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 2913: Friend Me!

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“Unfriendly people care only about themselves; they lash out at common sense.”

In the wake of the actions that Social Media companies took during and after the U.S. Election cycle, new (and some not so new but never able to gain scale) social media platforms are becoming aggressive to attract new users (when participating in social media, please remember that the only other large industry segment that calls their customers, “users” is Big Pharma drug companies/BioTech).  Once invited to these platforms the “Friend  Me” requests come fast and furiously and I might add, relentlessly.  I write this to remind all of us that what and who we perceive to be friends is predicated on the algorithms, not by those who truly desire to be our “Friends”.  If you haven’t see it, please be sure and watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix.  It’s nothing those of us who are in the tech/entertainment space should be proud of.

The Bible has much to say about the power and gift of friendship. Our friends are our neighbors and we are to love on them like we love ourselves.  And, we are to be good friends.  Proverbs 18:1 tells us what is not friend accepted behavior.  If we are totally into ourselves and that love of ourselves takes over on us we do many things that turn others away from us.  And the things that most turn others off is when someone, in their unfriendliness does something that runs counter to what the Proverb calls, “common sense”.  We see it everyday don’t we?  I watched someone recently not bag their dog’s bathroom output because as she looked around she didn’t think anyone was going to see her not use common sense and common courtesy.  Around the block later, then walking the the other way, she was all happy and chirpy with wanting her dog to play with mine.  That friendliness came across to me as a facade, but the real unfriendly, unneighborly nature of her had already been exposed.  Let’s think hard today about being truly and authentically friendly, IRL, online and particularly when we “think” no one is watching.

Reference: Proverbs 18:1 (New Living Translation)