Three Leading Brands Partner With Paper Plane To Close The Skills Gap For Marketers

Paper Plane has joined forces with Scentre Group Westfield, BT Financial Group and Foyster Media to create a world-first project-based adult education platform.

The current projects will upskill marketers and UX designers and revolutionise the education industry by offering participants the opportunity to work with real brands, on real briefs to obtain genuine, certified work experience.

Managing director of Paper Plane, Mike O’Brien, has more than 25 years experience in the education sector and recognises the gap between what the industry demands and what traditional education is able to offer is still too wide, with 39 per cent of employers citing inadequate training as an issue with new hires.

“Marketing and digital careers are no longer linear; more and more roles hybrid roles are emerging,” he said.

“Companies want to see evidence of a range of relevant skills and they want to see them demonstrated through past experiences.

“Yet young marketers and UX designers are feeling like they don’t have the skills they need to fulfil the potential of the roles. To bridge this gap, Paper Plane recognised it had to have companies involved with it’s learners working on real projects to offer on-the-job experience.”

Paper Plane has worked collaboratively with partners Scentre Group Westfield, BT Financial Group and Foyster Media to co-craft projects that will develop the participants digital marketing and UX strategy skills along with those intangible skills of creativity, problem-solving, advanced reasoning, complex judgement, social interaction and emotional intelligence – all while building a portfolio of work.

Nick Gatehouse, general manager of strategic initiatives, customer experience for Scentre Group Westfield, added, “We were really attracted to working with Paper Plane because there are so many mutual benefits. It brings real-world commercial problems into the educational space.

“Ideally, it will feed our innovation pipeline and give us a good look at an esteemed bunch of learners, offering them insight into our company with a potential to be part of it.”

The three launch projects include:

Scentre Group Westfield expects more than 530 million customer visits to shopping centres in 2017. The brief is to create a UX strategy and prototypes that will enhance customer experience for Westfield shoppers in the future, from trip planning to in-store activity and receiving goods at home.

Foyster Media’s brief is to develop creative marketing strategies for The Carousel.com and its newly acquired platform womenlovetech.com, which is devoted to promoting technology and innovation to a female audience.

BT Financial Group’s brief is to develop a UX design strategy that will help BT Financial customers navigate investing, superannuation and insurance with ease.

CEO and Founder of Foyster Media, Robyn Foyster, said, “For employers like myself it provides the opportunity to work with employees of the future and tap into the pool of talent that’s out there.

“These learners don’t have preconceived ideas about how things should be done, which opens up a wealth of opportunities. We are really excited to meet and work with tomorrow’s digital marketing superstars.”

Paper Plane projects are seven weeks in length and limited to 10-12 participants, allowing learners to continue working as they learn. Paper Plane provides weekly evening workshops conducted via video conferencing as well as course content delivered digitally so participants can consume on the go.

Each project is appointed a Project Lead – an industry professional to assist with technical skills – and a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach to identify the participants’ unique strengths and work with them to realise their full potential.

All applicants are assessed before being assigned to a project to ensure it’s the right fit for their experience and goals and to guarantee a team that will provide credible solutions to the partner company.

The projects offer:

• Development of industry skills
• Access to a credible employer
• Provision of world-class curated content
• Exposure to industry experts and leaders
• A certified industry referral upon completion

While Paper Plane’s launch projects are focused on UX design and digital marketing, the team is working with leading Australian brands to create a variety of projects in coming months.

“Education for the future is not just a pathway to employment, but a foundation for a life long learning journey,” said Mike O’Brien.

“Paper Plane’s education platform has been designed to future-proof our workers and our businesses, helping them realise their dreams in anticipation of a vastly changed workplace into the 2020s and beyond.”

To find out about Paper Plane’s projects and introductory discounted offer of $1,500 visit www.paperplaneprojects.com.au. For Sydney based marketers and digital project managers you can attend a free Information Evening on Wednesday, 8 February – 6pm -7.30pm at  1 O’Connell Street, Sydney.