Who invented Post-it Notes?

3M research scientist Dr. Spence Silver first developed the adhesive used on Post-it Notes in 1968, while looking for ways to improve the acrylate adhesives that 3M uses in many of its tapes. Silver found something quite remarkably different from what he was originally looking for.

It was an adhesive that formed itself into tiny spheres with a diameter of a paper fiber. The spheres would not dissolve, could not be melted and were very sticky individually. But because they made only intermittent contact, they did not stick very strongly when coated onto tape backings.

Silver knew that he had invented a highly unusual new adhesive. What to do with it? For the next five years, Silver gave seminars and buttonholed individual 3Mers, extolling the potential of this new adhesive and showing samples of it in spray-can form and as a bulletin board.

The ultimate product niche was discovered by Art Fry, a new-product development researcher who had attended one of Silver's seminars and was intrigued by the strange adhesive. Fry's intense curiosity – and penchant for practical solutions – went back to his days growing up in a small Iowa town, where he would turn spare lumber into custom-designed toboggans that sailed over the winter snows.

The Post-it Note concept came out of frustration at how his scrap paper bookmarks kept falling out of his church choir hymnal. Fry realized that Silver's adhesive could make for a wonderfully reliable bookmark. The broader concept of the Post-it Note soon followed.

But there remained skeptics within 3M as attempts were made to launch this new product. Engineering and production people told Fry that Post-it® Notes would pose considerable processing measurement and coating difficulties and would create much waste.

And, of course, there was the market research. Who would pay for a product that seemed to be competing with cost-free scrap paper? Despite the initial "kill the program" efforts, Geoff Nicholson (Products Development Manager) convinced Joe Ramey (Division VP) to come with him to Richmond, Va., and walk up and down the streets on "cold" calls to see if they could sell the product. They did, and this almost-killed program was resurrected.

In 1981, one year after its introduction, Post-it Notes were named the company's Outstanding New Product. Fry was named a 3M corporate scientist in 1986.


http://www.3m.com/about3m/pioneers/fry.jhtml

authur fry

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