Hello, I'm Penny.
I'm the person behind whirr.
Penny Bartram
Founder, whirr
LinkedIn
I’ve spent a career watching
how we think.
I've spent more than 20 years working in organisations that rely on their ability to think creatively – from The Guardian and VICE Media Group to Bloomberg Media.
I've led teams, built new ones and worked alongside truly brilliant strategists, creatives, commercial teams, editors and entrepreneurs. I've launched new things, untangled tricky briefs, run countless brainstorms, and spent a lot of time bringing together people who don't ordinarily work - or think - in the same way.
I’ve never felt the need to try to be the most creative person in the room. I’m much more interested in finding the creativity that’s already there – particularly in the people who might not usually be asked, or have the confidence to share their ideas if they are.
It’s being surrounded by different worldviews, life experiences, insights and perspectives that makes my mind whirr.
Looking back, there's a thread running through my career. I've always been drawn to seeing things differently. This means asking questions, challenging assumptions, spotting connections, getting people with different perspectives involved, and, importantly, being playful and enjoying the process.
But thinking differently doesn't just happen because you ask people to do it.
Over the past decades, I’ve quietly been collecting tools and techniques that I believe help create the right conditions for it and my goal is to use these to help other people’s minds to whirr.
Launching whirr feels less like a career pivot and more like putting a name to the part of my work I've always loved most.
That whirr feeling
When my mind starts to whirr,
I’ve always known something
exciting is about to happen.
It’s that moment when something starts to shift.
When a little spark of insight or intriguing perspective begin to change the whole course of a discussion. When dots start connecting. When the energy in the room suddenly comes alive.
I’ve been lucky enough to experience this feeling many times in my career. Whirr exists because I think more businesses - and more people within them - should get to experience this feeling too.
I’ve also spent lots of time in rooms where it doesn’t happen.
Meetings full of people sat round tables waiting for someone to have the ‘big idea’. Where the same suggestion keeps coming back around again & again just because someone persistent and outspoken in the room really loves it.
Where an organisation works in such tight lanes that only the people with job titles with creative/innovation/strategy in them even have a place at the table.
And, likewise I’ve also sat in rooms packed full of truly brilliant minds where a blank page becomes torturous. Massive expectations that this freedom alone will conjure up a eureka moment.
Better thinking rarely comes from trying harder to have a good idea.
It comes from creating the right culture and conditions for ideas to happen organically.
Some of the best ideas I’ve ever heard have come from the person who wasn’t supposed to have them.
Someone from another team. Someone whose job description doesn’t contain a single word like creative, ideas, innovation. Someone whose lived experience, curiosity, or worldview lets them see the topic in a completely different way.
That’s why I’m so passionate about getting different minds around the table, regardless of job description, and giving them the permission, confidence, and importantly, the right tools they need to contribute.
Creative thinking isn’t a job title.
It’s the ability to think a little bit differently.