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 2418: Distracted…Everything!

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“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

We once were in the attention economy but if we were there, then we are running a very high distraction deficit! Look at this stat: “An estimated 177.7 million U.S. adults — or  70.3% of the total population — will regularly use another digital device while watching TV this year, up 5.1% from 2016.”, per eMarketer. That may not seem all that astounding, but consider that just a couple of decades ago there was no other distraction. The impact of this change on advertising acceptance has to be beyond jarring, it must be staggering. The takeaway here is that if we think we can hold someone’s attention for very long, we are mistaken.  We might be able to grab it for a moment, but when it leaves the next best defense might be to be sure we are also right there front and center on the second and third screen.

God knew we would come to this age we are in.  He made us with the tendency to drift, lose attention and get bored. He knows that we don’t stay focused very long.  Is that possibly why we are taught in so many different ways to exercise discipline and to do our best to stay fixed on Him?  Our lives are bite-sized moments that one by one we can make the best of for God’s glory.  Today, at work, there will be many small amounts of time that we can allow ourselves to fix back on Him, or continue to be distracted away.  At the end of today, on the way home, check back in and see how you did.  With a little attention to not being distracted, some great things can happen.

Reference: Philippians 4:8 (New Living Translation)