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 2379: Superfans

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“…So pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him, as I should.”

A new book is out called, “Superfans: Into the Heart of Obsessive Sports Fandom”.  It is written by author, George Dohrmann.  I haven’t read it yet, but I can tell you that there will be good lessons and cautionary tales within the book.  Why do I know this? Well, because, at our root, we all have the “Superfan” inside of us.  Think for a moment about that team or player (or I hate to say it celebrity singer, actor, etc.) who we line up behind and cheer on, like crazy! I’m writing this blog ahead of the March Madness NCAA Tournament, so I don’t know where my Purdue Boilermakers will be by the first weekend of April, but I do know this, I’ll be riding the roller coaster of fandom the whole way.  What do we need to do to create fandom for our brands and companies?  It might be that we have more for others to cheer about than we are allowing them to see and know.  What if we thought about our organization as creating “fans” versus customers or consumers?  How would that change us and how we interact with those who pay our bills?

Just because Jesus didn’t wear a jersey doesn’t mean we can’t cheer for Him!  It’s Monday and we are headed back to the office.  We might have seen some type of sporting event over the weekend that will be the topic of conversation today.  In just one quick discussion the other person or group will know exactly who our allegiances are with and for who we are rooting.  They will know of whom we are a fan, maybe even a Superfan.  However, we probably went to church yesterday and it might go unsaid what was sung or taught about in Sunday’s services.  The day may go right by without any Superfans of Jesus saying anything at all.

Reference:  Ephesians 6:20 (New Living Translation)