– By Soren Neupane: Content Writer, Tutor
Here’s my bit. Right up front: if you notice a masterclass in your area of interest, whether that’s your work or your hobby, and it promises to answer the questions you’ve been chewing on, GO. It might be a bit of a drive. It might cost a bit. GO anyway. The right masterclass won’t disappoint you.
I learned this from my houseguest before I learned it for myself. Vera Tobiaeson, visiting me from Nyköping in Sweden, found an alert one morning, found a masterclass in Auckland, and cheerfully blew up our carefully planned Wellington sightseeing. I was a little put out. Then I came round. If my guest could find something in New Zealand that made her so excited, what more could I ask for? Good masterclasses are few and far between. Right time, right place: you take it.
A few months later, it was my turn.
So what exactly is a masterclass?
It isn’t a beginner’s course, and that’s the point. A masterclass is a short, intensive session where someone at the top of their field shares the techniques and hard-won instincts that don’t make it into textbooks. It assumes you already know the basics and want to sharpen them. Nobody wants the precious hours spent on “where’s the login button?”
It’s also not a bootcamp. Bootcamps run for days, come with eye-watering price tags and a drill-sergeant spirit, and take no prisoners. A masterclass is one focused day in the company of someone who really knows their stuff.
The man at the front of the room
The email from Wellington High School’s CEC programme was short and to the point: AI Masterclass: Going Further with AI. Connectors, tools, files, Anthropic’s Skills and Claude Design. $250 for Kiwis, $499 for everyone else.
I read “going further” twice. Further than what, exactly? This wasn’t going to be an introduction.
The tutor was Jon Bell, a Wellington-based product designer with more than twenty years behind him at frog, Microsoft, Twitter and now Xero. His view of AI is refreshingly human: as more people become able to build things with technology, what matters more and more is judgment, taste and working well with others.
Did I meet the entry requirements? Honestly, no. I’m retired, I don’t have a job that throws AI problems at me every day, and a class with “further” in the title made me nervous. But the course was announced well in advance, which gave me time to do my homework. I didn’t want to be the person who slows everyone down and wastes the day. (How I prepared deserves its own article, and it’s coming.)
Game on
Jon opened by admitting this might be his most challenging class yet. The room was a mix of ages, backgrounds and experience levels, from people who use AI all day at work to, well, me.
He also told us, plainly and without a hint of arrogance, that this work was his calling, that he’d taken it around the world, and that he knew what he was talking about. Strangely, that settled the room. You felt he’d get you through the day, wherever you’d started. He had the grit, confidence and understanding. We were waiting.
He was right, and I needn’t have worried. My homework paid off. Working with AI isn’t about knowing magic words. You need some data, a project, and a reason to hand that data over. Then you need to make sense of what comes back, depending on what you asked for and the form it arrives in.
As the day went on, the jargon started to click. More than once I found myself following along ahead of people I’d assumed were streets in front of me. I left with new vocabulary, new skills, and a to-do list of projects I’m itching to start.
Jon’s approach comes straight from his design background: look at how people actually use things, find the common thread, and make the experience as intuitive as possible. He practised what he preached. Each of us had our own profile and workspace on his class website, and his “whiteboard” was right there on our own screens, updating in real time. It was simple, it was live, and it kept everyone on the same page, literally.
What I brought home
Before the class, I’d already been teaching myself Claude through every possible tutorial and had made a start with Claude Chat, then Skills, and then Cowork, using the Titanic passenger database as my practice ground. I began by tallying the men, women and children aboard, then turned the numbers into slides and an infographic poster. It had given me some baby-footing, but I had no real sense of how fast things were moving or where they were heading.The masterclass gave me that sense. I came away feeling the pace of it: how Claude Anthropic keeps growing in versatility, and how many directions it’s heading at once. Not having a job, and so no day-to-day problems to solve, had been quietly holding me back. Now I know where to aim.
A few moments stood out. Giving commands straight from my phone and watching the results appear on the fly. Seeing how connectors, Skills and files work together to take Claude beyond simple question-and-answer. And a glimpse of Claude Design’s canvas, where a slide or poster sits in front of you and you shape it through conversation, or reach in and adjust it yourself. That last one got to me, because I remembered all the times I’d sighed and typed “do it again” at a result I didn’t like. Being able to just fix the thing is a small revolution for people like me.
Why I’m telling you this
Sessions like this are rare in New Zealand. It was pure luck that Jon’s class was on my doorstep. Would I have driven to the Wairarapa or the Kāpiti Coast for it? Absolutely. Auckland, even.
Wellington happenings don’t always reach the rest of the country, but that doesn’t mean everyone else should miss out. So if you spot a masterclass of this calibre, try to make it. Do your homework first: check that it’s what you actually want, that it suits your level, and that you’ll come away with real takeaways. Ideally you’ll have something to contribute too.
Because a truly good teacher strips away the jargon, meets you where you are, and turns a steep learning curve into an exciting climb. Jon Bell did exactly that.
One small grumble: $35 for parking at Massey. Wellington High could have warned us. Consider yourself warned.
One-on-one and corporate sessions
We’ve all been there: the boss’s friend is giving a talk, the invitation lands in your inbox, and suddenly you’re one more body in the hall. Free nibbles and paid office time and an hour out of the office aren’t reason enough for me to fill a seat. So it wouldn’t be fair to write all this without asking Jon the obvious question: what does it cost?
Here’s the answer. (and I am, honestly, not paid to put this write-up together) Jon’s masterclass is specialised work with real results behind it, and his one-on-one sessions let you point that expertise straight at your own problems. One hour costs $200. Two hours cost $300.
It’s more than a chat. Before you meet, you fill out a short intake form, the same kind used for the class, so Jon arrives knowing what’s on your mind. Then you spend the session on whatever matters most to you right now. Afterwards, he sends you a follow-up report, so you leave with something useful in hand, not just a vague memory of a good conversation.
If your organisation wants Jon to work with the whole team, he also offers corporate packages. Get in touch, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to work out something that fits.
You’re the boss. Apple sauce!
A “thank you” to Soren Neupane for sending this article to The Upper Hutt Connection.
29/09/26
