Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick is a Think Jar Collective contributor

Ben Weinlick, MA is the founder of Think Jar Collective.

He is passionate about helping people and organizations enhance their creative capacity in order to come up with better quality solutions and services.  Currently, Ben is the Senior Leader of Research and Organizational Learning at a large NGO called SKILLS Society in Canada. In this role, Ben regularly facilitates a think tank lab using design thinking and creative processes he developed with a research group during his graduate studies. He also regularly writes for the Creativity Post,  gives keynotes, curates content for Think Jar Collective and consults throughout Canada.

Before he started leading innovative projects in the social sector over 14 years ago, he thought he was going to spend his life terrorizing the experimental music and art scene.  Always an idealist, Ben thought he was making a less egotistical choice by giving up art to work in a field more actively engaged in social justice issues. He soon discovered otherwise… Ben reminisced of this period, “I found I could be just as much of an ass (egotistical) in human services as the art world and began to see it was not about the domain one works in that matters in how you benefit others, but what kind of view one brings to whatever one does.” Eventually seeing the value of a creative approach in human services led Ben to complete his master’s thesis, (Humour and serious play enhancing creativity in disability service design) which focused on enhancing creative thinking in order to increase quality in human service design and delivery.

Projects

Think Jar members, Ben, Debbie and Brooks are the creators, designers and directors of the community building project linked below called The CommuniTEA Infusion Project. It’s an innovative project that creates gathering space in community for creative neighborhood connections to deepen and expand. In 2013 Ben was asked to do a TEDx Edmonton Salon talk on this project.
CommuniTEA Infusion Project

Ben’s weird and fun projects that help keep his stiff mental habits “jarred”

Click here: Weinlick’s record, “Stiff” on itunes

Click here: Weinlick’s website for the Stiff album

Hello Wild Bear (what is this groan) by weinlick