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 1435: Secrets

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“Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.”

The venture capital world is enamored with anonymity and invisibility apps and services.  Because social media users are more comfortable in becoming participative versus voyeuristic, when they are cloaked in anonymity, we are seeing many services pop up that are growing quickly.  What does it say about us that we need to be hidden to speak up?  Probably nothing new.  Remember the metal suggestion/question boxes that were on the wall just inside the company entrance? We could have renamed them “secret” boxes and they would be the same as what we are seeing online now.  The difference is that there is now a way for many people to converse in secret versus just talk one way. My gut tells me that while the hype may go away, the value of hearing from customers, employees and others, regardless of whether they are anonymous or not, is a value that we shouldn’t ignore.  Sure, the posts will lean more negative or slanderous in many ways, but wouldn’t you rather know what is on someone’s mind and what they are saying to others, bad or good, than not know at all?

The prophet Jeremiah relayed God’s message: “Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets.”  Wow, God will reveal to us the unknown, if we are just willing to ask.  How many times do we plan and try to strategize about the future only to come up with a shadowy and foggy picture that leaves us anxious about the unknown?  Happens all the time doesn’t it?  But imagine if we trusted God so much that we went to Him first, each and every time, with the ask that He would reveal the future to us and tell us the things that we don’t know.  And imagine that if we trusted Him so much that we would listen carefully and then follow His lead confidently and boldly, not timidly or with trepidation and distrust!  We each are working toward a future.  It might be today, tomorrow, next year, or the next decades. If we want that future to be as full as God wants it to be, then let’s ask Him to let us in on His secrets He has for us!

Reference:  Jeremiah 3:33 (New Living Translation)