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 811: The Influencers – Part 1, The Good Guys

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“Dear friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children, and those who do evil prove that they do not know God.”

Much of the success of products and services getting known in today’s business environment is all about the influencers. We must take the influencers seriously and understand what they are saying, how they are feeling, and what’s next on their mind. If we can be one step in front of them, and sway their influence, then that is our best chance to have them say what we want/need them to say or “Like”. Yes, that “Like” button is important. Back in the day when I was in the videogame business we would bring in the influencers and have them play the game before it was finished and then listen to them to incorporate their feedback into the game. When the game finally came out if they saw their ideas/suggestions, we had a better chance of them being positive influencers. Upstream contact and engagement with the influencers can go a long way.

Like it or not, we are all influencers, to someone. Actually it is impossible to hide from this even if we don’t know who the person is that we are influencing. We have to know this about ourselves if we are to be effective in our ability to bring glory to God in our work. If we recognize and take on the responsibility of being an influencer then we can work to set the right examples and follow through with what God asks us to do. In 3 John we are asked to, “Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children…”. Yes, you are an influencer. So the question is, what kind of influencer are you?

Reference: 3 John 1:11 (New Living Testament)