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 2227: The Three Abstractions

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“…speak out with as much faith as God has given you.”

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the movie, “Collateral Beauty”, a Will Smith (among other big names) film.  In the movie Will Smith’s character is a Creative Director of a New York Advertising firm.  In the first few minutes of the movie the character, Howard, states that the three advertising abstractions are Love, Time and Death.  He teaches and leads that all three are the basis of consumer and human behavior.  “We long to love.  We wish we had more time.  We fear death.”  If this doesn’t sound familiar then just watch a night of ad-based television or skim through magazine advertisements.  The movie is way deeper, but the film does remind us that life can be boiled down into the simple needs and fears that we universally share. And so, that is the basis for most advertising and how companies interact with their consumers. And yes, how we might even advertise to our own consumers.

As we try to stand among detractors and those who question where we stand, we can share His light through how we love others because of our love of God. We also choose how it that we invest our time. And, most importantly, how we approach death and what it represents for us can be quite a stark difference. We will have plenty of opportunities today to speak into one, if not all, of the three abstractions as they are always around us and made top of mind.

Reference: Romans 12:6 (New Living Translation)