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 2441: Paid Versus Free

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“God paid a high price for you, so don’t be enslaved by the world.”

Remember when everything on the internet was free?  There were those at that time who believed that once everything was free that no one would ever pay for anything online.  Guess they were wrong huh?  What we have learned is that unique offerings, great content, great service, and great products sell.  Last week one of the most controversial areas of free versus paid content online got more defined.  Since Napster, the music industry has struggled (fought) free (and for most of the time fought) paid online streaming of music. Finally, there was movement and agreement that to make an equivalent of one album sale there would need to be 1,250 paid streams and 3,750 free streams (those where the consumer accepts advertising instead of paying a subscription).  This means it will take three times the free clicks to be the same as a paid one.  Why is this a big deal?  Well, this summer’s smash hit, Drake’s “Scorpion” launched with 746 million streams and 160,000 copies sold, which under the new formula would be the same as 723,000 albums being sold. In today’s world, this is a huge number! Let’s be sure that there are people who will pay but even those who don’t are important promoters and consumers of what we have to offer.

Jesus paid it all for us. We now are the ones who can stream his love, grace, mercy and salvation to others. If we recognize that we are free because of Him, then we should be doing our best to replicate and share to others what He is doing in our lives. If we are so quick to share and stream the things around us that really in the eternal perspective won’t matter, then what is holding us back today from being His greatest promoter?

Reference: 1 Corinthians 7:23 (New Living Translation)