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.

Engaged employees are pivotal to an organization’s financial success, company culture, brand experience and ability to retain top talent. But according to Gallup’s most recent polls, only 31.5 percent of U.S. employees are actively engaged at work, and disengaged employees currently outnumber actively engaged employees 2 to 1.

We’ll be hearing a whole lot of buzz about wage parity this year — in part because groundbreaking research conducted by New York University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Haifa in Israel identifies flat-out gender bias as the elephant in the room affecting wage parity. This new study, titled “Occupational Feminization and Pay,” is the single most comprehensive study on wage parity in the U.S. to date.

Synergy, in the common lexicon, is the magic that makes collaborations more efficient, effective and profitable than individualized efforts. It originates from the Latin word synergia,meaning “cooperation.” You’re most likely to hear it used to describe the potential benefits of a collaborative or combined effort, like a strategic partnership, merger and acquisition, creative brainstorming session or co-branding effort.  

The real secret to brand loyalty: Customers are loyal to brands that are loyal to them. True brand loyalty isn’t bought — it’s earned one customer experience at a time.

The millennial generation’s sheer numbers, unprecedented spending power, and knack for radically influencing progressive trends and cultural shifts has made them a highly sought after target market. While millennials are currently the single largest generation to date, making up an entire quarter of the population, they’re also the most diverse generation this country has ever seen, making them far more difficult to target as a collective whole.

Peter Drucker once said: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service fits him and sells itself.” In order to develop a product or service that fits your customers well enough to sell itself, you’ll need to have an intimate understanding of who your customers are and what’s going to fit them.

Ideation is the process of generating new ideas through open-minded brainstorming. Ideation is exciting, it’s creative, and it’s a great teambuilding activity.

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.

There’s a whole lot of buzz lately about authenticity: authentic leadership styles, authentic brands, authentic values, authentic marketing and advertising … and on and on. By definition, something is authentic if it is genuine, real, of unquestionable origin, not faked or copied, verifiable and trustworthy.

The words “brand” and “branding” are so often used interchangeably with “marketing” and “logo” that it’s easy to feel befuddled by the difference. So, what’s the actual difference between your brand, your marketing and your logo? 

Yoga instructors keep so many of us fit, grounded, mindful, focused and from going postal. Which is why I decided to put my professional talents to work on a market research project for yogapreneurs. The notion was solidified over coffee with one of my favorite yogis who agreed that what yogapreneurs need is what they can’t afford: the strategy and market insights to support their passion-fueled careers.

The free flow of ideas creates a culture of innovation: sparking new ideas, kickstarting creative problem solving, fostering collaboration and creating synergy between related projects and ideas.

From your customer service representatives to your sales team, your staff’s day-to-day decisions on the job quite literally make or break your brand experience. Which means, at the end of the day, your brand is only as strong as the crew you’re letting run the ship. So how do you hire a cultural fit? 

In our current era of the startup, responding to disruptive innovation has become a new and often harsh reality. When disruptive innovations and emerging trends radically shift your market and throw you off your game, how do you respond?

Once you’ve invented the best thing since wearable technology, you’ll probably want to fund it. To impress the pockets out of investors, you’ll need to:

What turned Ship Your Enemies Glitter, an angry glitter brand, into an overnight sensation? It was different.

Thinking about progressive company cultures probably brings to mind businesses like Google, Twitter, Facebook — companies with free snacks and bean bag chairs. But it’s not the toys and perks that create these cultures. Collaborative-style seating and ping pong tables are the side effects, rather than the catalysts, of enviable and innovative company cultures.

The sharing economy is a collaborative economic movement inspired by the efficiency of loaning and sharing existing resources on a fee-for-service model. It reduces environmental waste while supporting financial sustainability and building stronger communities, and it’s having a bigger impact than you might realize. 

Those long hours you’re logging at your desk may be taking a physiological toll that your morning run and bike commute can’t quite undo. We’re in the midst of a sitting epidemic that comes with some pretty scary health implications, but a simple change in our corporate culture might hold the key to better fitness for us all.

Our local coffee roasters have been putting Sacramento’s coffee scene on the map. While roastery fame is an exciting addition to our Farm-to-Fork movement, it’s not the only way our local cafes are having a positive impact on our city. They also help…