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 1350: Implied Free?

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“Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy.”

It used to be that if you wanted to access the internet in an airport that you had to pay for it through services like Boingo, or T-Mobile, AT&T, etc.  You can still pay for that internet access if you want, or you can access it through what I call, “Implied Free”.  Implied free is telling the consumer that something is free, but it isn’t really.  In the case of airport internet access, you watch an ad and then you get a half-hour or so, and then you can watch the same ad again, and get another half hour or so. And on and on it goes. It seems free, but it’s not because we have taken our time to look at the ad and distract ourselves from doing something else. What is the cost to us? It’s the cost of what we could/would be doing otherwise.  “Implied free” is not new.  Broadcast media was built this way and we now see the same for the “implied free” of ad supported streaming entertainment services.  We are just a moment away from walking into a coffee shop and receiving what appears to be an “implied free” cup of coffee, but we will have to show that we watched the ad, tweeted or create a Facebook status about being in the store and trying the coffee.  I personally don’t mind “implied free”. It feels active and full of choices.  If we can find the goodness in the approach, there is much we can do and have our consumers and customers join in to help.

Believing in Jesus is free.  Following Him is not.  Jesus never implied otherwise. To follow Jesus, as He asks us to do, comes with a cost. That cost is giving up ourselves and the ways of the world for Him. It means that if we are going to receive the full abundance of what He has to offer, that we have to empty out those things in our lives that are filling us up and getting in the way.  As we know, it’s all worth it and more!

Reference: John 16:24 (New Living Translation)