Creative
Lab
An immersive speaker preparation program built around your organization. For organizations that want their people to become better at speaking. For team leaders, ERG directors, TEDx producers, and storytelling series curators who know their people have something to say and want to make sure the room hears the message as it's intended to land.
Not a workshop. A whole experience built around your organization.
Most speaker preparation happens in a vacuum. A coach works with a speaker in a studio. Then the speaker steps onto a stage with 500 people watching and hopes for the best.
Creative Lab does it differently. We come to your organization. We build an immersive program around the days before your gathering, the gathering itself, and the debrief after - so your speakers are not just rehearsed. They are transformed.
We have run Creative Lab around TEDx Portland, The Moth NYC, Tillamook Talks, Nike KNOWS, and speaker series for organizations across industries. Every Creative Lab looks a little different, depending on what your organization needs.
Three parts. One complete experience.
The Creative Lab wraps around your organization's gathering in three connected phases. The format flexes around your calendar and goals. But the arc is always the same: activate, immerse, debrief.
Creative Activation
Before / Evening KickoffThe evening before (or the afternoon of) your gathering. Dinner, icebreaking conversation, and a creative activation to get your group ready. Speakers meet the people who will hear them. Attendees meet each other. The room warms up before anything happens on a stage.
Attend Together
The GatheringYour organization attends the main gathering as a cohort. A TEDx event. A Moth Story Slam. A summit or keynote series. A Nike KNOWS session. Whatever the format, the group experiences it together - with shared context from the activation and a debrief waiting on the other side.
Debrief + Storytelling Adventure Experience™
After / Following DayThe group reconvenes. What landed? What surprised you? What will you carry forward? Then the day opens into our signature Storytelling Adventure Experience™ - nature-based story-finding, story architecture coaching, and live drilling with the group.
For organizational leaders: We can invite you to the debrief session to hear real-time feedback from your team. Or we can provide a summarized report afterward - so you walk away with actionable insight about how your gathering landed, without influencing the room while it is happening.
If you lead the team or produce the gathering, this is built for you.
Your team has expertise, ideas, and a story worth telling. Creative Lab gives them the tools to tell it - and the experience of being in a room that actually heard them. Communication skills that go far beyond the single event.
You book the speakers and run the show. Creative Lab gives you structured wraparound programming that elevates the entire production without adding to your load. We design it, staff it, and deliver it. You take the credit.
Whether it is a summit, an annual series, or a curated speaker program, Creative Lab wraps your gatherings in community. Speakers arrive prepared. Teams arrive connected. And the ideas carry forward past the closing session.
The Storytelling Adventure Experience™
Every great Creative Lab ends here. We take your speakers outside - to a waterfall, a bridge, a forest, a main street - and do the work that stages cannot: find the story underneath the story.
The Storytelling Adventure Experience™ is not a cool add-on. It is the moment the whole weekend clicks. Speakers leave with something they cannot get from a rehearsal room.
It is also available as a standalone experience - for individuals, corporate teams, or as a gift to your speakers between events.
Also available for individual speakers
Preparing for a keynote or high-stakes talk? The Storytelling Adventure Experience™ is open for individual registration at $495.
Meet the coach who walks beside you
Cathey Armillas
TED Speaking Coach & Co-Founder, Speaker Skills Academy
Cathey has stood on the TED stage, coached speakers onto TEDx stages worldwide, and spent 25 years helping people turn ideas into talks that change how audiences think. She created the How to Rock a TED Talk program and authored A Kids Book About Public Speaking. When she runs a Creative Lab, she does not show up with a slide deck. She shows up with a plan, a pair of trail shoes, and an eye for the story that is already in the room.
Meet the Founders →Where we have been. Where we are going.
Creative Lab travels. We have run it around marquee gatherings and will bring it to yours. Portland hosts each Spring. New York City hosts each Fall.
Past • 2024, 2025, 2026
TEDx Portland
Columbia River Gorge, Portland, Oregon. The home of Creative Lab for 3 consecutive years. Cathey brought speakers into the Gorge the day after TEDx Portland and the Storytelling Adventure Experience™ was born here.
Past • 2025
The Moth, New York City
Brooklyn Bridge. Manhattan streets. SSA brought Creative Lab to The Moth's speaker community in New York in 2025 - proving the methodology works anywhere there is a story worth telling.
Upcoming • August 2026
TEDx San Diego
Sunset Cliffs, San Diego, California. The next Creative Lab wraps around TEDx San Diego. Speaker preparation, gathering immersion, and a Storytelling Adventure Experience™ on the Pacific coast.
Four ways to make Creative Lab yours
Any organization that wants their team to be better at speaking can bring Creative Lab to your org. We have built custom Creative Labs around corporate ERGs, TEDx programming, speaker series, and storytelling festivals. If you have people who have a message to deliver and a room to have that mission land, we have a program to fit your needs.
Built for your org.
Custom for your needs.
Whether you lead an ERG bringing storytelling skills to your team, produce a TEDx event and want your speakers genuinely ready for the stage, or run large-scale programming where communication is the through-line - Creative Lab is built around what you need, not a fixed format you have to fit into. One 20-minute call is enough to find out if it is the right fit and what it looks like for your org.
- Your city, your dates, your people
- ERG teams, TEDx producers, attendee cohorts, corporate programs
- SSA-hosted, co-branded, or built into your existing programming
- Scales from small teams to 200+ attendees
"The best gatherings leave something behind.
Creative Lab makes sure it's the right thing."