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 2384: Experiences – Part 2: Sharing Value

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“Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away.”

Jim Coulter, the founder of the very successful investment company, Texas Pacific Group (TPG) mused on what makes “Experiences” a driving force in today’s economy and how we can think about them differently.  His second thought on experiences is that they have become much more valuable to us because we can share them with others, instantly.  He believes, and I think he is right, that each time we share an experience with someone else we are validating the experience and when that happens the value of the experience rises.  If old enough, you will remember viewing someone’s  vacation pictures from a carousel projector or from a physical photo album.  And if not that old, then just open Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. and check out the beautiful sunsets, sandy beaches, snow-covered ski mountains, etc. We love to share our experiences and when we do, for us the value increases. How are we giving our consumers and customers easy, accessible and well-curated ways to share what we have provided to them?  Are we still asking them to not take photographs (literally or metaphorically) or are we opening up and encouraging them to share?  I hope the latter.

I’ve long said, and you’ve read before from me, that if you give me your calendar and your credit card statements, that within 30 minutes of review, I will tell you the five things/life areas that you value.  I’ve recently added that I might not even need those things as if I spend a few hours on a social media feed, I can begin to hone down what someone values, by what they share.  It’s not totally accurate as today’s social media reactions are different than in their beginnings since today there is open judging and shaming occurring, where in the early days there wasn’t.  So, people don’t share all that they value, but a direction of value can be ascertained.  I do know that we always will share, with someone, in some form, a great experience we have had.  We can’t help ourselves.  And when the other person validates that experience with their awe, amazement, wishes to do the same, our perceived value of our experience increases.  It’s self-reinforcing.  It’s why I like to share about what I know and have experienced about God.  There is no controversy in sharing what God has done within our lives.  It’s our experience and it’s real.  And most importantly, God values this sharing more than we know at the time and reinforces what we know of Him as we let His Spirit move.

Reference:  1 Corinthians 7:31 (New Living Translation)