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 1353: Going Out On The Limb

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“Zacchaeus, come down at once, I must stay at your house today!”

Sometimes to get the recognition and notoriety that our brand or service requires, we have to be willing to go out on the limb to get people to take notice.  Whether or not this is smart or not, we find out when the limb holds us and causes others to look up, or the limb breaks and we fall.  We are in the age of being able to crawl out further and further because of the support of low cost technology and infrastructure support.  We can try small things, at low cost and if they work, continue them.  If they don’t, then discontinue and look to the next idea.  Google and Amazon are the leaders in this.  It seems every month, they each offer something new and they climb a little further out on the limb.  Not all of their moves work, but lots do.  Their latest moves?  Google:  Google Express Shopping.  Amazon: Kindle Fire Streaming device.  We are looking up to both of these to see where they lead us next.  What are you offering that has you inching out further on the limb?

“Zacchaeus, come down at once, I must stay at your house today!”, said Jesus.  Jesus would never have noticed the short chief tax collector had Zacchaeus been bold, inquisitive and courageous enough to climb the tree to see Jesus.  Did he do it see, or did he do it to be seen?  Either way, what we learn is that when we are willing to go out on the limb to look for Jesus, then he sees us, and calls us by name to join Him.  What limb do we have in front of us today at work, or at home that we might want to make a move out and towards Him?

Reference: Luke 19:5 (New Living Translation)