Now Go Create

In this toolkit episode of Now Go Create, Claire Bridges introduces the concept of the premortem, a powerful technique for anticipating project pitfalls before they derail your ideas. Drawing from her extensive experience in creative thinking and strategy development, Claire demonstrates how asking the right questions early can transform uncertainty into opportunity and help teams avoid costly missteps.
Clare shares real-world examples from organisations including Google, Stripe, Pixar, and Netflix, illustrating how pre-mortems foster honest feedback and more robust creative outcomes. You’ll learn practical steps to run your own pre-mortem, alongside insights into building resilience and healthy collaboration in creative projects.
Key Takeaways:
Many projects fail from overlooked risks, not the initial idea.
Premortems give permission to voice concerns without negativity.
Run premortems when ideas are solid, not in their early stages.
The process helps surface hidden assumptions and blind spots.
Use individual reflection before group discussion for unbiased input.
Pixar and Netflix embed radical candour and continuous feedback in their cultures.
Brain trusts provide expert peer feedback, helping refine ideas without hierarchy.

Something to Try:
Before your next project goes live, gather your team and run a pre-mortem. Imagine your project has failed six months down the line, and ask everyone to individually list reasons why it might have happened. Then, share and discuss the risks together, prioritise the most serious ones, and brainstorm ways to prevent them. Finish with a reflection on what you learned. This could be the critical step that takes your idea from good to great.

About Claire Bridges:
Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative.

Claire worked as a PR agency Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.

She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies.

Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 50,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.
Connect with Claire:
Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreate
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14
Produced by winteraudio.co.uk

How do you turn a frustrating workshop into a creative, inclusive space where everyone feels heard without reinventing the wheel each time? In this enlightening episode of Now Go Create, host Claire Bridges sits down with Robert Cserti, co-founder of SessionLab, the go-to platform for workshop and meeting design loved by facilitators worldwide.
Claire and Robert get honest about the art and science of facilitation, what makes a meeting truly work, and why embracing both introverts and extroverts is the secret sauce to group creativity. If you ever find yourself leading meetings, brainstorming sessions, or workshops (even with a little dread), this episode is packed with practical tools, stories, and mindset shifts plus a few laughs around “the dreaded icebreaker.”
Here are this week’s highlights:
Robert Cserti shares the story behind creating SessionLab
What are the most popular workshop templates?
The debate around icebreakers: cringe or crucial?
Designing sessions for every kind of thinker
What to do when your agenda goes out the window
Incorporating movement and mental breaks: Claire’s “cloud walk” and other playful ideas to reignite energy and imagination
The rise of facilitation as a professional superpower
Behind the scenes at SessionLab
The challenge (and chaos) of hybrid meetings
Managing your energy as a facilitator.

Try this week:
Next time you plan a meeting or workshop, pick one new tool or method this episode or a simple silent reflection exercise. Notice how it pulls in different voices and improves the outcome.
About Claire Bridges:
Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative.

Claire worked as a PR agency Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.

She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies.

Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 50,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.
Connect with Claire:
Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreate
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14

About Robert Cserti:
I'm fascinated by the art and science of facilitation. Since taking my first facilitation training in 2009, I've been captivated by how thoughtfully designed workshops transform the way people collaborate and learn together.
This passion led me to co-found SessionLab. After years of designing and facilitating workshops myself, I grew frustrated with the lack of tools that truly supported the creative process behind effective group experiences. I wanted to create something better – not just for myself, but for all the facilitators in the field.
Today, SessionLab has grown into a platform that helps thousands of facilitators, L&D and OD professionals design thoughtful group experiences. While building our company, I continue to facilitate workshops whenever possible – these hands-on experiences keep me connected to the challenges and joys of bringing people together for meaningful collaboration.
Connect with Robert:
Website: https://www.sessionlab.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcserti/
Produced by winteraudio.co.uk

What if your best creative breakthroughs aren’t sitting on your laptop, but waiting for you outside? In this episode of the Now Go Create podcast, Claire Bridges invites you to step away from your desk and into a more embodied creative practice. Claire draws on her own experience running creative workshops, her creative director roots, and insights from psychology to explore how movement, the world around us, and even a simple walk can spark fresh ideas and deeper creative thinking.
Inspired by John Cleese’s quote, “We don’t know where we get our ideas from, but we know we don’t get them from our laptops,” Claire challenges the default habit of expecting ideas to emerge from our teams when they’re glued to screens and instead encourages everyone to embrace a Creative Safari as a way of working and generating new perspectives.
In this episode:
The science behind why staying glued to your screen actually blocks great ideas
How embodied cognition thinking with your whole body can help generate creative breakthroughs
Why “thought walks” and creative safaris are Claire’s go-to approach for teams and individuals to unlock new perspectives
Practical exercises you can try: from tuning into your senses on a walk, to noticing new things through your peripheral vision
How giving your mind and body space (even just 10 minutes outdoors) enriches your creative process
Why noticing, not forcing, is key: letting curiosity and observation lead you to new insights
Using themes (Claire plays with the idea of “abundance” in the podcast) to subconsciously expand what you see, notice, and connect with
Tools for working alone or with teams including photographing what sparks your interest during your creative safari
How the principles of incubation, permission, and curiosity nurture original thinking and help fight creative blocks

Try this week:
Don’t force your next idea. Instead, take Claire’s advice and go on your own creative safari, or take your team on one.
Leave your desk, walk with a loose prompt or question, and see what you notice.
When you return, ask yourself how your fresh observations might connect to your creative challenge or simply enjoy the wider perspective it brings.

About Claire Bridges:
Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative.
Claire worked as a PR agency Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.
She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies.

Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 50,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.
Connect with Claire:
Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreate
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14

Produced by winteraudio.co.uk

In this short, slightly, scrappy, 10-minute bonus episode, the strategist’s strategist Julian Cole joins me again - this time for a real-time riff on how to devise a usable strategy brief… when you don’t actually have one.
Julian has worked with Uber, Apple, Facebook, Disney and more, and is known for demystifying strategy and making it accessible. In our previous full-length episode, we got so deep into strategy chat that my producer gently told me off for going way over time. So here’s the fun bit we couldn’t bear to delete.
What we cover in this mini-episode:
Where to start when no usable brief exists
Julian shares his “brief audit” approach — the mandatories, the nice-to-knows, and how to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Live strategy development: The Dog Teeth Whitening Brief
Yes, really. We take a fictional vet chain launching a dog teeth-whitening service and unpack:
The business problem vs the consumer problem
How to explore audience motivations, goals and fears
Why aesthetics is never really about aesthetics
How social connection, status and even loneliness show up in strategic thinking

Inside Julian’s strategic process
We walk through:
Defining goals and problems
Using goal/fear dynamics to find emotional territory
Spotting potential insights
Building three “strategy napkins” — quick, rough territories you can test with clients or creatives

Why messy thinking is part of the process
Strategy rarely arrives fully formed. This episode shows the real-world expansion phase — the part most people never see.

Why listen to this bonus?
If you ever need to develop a strategy without a proper brief (which, let’s be honest… is more often than we may like), this episode gives you a practical, human, and transparent look at how a top strategist begins to approach the problem.
About Claire Bridges

Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative.

Claire worked as Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.

She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies.

Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 40,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.
Join our weekly email for free resources and worksheets to go with the podcast.
Connect with Claire:
Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreate
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14

About Julian Cole:
Julian Cole is a strategy consultant to leading brands including Uber, Apple, Facebook, and Disney.
Previously he was Head of Comms Planning at BBDO New York, where he oversaw a team of 15+ strategists who created award-winning work for Bacardi, Footlocker, Mountain Dew, GE, Snickers, M&Ms, Lowes, Interscope Records, Bombay Sapphire and the Sandy Hook Foundation.
Prior to that he was Head of Communications Planning at BBH New York, helping to launch the PlayStation 4 to be the highest selling console launch in gaming history.
With a void of practical strategy education, in 2019 Julian started the Strategy Finishing School and he has taken his world class experience and taught it to over 4,000 strategists.

Connect with Julian:
Website: https://strategyfinishingschool.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliancole/

Produced by winteraudio.co.uk

What does it take to turn an idea into a brand new industry? In this lively episode of Now Go Create, host Claire Bridges sits down with Daisy Amodio, creative dynamo, founder of The Proposers, a royal wedding planner, and visionary behind 5,000 unforgettable marriage proposals.
Claire and Daisy dig into how an impromptu treasure hunt for her brother kickstarted Daisy’s journey from advertising account manager to “queen of proposals,” defying doubters, inventing her own playbook, and genuinely creating a category from scratch. If you’ve ever been told your ideas are ‘rubbish’ Daisy’s story will inspire you to trust your gut, experiment, and persist despite the naysayers.
Listen in for Daisy’s take on creating bespoke experiences for an audience of one, and turning Pinterest boards into live events, including dressing up cats and negotiating to have your face on the Eiffel Tower!
Here are the highlights:
Daisy turned her brother’s proposal into a creative business idea and, despite scepticism, pioneered the proposal planning industry
Even after surveying 500 men who dismissed her idea as “rubbish,” Daisy trusted her gut and pushed forward
How to get personal for an audience of one - Daisy and her team dive deep into clients’ lives, stalking Pinterest boards, social media, and more
Spectacular proposals: From a fake drug arrest in Barcelona to 50 cats dressed as waiters
Daisy and Claire discuss the unique challenges of balancing spectacular creative ideas with seamless execution
Daisy often says yes first taking on wild requests and figuring out solutions later
Dealing with burnout and Daisy’s journey to a more sustainable work-life balance.
Daisy urges aspiring entrepreneurs to be determined, trust themselves, and “fake it till you make it”

Try this week:
Got a “rubbish” idea you can’t shake? Take a small action toward it research, pitch, or share it with someone you trust.
Explore your creative niche: What’s your unique story, and how could you double down on it, even in the face of scepticism?

About Claire Bridges:
Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative.

Claire worked as a PR agency Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.

She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies.

Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 50,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.
Connect with Claire:
Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreate
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14

About Daisy Amodio:

Daisy Amodio is the trail-blazing Founder & CEO of The Proposers, the first-ever marriage proposal planning company, and the global pioneer of romantic event planning. Recognised as the No. 1 Proposal Planner in the World, Daisy transformed a heartfelt idea into a thriving industry, planning over 6,000 unique proposals with an unparalleled 100% “YES” success rate.

Operating from her office at the top of her game in The Shard London, Daisy leads a dedicated team of seven planners who bring the magic to life for international clients; including royalty, sports stars, actors, and many high-net-worth individuals.

Their work is celebrated across international newspaper press and radio and frequently by the BBC. Daisy is no stranger to TV either from her first Sky TV show in 2011, famously called The Proposers, to her most recent Channel 4 “Will You Marry Me” show. Daisy is a confident presenter and keynote speaker at business industry conferences and the global stage.

Connect with Daisy:

[email protected]
The Proposers https://www.theproposers.co.uk/
Will You Marry Me Channel 4 https://www.channel4.com/programmes/will-you-marry-me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daisy-amodio-9845ba48/

Produced by winteraudio.co.uk