.

  5. Kathy McGraw  •  Nov 5, 2009 @10:13 pm

    Interesting debate, and I am afraid there might be some people that will hold out their point of view no matter what, including me.

    I loved the last Challenge, and learned so much. Thank you Carol for being one of the ones that “adopted me” when I wasn’t getting my needs met, and helped me to learn. I am in the new challenge also, and for me, I can honestly say it’s not near as personal as the last Challenge was. I know there are a bunch of people trying, both in the mentoring positions and in the learning ones….but as someone so wisely said today, sometimes we don’t know what we need to learn, nor do we know what to ask.

    Time will tell, and yes you might have the same amount of Giants, but will they really have learned to be the best of the best, or will they have made 50 lenses? I will always be thankful I was a member of the WiWon Team as you, Katherine, Alex, Holley, Michelle and so many took the time to help and guide us in the right direction! And Joan’s Team and Mimi’s, all the Teams, that personal touch made a difference in my opinion.

  6. Stazjia  •  Nov 5, 2009 @10:22 pm

    Thanks so much for that, Kathy. I’m so glad we helped you and the others trying for giant. I really enjoyed it. You can always email me if ever you need any help. Alternatively, ask whenever you’re in Chat, you know we all love to tell other people what to do!

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