Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2272: New Chain of Value

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“I will pursue your commands, for you expand my understanding.”

We are just around the corner from the internet becoming how Don and Alex Tapscott describe what Blockchain will do for us:  “What would happen if there were an internet of value where parties to a transaction could store and exchange value without the need for traditional intermediaries? In a nutshell, that’s what blockchain technology offers.”  Remember peer-to-peer sharing of music?  I was right in the thick of it when I had the privilege to work with many of the original Napster guys; Shawn Fanning, Ali Aydar and others as we attempted to figure out how to maintain the value of music across the peer-to-peer sharing that we all wanted to do. But, we didn’t have the technology at the time to insure the one copy, that couldn’t be copied, could secure its’ value.  But today, we are on the cusp of something so different that it might change everything.  Digital goods become one of a kind.  Words written will be transferred with value attached.  With blockchain technology it may be that anything any of us create will become its own unique signature of value that can find its way into a collection where 1+1 turns instead into multiples of value creation.

Maybe I drink too much of the technology meets culture Kool-Aid but it feels like what God created with each of us is what has happened with blockchain technology.  We are each individuals, created and cared for by God.  We each add our distinct value with the lives that we live, no two ever being the same.  And, God counts on each of us to expand His Kingdom and introduce others to Him. We are the units of His creation that He values more than anything else and with the sharing of our love for Him and our Love for others, we keep the chain growing.

Reference: Psalm 119:32 (New Living Translation)