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.

3K310: The Panic Cycle

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“All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

The world is a abuzz with what to do with AI, ChatGPT and other Large Language Models.  The spectrum of response is wide and has extremes on both ends.  Wired magazine recently published the seven phases of the Tech Panic Cycle, which they believe is ignited at the beginning of every new technology.  This look familiar?

  1. Don’t bother me with this nonsense.  It will never work.
  2. OK, it is happening, but it’s dangerous, ’cause it doesn’t work well.
  3. Wait, it works too well.  We need to hobble it. Do something!
  4. This stuff is so powerful that it’s not fair to those without access to it.
  5. Now it is everywhere, and there is no way to escape it. Not fair.
  6. I am going to give it up, for a month.
  7. Let’s focus on the real problem – which is the next current thing.

It will be fascinating to see where and when we are in the cycle with AI.  I’ve certainly heard stages 1-4 already and in a hot second I think we will be in stage 5. There isn’t anything for us to do about this other than to be aware of the cycles we experience and know when and where we are so that we know how to respond or even be one who shapes the response of others.

There is only one cycle we can really count on that is the God created this world and each of us.  He sent His Son to redeem us and He will come again to take us home with Him.  Imagine we could be so locked in on this that the rest of it really didn’t matter.  No, we can’t extract ourselves from the world we live in, but because of the promise and hope of God’s cycle, there needn’t be any panic with any of the unknowns and new that get thrown at us.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 13:12 (New Living Translation)