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 1247: What’s New?

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“History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.”

Why do we read trade magazines and online “news” like TechCrunch, Mashable, etc?  Why do we try and keep up to date with innovation?  Why do we Follow on Twitter those that get to the news first?  Our culture is obsessed with what is new.  And, even in the sharing economy we still are curious to know what is being developed and what is on the horizon.  We don’t have to look any further than the lines of people who wait for the midnight delivery of new technology or new entertainment.  Our culture rewards those who are there first and who can rush out and tell everyone else their experience.  Technology has given us instant access to share, so our perceived rewards to being there first has been heightened.  When was the last time you delivered to your consumers, customers, or employees something so new that they rushed out to tell everyone else?

God is new to us every morning but always the same!  Read that again.  He is new every morning but always the same!  The newness is what we can receive from Him in our lives.  But, as we read in Ecclesiastes, nothing is really new. Why that is important is that every day in the world we live someone is pitching something new and in that pitch trying to pull us away from our walk with God.  We are challenged in our work to create new products, services and offerings.  That is fine.  But, we are not to try and create God anew in our image of what we think He should be.  That is the way those around us would like it to be.  We are to stand firm today and call upon what is not new, but instead what has been and will be eternal.  Today we start a new week.  Let this week be one where our commitment and courage is renewed!

Reference:  Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New Living Translation)