Have you ever walked into a semi-dried lake bed? You start out on firm sand, and little by little the ground gets softer and stickier and deeper until finally the mud pulls your boots straight off your feet. That’s the position of many companies battling today’s marketplace, particularly small-business owners set in their ways and family businesses unable to overcome Dad’s unwavering march into the ground.

Forget the question of whether you would want to do it. Could you strip down to just the essentials? Given the task, how easy would it be for you to identify the most necessary and vital items in your home? What about those in your business?

When was the last time you changed your way of thinking on a major issue? Have you ever? In April of this year, “This American Life” ran a story called “The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind.”In the story’s introduction, Ira Glass asks the question: “When it comes to major issues — like climate change, gun control, abortion rights … do you know anybody that has changed their mind?”

Steven Currall is the Chancellor’s Senior Advisor for Strategic Projects and Initiatives and a management professor at UC Davis, where he is leading campus-wide deliberations about the vision for the university’s long-term future.

As a business magazine serving the Capital Region, we spend 99 percent of our time looking outward, focusing on the stories of great leaders and companies making strides to improve their outcomes and communities. But every so often we find a reason to commandeer the microphone and tell a great story from within.

This past weekend my husband Scott and I were honored to officiate our first wedding. We tag-teamed the nuptials of our dear friends Chase Davis and former Sac Bee political reporter Torey Van Oot in Vermont over Memorial Day weekend.

Jeannine English assumed the office of AARP president in June 2014. Previously, she chaired the AARP National Policy Council and served as president of AARP California. This year, she’ll be directing the organization in advocating on behalf of its 37 million members.

I know how to do Sacramento weekends right — it’s sort of a point of pride. 

Comstock’s magazine is has been awarded Best (consumer) Web Publication and Best Business Magazine in the western U.S. buy the Western Publishing Association.

Numerous times a week, I’ll be in a conversation with someone who says, “Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. I get about eleventy billion emails a day.” I often say the same. Yet if I were to weed out all of the unnecessarily forwarded emails and the eternally sinful replied-to-all responses, my inbox would probably be down to a tidy 36.

The person who finds the cure for HIV will have their name etched in medical history. It’s a hard pill to swallow for one man who has spent 40 years chasing a cure. A cure for HIV, built upon decades of his work, could very well be proven this year. Yet Dr. Gerhard Bauer’s name may be little more than a footnote in the arcane medical journal that publishes the breakthrough.

This is the story of curing HIV. 

Barry Broome has been tapped as the president and CEO of the newly formed Greater Sacramento Area Economic Council and will drive the organization’s mission to attract businesses to the Capital Region. His extensive background in economic development includes six years as the CEO of Southwest Michigan First and 10 years as the president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

When can we officially declare Sacramento as no longer being a cow town? I’m pretty sure we’ve hit that milestone. Business leaders, developers and innovators are pushing boundaries they likely wouldn’t have considered even a decade ago, as can be seen on nearly every page of this month’s magazine.

After a decade at the helm of Sacramento State’s College of Business Administration, Sanjay Varshney in late August accepted a position as a vice president and wealth advisor at Wells Fargo Bank—Wealth Management  Group. Varshney is a professor of finance at Sac State. He is also the  chief economist for the Sacramento Business Review, making him one of the region’s preeminent voices on economics, business and higher education.

How effective are technological tools at changing the behaviors and quality of life of the people who use them? I know a lot of people who bought FitBits in the past two years and zero people who still use one. Meanwhile, our editorial team can’t even figure out how to benefit from a sleep app. 

After managing the development of property and business improvement districts across California, in January Verna Sulpizio became the new executive director of the Florin Road Partnership, a PBID that spans Florin Road from Chandler Drive to Tamoshanter Way. 

You just got back from a trip? Me too. And I already need the next one. My name is Christine Calvin, and I take vacations. That’s right, I use all my PTO every year, and I don’t feel an ounce of shame. You should do the same — it’s going to cost your company either way.

Longtime Placer County supervisor Kirk Uhler was recently selected as the new CEO of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. Uhler is also the owner of Roseville-based Rensa Group, a marketing, communications and government relations firm, and the co-founder of VidGage, a social media platform.

This year, I’m focusing on “no.” It’s a magical word rarely used when it comes to answering work emails on vacation, committing to stuff you swore you would avoid and attending events that drain productivity from your day. And for what? If you count the number of really valuable nonmandatory meetings, networking mixers and fundraisers you attended in 2014, how many would you come up with?

