How two UC co-ops joined Procter & Gamble for fast-track innovation

Both students immediately noticed how different the Learning Lab felt from a traditional meeting room. The space was intentionally designed for collaboration and creative energy, encouraging movement, brainstorming and rapid idea generation.

Director of the Learning Lab, Nicholas Partridge, and team members Rebecca Rudolph and Kurt Myers collaborate with corporate partners of the 1819 Hub to design hands-on learning experiences around real business challenges, helping teams build capability while advancing important work.

"Our staff acts as connectors and catalysts, bringing together professional and academic talent to work alongside corporate partners. We create hands-on experiences that mirror their needs and the pace and energy of real-world innovation," said Nicholas Partridge, director of the Learning Lab.

For P&G professionals, stepping away from their desks into new surroundings and working with the Learning Lab team's strategic guidance helped spark fresh thinking on an early-stage product innovation challenge whose details remain proprietary.

The students were not there to simply observe. They were placed into teams alongside these professionals and encouraged to contribute.

"We structured a design sprint for P&G, providing an environment that encouraged open participation, which on occasion can include our UC faculty or, in this case, our co-op students," explained Partridge.

Morrison and Mescher rotated through groups, helped visualize ideas, asked questions and offered suggestions. Rather than simply observing the process, they contributed alongside P&G professionals as ideas were generated, developed and refined.

This immersion allowed them to witness how early ideas can quickly evolve through collaboration, ultimately leading to collective voting on the most promising concepts.

One theme the co-ops noticed repeatedly throughout the Learning Lab session was that the consumer must remain at the center of every decision.

"My encounter with Procter and Gamble team members helped me see how they tap into their creativity and combine it with a strategy, so it works hand in hand to shape how people experience their products," Morrison shared. "It was both inspiring and fascinating to be a part of this process. I learned so much."

Procter & Gamble teams explored how product benefits could be made more intuitive, tangible and meaningful for the people who use them. The students watched as ideas evolved through the lens of consumer understanding, reinforcing that successful innovation begins with a clear view of the people a product is designed to serve.

And as a successful global brand, P&G wrote the playbook for understanding and meeting its customers' needs.

Existing consumer learning and product insights helped ground the creative process, giving teams a foundation from which to explore new ideas and visualizations.

The 1819 Partner Success team is a concierge service for corporate partners within the 1819 Innovation Hub. “Our office is dedicated to understanding partner innovation strategies, anticipating the needs of our corporate clients, and making frictionless connections to resources that help unlock breakthrough innovation,” explains RJ Sargent, UC's assistant vice president of partner success. “We design and facilitate a tailored experience for partners and their staff to collaborate in a space built for creativity, experimentation and rapid idea generation.”

As part of the broader Cincinnati Innovation District, the 1819 Innovation Hub helps connect companies, startups, students, faculty and university resources to accelerate innovation and growth. The Learning Lab brings that mission to life by creating hands-on experiences where organizations can develop their people while advancing real business challenges.

Recognized as the country’s birthplace for academic experiential learning, UC’s cooperative-education (co-op) program, ranked #4 in the country, integrates real-world experience into every academic program.

The session provided more than insight into a single partner workshop for Mescher and Morrison.  It offered a valuable glimpse into the collaborative, interdisciplinary future of work and showed how classroom learning can transform when students step directly into the innovation process.

"This experience in the Learning Lab with P&G confirmed that I want to focus my career on design that connects with people in meaningful, human ways," said Morrison.

Companies interested in building team capabilities while tackling real business challenge through the Learning Lab can email Partridge at nicholas.partridge@uc.edu to learn more.