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 2751: Ordering

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“So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”

I read a fascinating analysis on Quartz of how to best board an airplane to get the most efficiencies and speed.  Jason Hyrum Steffen, a professor from Nevada came up with this: “His own method, which many consider to be the most efficient, boards passengers in a series of waves, with the first passengers called to board seated in window seats two rows apart—first 30A, then 28A, then 26A and so on. Next, the same for the other side of the plane (30F, 28F, 26F). The process continues with odd row window seats on either side, middle seats, and finally aisle seats. Each person can sit down within moments of one another without getting in anyone’s way. In field tests, it proved to be almost twice as fast as most conventional methods, and 20% to 30% faster than have-at-it, entirely random boarding—which is also faster than the method used by airlines. (He would board slower passengers requiring assistance first.)”  Seems complicated, huh?  It is especially when we are pretty used to how we have always done it.  There is an “ordering” for many things and first in, first out doesn’t always stand true (if you are an Angel Investor you know exactly what I mean here).  But, we should be encouraged that with technology everything that gets packed in (boxes, materials, or people) will get more and more efficient with time.

Jesus was pretty clear with how the ordering goes in His Kingdom.  It’s so contrary to the world we live in that it may be hard to really grok what it means.  I take it that today, we are to not think that our position, our resources, our power or influence mean anything to God. What matters is how we lower ourselves to Him and how we treat and care for the least among us.  We can’t be reminded enough of this truth!

Reference: Matthew 20:16 (New Living Translation)