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 1126: The Documenters

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“Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”
 Today is about what we all just can’t seem to get enough of and that is what we can do with that device in our hand to document everything we experience through a photo or video.  Outside of a few places that distinctly and overtly ask that there not be pictures or videos taken, there is always someone taking a picture or a video.  We saw that to be true on that tragic Marathon Day in Boston.  To a good purpose those pictures and videos were put to use.  But in other times, we get into our head that unless we have a photo or video of the event, we won’t have a memory, or maybe a proof that we were there.  It was brought to my attention that the new book,  “To Save Everything, CLICK “ by Bryan Walsh, warns  us that losing ourselves in the process of documenting removes a part of us that doesn’t need to count or document , but instead needs to be in the moment so that we are adding to the collected experiences of our lives.  The rock band, “The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs” recently asked their fans to put down their phones during the concert so that the fans would see and experience them without a screen between them.  I can admit personally that I have held a phone up to video something that when it was done I couldn’t tell you what was said, because I was more focused on the process than the content. What does this mean to us in our businesses?  If we are forcing our consumers to pay attention, or trust vs. be documented, or be the viral coefficient for our product expansion then we need to give them something to document and a way to do so.  And if we are doing this and not thinking about how we are doing so intelligently, then it could be that the message will get lost all together.

I find that in the workplace, our spiritual memory can wane quickly and that prayer we said in the morning on our way to work to be the best vessel and example we could be, can get compromised in the first meeting of the day with that slip of the tongue, and then we feel we never recover until we are reflecting on the day during the drive back home.  It may well be that it is our recurring sinful nature that God wants us to be documenters of Him.  He asks us to study and hide His Word in our hearts; being able to draw upon scripture when we lose our guidance or balance. He desires us to be the likeness of Him in our actions and treatment of others.  He rejoices when we speak of Him directing our lives. He wants us to witness and testify of His works in our lives and others. In God’s case, He would like us to capture and keep all of Him with us at all times!

Reference: Romans 4:8 (New Living Translation)