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 3K141: Dystopia Vs. Utopia

“From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

 

I try and pay attention to advertising and how those who market to us create a catalyst for action.  Is it just me or is that when it comes to marketing those things that might be not so good for us there are images and scripts that conjure us toward a Utopian outcome?  And then to get us to act for those things that are harder and maybe good for us we are shook or frightened into a Dystopian way forward?  Is it because those things that are good for us don’t bring us instant gratification and potentially others in the future will receive more benefit than us?  So, we have to be shown how our health will fall apart to get us to the gym versus how easy it is to instantly enjoy food and drink on the island beach?  Watch how we are marketed to and let’s watch how we market to others.

Ours is a Utopian world-view.  How can it not be. I heard someone recently say that we can’t pray and hope for someone to go to Heaven and then be mad at God that He took them there.  A person I follow on Twitter tweets once a day.  It says, “Christians, we are one day closer to Heaven”.  That is a Utopian view that we should walk us through all the dystopians around us.

Reference:  Matthew 4:17 (New Living Translation)