
Your Brand Needs a User Manual
Here’s a list of chapters to include
If brand is more than a logo, why are most brand books little more than a style guide? A style guide isn’t going to empower your employees to deliver on your brand’s promise, guard your brand’s differentiators, or make everyday decisions in line with your brand strategy.

Pot’s Barrier to Legit Banking
Legal weed outlets, flush in cash, struggle to find financial institutions
There is an old jest that says the fastest way for a business to run off its customers is to adhere to the motto, “In God we trust; all others must pay cash.” But for Kimberly Cargile, director of the East Sacramento medical marijuana dispensary, A Therapeutic Alternative, cash and carry is her only option. And it really is no laughing matter.

When I Was Your Age…
Navigating the generation gap, again
People will inevitably adapt to the demands that new technologies bring. They say that children born today will never have to learn to drive a car. Instead, they will learn to do things no adult generation today can yet imagine. It has always been this way, since the first caveman discovered fire and invented tools. Each preceding generation has something to do with the inventions that are passed on to the next. So why all the intergenerational demonization?

#MyArtofBeer VIP Contest
Calling all Sacramento beer lovers! With so many wonderful, local craft options in the Capital Region, we want to know how you like to sip! Here is your chance to nab VIP tickets (a $160 dollar value) to the upcoming Art of Beer event.

When the 10-Year Work Anniversary Is a Personal Failure
Job-hopping millennials are getting older. Unlike previous generations of young people who eventually settled into a company for long-term financial security, the generation born between 1982 and 2004 isn’t taking the bait, a new survey shows.

Book Review: A Challenge to Prevailing Nonprofit Paradigms
‘Good to Great and the Social Sector’ sees nonprofit management through the eyes of business
The mantra “doing well by doing good” has long been a rallying call for nonprofit endeavors. It also reflects the dominant theme of the book Good to Great and the Social Sector: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great.

The Crusade for Art Infusion
Sacramento's art czar says it's a necessity, not a luxury
Jody Ulich has been Sacramento’s director of convention and cultural services for just over a year. A transplant from Fort Worth, Texas, the energetic Ulich has brought a fresh energy and perspective to the city’s efforts to stabilize and grow its diverse arts community. We sat down with her recently to discuss the arts and ongoing efforts to modernize the Sacramento Convention Center.

El Nino Storms Bring Much-Needed Rain and Snow to California
Egged on by El Nino, rain is falling across California. While it’s welcome, wanted and setting records, it still isn’t enough to bust the drought.

The High Cost of Cheap Food
The problem with calling the food movement ‘elitist’
Americans spend very little of our overall incomes on food, only 10 percent, allowing us more expendable income than people in many other countries. In France and Japan, they spend 14 percent on food, and in the Philippines they spend 40 percent. In a system where food jobs rely on the success of food sales, cheap food creates a vicious cycle of poverty. Not surprisingly, the adverse is also true: More expensive food can create better jobs.

From the Ground Up
No-till farming is still a hard sell in California — despite worldwide acceptance and cleaner air
At first glance, the concept of no-till farming seems a quaint relic of the past, a footnote in a history book, perhaps. Farmers in California’s central farmlands have been using large disks and tills to rip and turn their soil for almost a century. But no-till could have substantial human health benefits for Central Valley residents, as well as financial gains for farmers, according to some agricultural experts at UC Davis and across the country.