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 2574: Small Screen Power

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“But instead, they went out and spread his fame all over the region.”

One of the kings of the big screen is now betting on the small screen to be the dominant force of the future.  Jeffrey Katzenburg and others have started “Quibi, a company that will create a library of short films with very high production values, made for the small screens of our phones. These “quick bites” films hope to be the form of entertainment  that pulls us away from the television screen and the movie theaters.  It is to be seen if that can happen.  What has already been seen though is the power of the small screen by individuals within the masses.  Every day we see for ourselves an example of someone who has caught on video some act and then distributes that across social media causing some type of unrest or rise up.  If we have a smartphone we have the technology to a photographer, a documentary maker, a news reporter or a storyteller.  And with every posting we see or watch, with it can come multiplying effects that can be good and revealing or harmful and damaging.  What we know is that this is not going to go away and we can either sit on the sidelines and let someone else tell the stories of our company, our products, our services and/or our culture, or we have to engage and start telling our side of the story.  I’d suggest the latter.

When I was growing up, the message of Jesus was delivered by a local church pastor and a few internationally known evangelists, some authors and a few radio evangelists.   The gospel was spread in similar fashion then as all other media; through a defined number of distribution outlets, highly edited and curated by those who owned and controlled that media.  But, as the world has changed, so has how we can share the message of Jesus.  I will step out and say that we are today, God’s small screens, with the possibility of global influence and impact for His Kingdom expansion.  What this means for us is that how we use our social media and the messages that we send, do matter and that we should daily consider that what others view, read or hear from us on their small screens can have a larger than we know influence on how they feel about God.

Reference:  Matthew 9:31 (New Living Translation)