Imagine a piece of technology the size of an aspirin. It can go anywhere, be embedded in anything and keep track of any action, movement or sound — imparting huge amounts of data, like tiny puzzle pieces that can be correctly fitted to form the picture of your life. It sounds Orwellian, the ability to monitor your habits at all times.

A technologically-savvy city is no longer fodder for fantasy film; it’s an expectation. We live in a time where technology can and should make our urban environments more efficient in terms of energy consumption, transportation, land use, citizen participation and government processes.

The concept of reaping what you sow applies in all walks of life. No one would ever expect the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championships if they didn’t practice in the off-season.

I’m a 27-year-old high school English teacher, but my long-term goal is to open a performing arts school. I’m torn between obtaining an MFA so that I may bring a strong creative background to my future students, and earning a business degree so that I may learn how to run the school. I worry the MBA will be too broad but that the MFA will be less valuable.

While we primarily talk about sustainability in terms of environmental impact, the principles of sustainability apply just as much to our social and economic ecology.

If I have learned one thing by working with people in organizations, it’s that there’s much more telling than asking going on. As a business coach, my clients will expect me to ask, at some point in their session, “So what’s the question?”

As West Sacramento’s mayor since 1998, Christopher Cabaldon has been an integral part of the city’s metamorphosis from a gritty industrial outpost to one of the region’s most up-and-coming locales. We recently sat down with him to talk about riverfront development, craft breweries and the impending “green rush” of legal marijuana.

The Center for Land-Based Learning launched the Urban Farm Program in 2014 on a city-owned lot and with seed funding from two local banks. Fiery Ginger uses land owned by the Washington Unified School District. Other farmers use private property, for four sites total, representing six separate farm businesses — with two more to be added by 2017

Cal-ISO is one of 38 system operators for the geographic area that covers everything west of the eastern boundaries of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. That compares with six system operators responsible for most of the rest of the country. “The divided operation of the western grid is not unlike having a bus with 38 drivers.”

Bill Murray (not that one) was at the top of his game, so to speak, until an epic fall from grace. In December 2009, the 54-year-old tax accountant was charged with defrauding more than 50 clients of his Sacramento firm, Murray & Young Accountancy, out of more than $13.3 million. He subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 19.5 years in federal prison. The saga played out like a reality TV crime drama, from beginning to end.

No job is only a job. You are paid to be competent and to get your work done, sure. But there are countless social interactions that shade the way you’re evaluated: chit-chat on the elevator, poise in a meeting, even the stories you tell (or don’t tell) over happy hour. Connections are the key to raises, promotions and job offers.

After plans for a massive upgrade to the historic Crystal Ice and Cold Storage building went up in smoke, Mike Heller and his team were forced back to the drawing board — here’s how they forged ahead.

For most of her youth, Sequoia Criteser was petrified of fire. As a child, she would not have imagined starting a career as a fire dancer 13 years ago. 

When it comes to our country’s shift to renewable energy, there’s no turning back. Improved technology has made renewables more reliable and less expensive, and government policies have encouraged or required their use. But there’s always change happening in the industry sector, as you’ll read in one of our July features, “Will the Mega-Grid Get Built?”