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 2983: Meme Fever

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“…Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.”

We love our Memes.  Back in the day, before the internet, we’d pass along funny sayings, puns, pictures, clippings from newspapers or magazine by using the mail or physically give one of these to someone else.  And then they might pass it along to someone else and then on and on, or it just died.  Think now about what memes are able to create?  Meme stocks like Gamestop, AMC and Blackberry have created financial turmoil of fortune and collapse. There are those who do nothing but hang around trying to create memes with the hope they take off and become the news of the day.  Should we pay attention to the power of memes?  Yes, for a few reasons.  One, the right meme about our product or service could get us the marketing attention we need.  And secondly, the wrong meme about our company, product or service, could cause us a lot of problems.  So, being well versed in what is meme-ing around is indeed important.

What is our own personal meme that we are trying to create?  If someone had to sum it up today what would it be?  What we need to know and recognize is that God’s timing for us is right now and always.  He wants us to be living out His example today, tomorrow and ongoing.  So, there is no debate on whether or not we should wait.  Sometimes we might feel like we are not good enough or ready to live it out for Him today.  This is the same thinking that keeps us from starting to exercise until we lose a little more weight.  Irrational, but how we as humans think. Then how is that we make this thing of our work and lives being lived with purpose something that cab be personal to others?  This is where Paul gives us the power of our example.  This is in some ways is our most powerful tool for the Kingdom. Our meme for God is in our words, our actions, our love, our grace and yes, the purity that we can pursue. Memes are infectious and memes are powerful. We are a meme for God, if we want to be.

Reference: 1 Timothy 4:12 (New Living Translation)