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 2263: Payment Friction

“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!”

If you haven’t heard of Venmo, you will soon.  It looks to be the currency mover that might just be the one that gets us to seriously consider not carrying cash.  If you are under 35, you probably already use Venmo to pay for dinners and events with your friends. It’s so easy and for now, it costs nothing to move and transfer money from one person to another.  And it’s as simple as giving someone cash from our wallets. How will we financially interact with our future customers and consumers?  Will we hang onto using cash and credit cards or are we going to move into the future and remove all the friction?  It feels like those who are without friction for payments will be the winners.

I was struck in the reading of Matthew 10:8 on how Jesus instructed His Disciples to minister to people.  He directed them to perform the most valuable of actions that people might have paid all they had to have happen, like curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers and casting out demons, to be performed without payment. Jesus removed all payment friction from accessing Him and He still does today.  He offers Himself to us without any payment required.  With no friction, there is no reason, other than our own resistance, that we can’t be as close to Him as we are committed and willing to be!

Reference:  Matthew 10:8 (New Living Translation)