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 2843: Shortening Attention Spans

purposed worKING No Comments

“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.”

We are now down to 8 seconds as the average adult attention span. It is said that that it has dropped 4 seconds since 2000, but no one is really sure about that, but regardless of 12 or 8, our attention spans are short and also challenged by the barrage of messages and communication coming at us.  We have to tell our stories quickly, deliver our ads succinctly and be creative in how we win over the attention of others.  If we are relying on the same old ways, or not trying new forms of media and delivery, then we shouldn’t expect to hold onto anyone’s attention.  And once gone, it’s multiply harder to regain it.

Our short attention span does not apply only to our mental attention, it can apply to our faith attention as well.  While we say we are always fixed on Christ, we drift and our attention goes elsewhere.  We might consider that the commands to have no other false idols was addressing just this problem in our human condition. We have to ask ourselves (challenge ourselves) to what is causing us to lose our attention.  Is it our work?  It is another person? Is it a habit?  Is it that we just forget and we lack discipline?

Reference: Deuteronomy 5:8 (New Living Translation)