Jennie Willink: Organizing Blue Men

Jennie Willink, Blue Man Group's Executive Producer, Senior VP of Creative Affairs, and "organizer of creative chaos," makes the case for superior organization in creative teams.

"Making ideas happen," Jennie Willink proclaims, "is pretty much all I think about." After more than twelve years with Blue Man Group, Willink leads the company's creative team - a 30+ person group that generates and executes ideas for new acts, music, advertising, and characters.

Members of the Willink's creative team have one central responsibility: develop new ideas. Willink runs a tight ship. She's affectionately referred to as the "Chartmaster." And, in a "meeting-heavy culture" Willink needs to stay organized and maintain order.

While Willink claimed that Behance had caught her on a particularly "disorganized office" day, she sure had us fooled. "Chartmaster" is fitting, given the charts that grace her walls - and even the door to her office. Willink's office is flanked with multi-year 4 foot wide calendars. On the outside of Willink's door, for the entire office to see, is a multi-year chart outlining the tours, events, and marketing campaigns over the coming years (yes, years - plural).

"My brain organizes things in little boxes."
Behance got Willink's take on the Action Method, specifically on the merit of taking notes and spending time on organizing reference items (and thus diverting attention away from action steps). Willink agreed that action steps move ideas forward - and that notes can get in the way. However, for large organizations, reference items may play an important role filling people in. "We have to inform the people who weren't in the meeting. We have people on the road a lot...so we depend on notes to keep everyone in the loop." References are great, as long as they are for a specific purpose and easily accessible.

More on Jennie Willink coming soon to Behance.

Links on Jennie Willink

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