The past three days I’ve been working in at least five places around the world at once.

Apparently, that works just fine.

Over the past few days, I took part in the LEVEL C Strategy Masterclass, built on the principles of Marty Neumeier’s work.

LEVEL C is a school for masterclasses and critiques at the intersection of brand and business design.The training was brilliantly run by Andy Starr and Sabine Friesser. (Thanks again, both!) Through clear insights and practical examples we moved from problem framing, to designing potential solutions, to pressure-testing those solutions. Super-useful for breaking through your all-too-familiar tunnel vision—simple, but highly effective.

We could immediately apply it to a live case, which we later presented to Marty Neumeier himself. (...That’s a lot of name-dropping for one LinkedIn post, I know.)

The case was done in smaller teams. I was in Team 1, spread across three continents. It was fascinating to see how everyone, coming from their own discipline, arrived at different insights. You could almost read someone’s day-to-day profession in the solution they proposed.

It reminded me where the real value of this training lies. The insights and methods Andy shared help you break out of your own patterns and improve the quality of your ideas.

I noticed a lot of overlap with how I approach concept development for campaigns — the same mindset, but this time applied to designing a flexible framework rather than 'just' a creative solution. It’s about making better decisions in a world that’s constantly changing, so you can sustain the advantage you create.

Curious to know more?

www.levelc.org, www.martyneumeier.com