Chris Jarosz is the founder of Broderick Restaurant & Bar and co-owner of the Wicked ‘Wich food truck. This year, he also took on the overhaul of midtown’s Capital Dime restaurant and its sister eatery, Trick Pony, which have been folded into the Broderick Roadhouse family of restaurants. It’s not all glamorous, but it is pretty tasty.

Dramatic medical and technological advancements always grab my attention. They cause me to pause and contemplate how incredible the human mind can be. We create such remarkable things. But our achievements and creativity don’t have to be as groundbreaking as fetal surgery in order to influence society.

Matt Yancey has been selected as the new CEO of the Davis Chamber of Commerce after serving more than seven years as the director of business and economic development at the Sacramento Metro Chamber. So how do you grow a city that’s been historically anti-growth?

During the recession, risk management seemed a lot more like crisis management than a forward-looking, enterprise-wide approach to handling risks in a way that promoted sustainable growth. But today, smart companies align their risk management tactics with their strategic plans, which is helping them achieve their most important business priorities. 

At 25-years-old, Kaitlyn MacGregor is the new director of communications for the California Republican Party, and she has her work cut out for her. New data from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows that young voters aren’t registering Republican and neither are moderates, African Americans or Latinos. With elections just weeks away, MacGregor will need to make strides quickly. 

You’ve been there. You’re on a deadline with limited information, and what you’ve got to draw from is a similar episode that transpired eight months ago, or eight years ago or with an entirely different company. But hey, there are some parallels. This time sounds like that time (sort of), so you base your present reaction on your past experience. The process is called reasoning by analogy, and while it can be a powerful method in the decision making process, it can also be problematic and limiting.

Kris Barkley, the Design Director at Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects and president of the American Institute for Architects Central Valley, sat down with Comstock’s Editor in Chief Christine Calvin to talk about digital fabrication, biomimicry, the industry landscape for up-and-coming architects and, of course, next months’s Experience Architecture Week. 

Thomas Edison is most often credited with inventing a thing, the light bulb. But if you really take a look at what Edison did, you’ll see he was able to envision not only the technology, but also how people would use it and why they would benefit from its use. What he actually created was a product with a fully realized marketplace. Edison’s approach was an early example of a concept that has since been dubbed “design thinking” — a creative manner of problem-solving that places the user at the center of the experience.

Squaw Valley Real Estate and KSL Capital Partners, the company that owns Squaw Valley Ski Resort, have received the critical report needed to move forward with a planned expansion of the resort’s village.

Arcade belts has moved beyond the living room floor. 

After much anticipation (and oh so many hours), the all-new comstocksmag.com has launched.

The changes we have made come as a result of paying close attention to how readers are using our magazine and website, so let us know what you think. Talk to us on Twitter and Facebook, post comments on our site, email us, call us or send a good old-fashioned letter. We’re listening.

More than any other, this issue might give many people the impression that Comstock’s is staffed by dozens of graphic artists, illustrators and web developers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though, given the magnitude of the magazine’s redesign and the timeline under which we’re transforming comstocksmag.com, I can understand the misconception.

It was in 1989 that the San Joaquin Business Council formed to envision and outline an economic development and prosperity plan for its county. Called Vision 2000, the strategic plan and its backers, including the newly created San Joaquin Partnership, sought to add tens of thousands of jobs to the region by removing barriers to business development and promoting the relocation of companies to San Joaquin.

In 1993 the federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission added McClellan Air Force base to its list of potential closures, and the Capital Region drew in its collective breath.

As a resident of fabulous West Sacramento, I was going to start this column with my standard opening line of “West Sac is the best Sac,” but flipping through the pages of our July ’92 issue, I found a quote from Val Toppenberg that said, “Cross-river bashing is not productive.” What a fun-killer.

The year was 1990, and downtown Sacramento was “poised on the brink of one of the nation’s most ambitious development opportunities,” a “landmark project” with the potential to “change and expand our vision of Sacramento and initiate a new era of urban lifestyle.”

Mikhail Chernyavsky, host of the video series “Emerge” for Comstock’s magazine, sits down with the owner of Capital Ink Tattoo, Irish Cash, to learn about what it takes to start a business as a young entrepreneur.

Mikhail Chernyavsky, host of Comstock’s Emerge video series, takes a behind the scenes look into Insight Coffee Roasters, where owner Lucky Rodrigues shared his vision for midtown’s newest coffee shop, his goal to develop sustainable relationships with producers and his take on launching a business in Sacramento.

Emerging restaurateurs Clay Nutting and Michael Hargis found a niche made in heaven when they opened their midtown spin on a German bier hall. Now, just ten months after opening, LowBrau is operating in the black, and the owners have their sights set on future growth. Check out the story behind the beer taps in this month’s Emerge video feature.