Over the weekend, Space X, tested a rocket just outside Waco, Texas in the town of McGregor about 15 miles away. On November 22 around 10:30 pm (Saturday night), Space X lit up the 9 engine Falcon rocket and created a huge orange glow in the sky and rumbled a 25 mile square area for about 3 minutes.

It was pretty spectacular. Problem was that they had only notified the city of McGregor they were going to be doing this. Everyone else was in the dark until the rocket test lit up the sky and shook everyone's bones for a few minutes. Then the calls to the media and police started. I live outside Waco about 8 miles from Crawford, Texas, where President Bush has his ranch. I honestly thought that someone had bombed the ranch and I was waiting for the F-16s to scramble from Fort Worth and arrive. We had a couple of F-16s get dispatched a few years back when a pilot in a single engine plane flew into the ranch's no fly zone. That was a pretty amazing scene as well. I watched outside till the fireworks and shaking stopped, then went inside and turned on the TV to find out what was up.



The news people were scrambling to find out what was going on.

What does this have to do with business? Well, everything. First, you need to be a thoughtful neighbor in your community. Second, let people know what you are doing and have transparency. Third, when you make a mistake, confess and ask for forgiveness. Fourth, next time don't repeat the actions of number three.

Space X did notify the McGregor community, but not anyone else. They said the reason the test was so loud and bright was the cloud cover. They have done tests before, but not of this size and it was during the week, not at 10:30 pm at night on a weekend. Third, they were not very appologetic to the community. If they were smart, heck they are rocket scientists, they should throw a party and invite the community out and show them the rocket hand out hot dogs and free Dr Pepper and then tell everyone when the next test is so everyone can come out and bring their lawn chairs and watch it. Will it happen? I don't know but I'd show up with the family.

I love getting inquiries from around the world on our custom color changing tshirts, tote bags and other products. The challenge facing SMEs is that you have to figure out ways to communicate effectively with your customers while on a budget. A great way to do this is via Skype for IM and for voice. I also have found need of tools that allow me to share documents, presentations and have a whiteboard. The three that I know best are GoToMeeting, DimDim, and a new one that I was just introduced to called Vyew. Being a Mac user, there were challenges with the GoToMeeting until they recently added the ability for a Mac to actually host the meeting and not just be a participant. GoToMeeting is not free. The other two options, DimDim and Vyew are covered really well in this review at the Axsyshosting Blog. Take a look at the review and give DimDim and Vyew a try.

One of the many joys of owning your own business and all the freedom that comes with it is that sometimes "those" days don't seem to end. Yesterday happened to be a day that had much planned on the GTD list, but a major interruption took a chunk of the day with it. That interruption came in the form of my Apple iDisk not wanting to function properly. I know there has been a bunch of moaning about how Apple really messed up with the roll out. That is an entirely different conversation that I won't touch here. Needless to say, after a hour here and an hour there, I finally came to the solution. It should have been easier to find in my opinion, but it wasn't. So hopefully this post will help one of my Apple brethren in need of help.

Here's the link to the Apple iDisk "iDisk failed to sync" troubleshooting doc so you can fix your iDisk syncing.

Troubleshooting iDisk Sync issues

I'm learning very quickly that there are way too many options for social networking out there. As a small business owner, I want to make sure that I am staying connected to my customers and potential clients, but the list of options can be overwhelming. I recently spoke with a friend of mine, Rich Jarvis at Lab Armor and he agreed that the social networking was confusing and he didn't have time to track all of it down.

There are some great resources out there for getting started, one of which is John Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing Website, blog and newsletter. John does a great job helping small businesses understand and use technology. Here's the link to the social networking info. I'll be posting more about this later as I work on the social networking for Color by the Sun.

If you have additional info, post it to the comments.