Level 11
The Face of Innovation and Digital Transformation

A mountaineer knows no fear; all he understands is that one could reach the summit by demonstrating resilience, tenacity, and excellence. As an avid mountaineer, Mark Hadland employed his skills, experience, and inner fortitude to drive Level 11 through the wave of digital disruption, positioning the firm as one of the fastest growing companies in the technology services industry and categorizing itself as a digital transformer. Seattle, WA, based Level 11 is like a breath of fresh air in the ever-changing digital world. A technology services and software product engineering firm, Level 11 develops cloud-based platforms that serve as the fabric for connected ecosystems, bridging real-world experiences via wearables, smart devices, and sensors with digital, online, big data analytics, and predictive behavioral systems.

Etymology behind Level 11

Why the name Level 11? Inspired by a particular scene from the film ‘This Is Spinal Tap' – "You are on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? You put it at eleven. Exactly. One Louder,” Hadland says that everything they do within the company and its culture for both clients and employees embodies the principle of doing things ‘One Louder'. "To achieve greatness, it is indispensable to set higher and more challenging goals," believes the founder and CEO of Level 11, Hadland.

Reflecting Hadland's philosophy are Level 11's cutting-edge core capabilities lok8, korl8, and comunik8 that enable the company to achieve digital transformation by connecting, collecting and correlating customers' needs with clients’ present and future offerings. lok8 (locate) is one of the company’s transformative technologies. This location services solution encompasses all the sensors, readers, static beacons and back-end event processing components that detect location. It is in no way similar to GPS since GPS may lead its user to, for example, the convention center while lok8 will get its user to the espresso stand in the convention center, even enabling pre-order and pay. Customers and objects move through physical space, and the need is to connect the pipeline of data to downstream applications and systems that could translate bits into information. Location services are the bridge between the physical and digital that converts real physical movements into data which can be analyzed and used to transform business.

korl8 (correlate) is an analytics processor that is fully customizable and can be integrated with existing technology, and sustainable to support ongoing improvements. Level 11's data and analytics programs aggregate information and perform real-time analysis that is useful, meaningful, and most importantly predictive. This real-time processing allows a client to detect and respond to events in the present while the relevant analytics and visualizations empower that client for the future, thus enabling them to make decisions that are more informed. Predictive analytics eliminates the guesswork of customers’ needs, and transforms them into real-time dynamic interactions fulfilling the latter's requirements.

The third pillar of the company's offerings is comunik8 (communicate), a custom and commercial best-of-breed visualization capability designed to inform, communicate, and influence user behaviors. comunik8 engages users, customers, and guests through visually appealing and emotive interactions. It is the embodiment of visual storytelling through an artful and intentional set of integrated visual technologies, leading-edge design, systems thinking, and visual design language.

The Rise of the Pioneer

“We believe one of our core tenets of success is our ability to ‘Spike the Problem™'. Our design philosophy is to take a vertical slice through all of the technology layers of the stack and solve what is possible.

Our design philosophy is to take a vertical slice through all of the technology layers of the stack, and solve what is possible, what we call 'Spiking the Problem

That is, we do all the heavy lifting upfront to ensure that a solution is technically possible, and then enhance it for feasibility, and finally for completeness," states Hadland.

However, it was not a success achieved overnight; in fact, Level 11 is in the midst of its third evolution as a business. The company which began as a general management and technology services firm has since evolved into a product design and engineering firm after partnering with the local hardware firm Synapse to provide a fully integrated wearable to a major theme park based in Orlando, FL. Capitalizing on this experience, Hadland is continuously leading the transformation of Level 11 into an impressive digital disruption firm. While still retaining its world class engineering team and core strengths, Level 11 is successfully delivering solutions across a multitude of creative disciplines including industrial design, UI/ UX, digital and film craft, strategic branding, omni-channel digital marketing, and customer engagement.

Showcasing Level 11's accomplishments is a study on Philips Healthcare that, with the help of Level 11, has launched a new transformative ultrasound product called Lumify. It is an ultrasound transducer, coupled with a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) tablet, an imaging app that can be downloaded, and is available only on a subscription basis. In addition to an amazingly innovative solution – hardware, software, apps, coupled with on-line services– the very way Philips is providing the solution via subscription is now transforming the business and finance model for healthcare. Lumify now places ultrasound in the hands of clinics, emergency rooms, sports stadiums, and battlefields – essentially bringing imaging and care to patients, versus requiring patients to schedule and make a trip to the doctor’s office. Clinics and urgent care centers no longer have to bear the cost of entry barriers to providing this level of imaging and care to patients.

Future Endeavors

Level 11 has established itself as a highly differentiated digital transformation firm through the thoughtful approach of partnering with other like-minded companies and founders. Hadland has infused his charismatic leadership, innovative business background, and extensive technology experience into the processes of Level 11 to orchestrate what is becoming a future model for innovation and digital disruption.

In the coming years, the company plans to continue to develop and evolve its customer experience management platform: lok8, korl8, and comunik8. "Our experience with these solutions helps drive engagement, loyalty, brand affinity, resulting in the realization of the vision of true digital transformation. Our goal is to be the connective fabric, experienced on a global basis. After delivering solutions for the largest theme parks and cruise lines, we plan to take on the global stage of the Olympics," concludes Hadland.