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 2229: What’s In A Name?

“And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

A friend was starting a new tech company.  He wanted to follow the conventional (funny that we now call it conventional) internet naming pattern.  The best is one word with five letters (try to find one of those available on a .com domain today).  It’s also acceptable to smash two words together into one five-letter word.  Next best is one word that is six letters long.  My buddy was thinking ahead that his company would get mentioned across many social media platforms and ones like Twitter that limit the number of characters.  He didn’t want to eat up all the good things that someone might say about the company with their @name.  Pretty hard now for companies like Caterpillar, JCPenney’s, Albertsons, etc. to go back. It’s hard to think about what the future will demand, but it’s smart to consider what will fit and look good on that small screen that we carry around with us all the time.

The Angel of The Lord couldn’t have know that the name Jesus would be the perfect fit for our age, could he? Well, maybe he did.  Jesus is the best of naming conventions and He fits perfectly for where we are today.  What’s in a name?  Everything, when that name is Jesus!

Happy Memorial Day long weekend!

Reference:  Matthew 1:21 (New Living Translation)