The SillyWonk Story: How Method Met Whimsy

We recently ran into an old client recently at a technical innovation conference. After catching up on family photos and trading stories about our latest adventures explaining complex engineering concepts and corporate communications, she asked the question we get most often: “How on earth did you come up with the name SillyWonk?”

The answer, truth be told, is quintessentially “us”.

Picture this: Four communications professionals – two seasoned corporate veterans and two active-duty Navy officers who moonlight as Gen-Z whisperers – sitting around a virtual conference table, determined to revolutionize how companies talk to their non-desk workers. But first, we needed a name.

“Something memorable!” said one founder.

“Something findable online,” said another.

“Something that won’t break the bank,” said the third founder.

“Something that shows we don’t take ourselves too seriously, even though we take our work very seriously,” concluded the fourth.

What followed was possibly the most methodical approach to naming a technical communications company in the history of naming companies. (Did we mention we approach everything with engineering precision?)

We dove into expired domain auctions like bargain hunters at a Black Friday sale. Our filters? Pure poetry:

• Under $25 (because value never goes out of style)
• Fewer than 15 characters (because ain’t nobody got time for typing)
• No hyphens or numbers (because we’re not a password generator)
• .com domain (because classics are classics for a reason)
• At least 5 years old (because we appreciate a good vintage)

Then came the trust scores, backlink analysis, and spam checks. Because if you’re going to call yourself something silly, you better make sure it’s seriously legitimate.

And there it was: SillyWonk. A name previously owned by a Malaysian book blogger who left nothing but a poetic “Sorry, we are closed forever” on their Instagram. It was perfect.

Why? Because it embodies everything we are. We’re the consultancy that puts sticky notes on deli equipment to save hundreds of thousands in energy costs. We’re the team that discovers crucial insights about employee surveys by chatting with bank tellers in line for coffee. We’re the folks who learn about safety communication preferences while hanging out at food trucks on construction sites.

Our younger founders bring the fresh perspectives of non-desk workers in the military, where clear communication can literally be a matter of life and death. Our seasoned founders bring decades of experience crafting messages that resonate from the factory floor to the C-suite. Together, we’re serious about results but playful in our approach.

That’s what SillyWonk is all about. We believe that effective technical and organizational communication requires both methodology and creativity. It demands the precision of an engineering diagram and the engagement of a compelling story. It means understanding that sometimes the best way to explain a complex concept is through an unexpected approach (like those deli equipment stickers that saved $635k by making energy efficiency intuitive).

So when our client laughed at our name origin story and said, “Only you all would apply engineering principles to choosing a company name,” we took it as the highest compliment. Because that’s exactly who we are: technical experts and communication professionals who believe that the best way to solve complex communication challenges is to be brilliantly unconventional.

P.S. – To the Malaysian book blogger who owned SillyWonk before us: your Instagram farewell was epic, and we promise to keep bringing clarity to complexity while keeping the silly spirit alive.