History of the Post-it sticky note. How the office product of all time was created

History of the Post-it sticky note.  How the office product of all time was created

The chemist Spencer Silver tried to create a super strong adhesive for building airplanes. Unfortunately, his research did not bring the expected results. However, he managed to create something that stuck slightly to the surface, but not permanently attached to it. The material could be glued many times and easily peeled off without leaving any traces. Silver spent five years looking for a good application for his idea.

The article is a text version of one of the 15 episodes of the new season of the podcast “History You Do Not Know”. You can listen to it by launching the player below:

Art was frustrated. Every Wednesday, while practicing with the church choir, small paper bookmarks flew out of his songbook with which he would mark the right songs.

One Sunday in 1974, he remembered that his colleague had created glue with very unusual properties. He decided to see if it could help him stick bookmarks in the songbook.

Art couldn’t believe his eyes. He easily glued the scrap of paper to the desired page, then peeled it off without damaging the songbook. As an employee of the 3M company, he immediately realized that this was a revolutionary invention.

3M started in 1902 as a small mining company called the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company

The founders wanted to extract corundum – a mineral that is ideal for the production of sandpaper. Unfortunately, over time, they discovered that what they thought was corundum was silica-free sand, which had no exceptional properties. The company stood on the brink of a precipice. Despite this, the owners decided to take the risk by making one more costly extraction. This time, everything went according to plan and the 3M sandpaper went on sale. The company began to grow dynamically, significantly expanding its product portfolio over time.

More than half a century later, the chemist Spencer Silver tried to create a super-strong adhesive for building aircraft. Unfortunately, his research did not bring the expected results. However, he managed to create something that stuck slightly to the surface, but not permanently attached to it. The material could be glued many times and easily peeled off without leaving any traces. Silver spent five years looking for a good application for his idea.

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When Geoff Nicholson became the lab manager at 3M in 1973, Silver showed him a glue-spray notice board that was easy to attach and then peel off sheets of paper. However, the idea did not defend itself, as the sales of notice boards in the United States were too low.

Meanwhile, one Sunday in 1974, Art Fry, Silver’s colleague at 3M, decided to see if glue could help him stick the tabs in the songbook. It turned out that the cards are perfect for marking selected pages.

The next day, Art prepared a few sample tabs with glue and distributed them to his colleagues. More was quickly demanded, as it was called, of sticky notes. As interest grew larger and larger, Art concluded that what they created was not just a tab, but a new way to communicate and organize information. This is how the yellow Post-It sticky notes were born.

In 1977, the 3M company began to test the sale of cards, which were then called Press‘n Peel

To the surprise of the creators, there was no demand for them. Fortunately, under pressure from Arty Fry, bosses Nicholson and Ramey weren’t going to give up. A year later, 3M re-launched cards on the market Post-It, this time supporting the campaign with a huge number of free samples. 90% of customers who received free packages later made a purchase. Post-It Notes became a hit, and in 1980 Post-It began to be distributed throughout the United States. To this day, they are a permanent fixture in companies around the world, and one of the top five best-selling office products in history.

However, the success of Post-It and the company as a whole was not a coincidence. This was a time when William McKnight, a longtime CEO, sat at the helm of 3M. He joined the company in 1907 as an assistant accountant. After twenty-two years of work in the company, he was already in the chair of the president.

It was he who created the philosophy Listen to anyone who has an idea along with the 15% Rule which has become a fundamental part of 3M’s culture of innovation over time. The rule was that each employee had the right to spend 15% of the time on projects that were not directly related to his duties. In addition, a basic principle was introduced to promote innovation, i.e. the right to fail.

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McKnight was well aware that as business grows, delegating responsibility becomes essential. This requires a lot of tolerance from management as people will make mistakes. However, nothing teaches responsibility as much as being able to commit them and then have them corrected. Such an attitude towards employees supports their creativity and initiative, while building their key managerial competences.

Hire good people and leave them aloneWilliam McKnight used to say.

Delegate responsibility, encourage men and women to exercise their own initiative. A board that criticizes making mistakes kills the initiative. If we are to continue to develop, we must have a lot of people with the initiativehe repeated.

No wonder Art Fry attributes the phenomenal Post-It success to 3M’s philosophy, whose corporate policies have encouraged creativity. Over the years, scientific, technical and marketing innovations have brought the company enormous success. Today, more than 60,000 3M products are used in homes, businesses and schools. The 15% rule was copied over time by the most innovative companies, such as Google, which allowed its employees to spend 20% of their time on personal projects. This is how Gmail, the world’s leading email service, was born.

However, the attitude of Art Fry played no less role in the Post-It success story than the 15% rule

He used an allegedly unsuccessful lab-shelf product to create something new. R&D in its release did not mean making the product better, but something else that gave real value. Equally important, Spencer Silver, who has not been able to find a use for his invention for years, did not hold back from touting the merits of his work to his colleagues.

Sticky Notes weren’t successful overnight. 3M management had serious doubts about the product’s potential – market research showed that the potential was limited.

However, Art questioned the research results. He began handing out Post-It notes to colleagues at 3M, keeping a journal of their use. Two weeks after the start of the pilot, two pallets of notes were used inside the company, which stunned the management. Moreover, Art, each time someone asked for another batch of post-it notes, he would go to that person’s room and ask what they would be used for. After collecting the responses, a co-worker would receive a pad and Art followed the use and inventiveness to better understand the potential of their use. He transferred the collected ideas to other departments that did not yet understand the versatility of the product. Thus, Art himself did market research, while creating the target marketing message. Art estimated that customers would use 7 to 20 pieces of note a year. At that time, they used only one roll of Scotch adhesive tape – 3M’s flagship and extremely profitable product.

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Art Fry, not giving up, began to be called Mr. Persevering. It took Art three years to convince the management team, but it took another three years to bring Post-It to market. A completely new production process had to be created. Operations suffered from technical problems and the design of new machines took months.

Launching the product was not easy as the product was innovative – customers did not understand the usefulness of the sticky notes. Free samples proved to be the key to success. Art stubbornly pushed the idea until 3M gave in and agreed to “temporarily” test the idea by handing out samples to existing customers.

Post-It Notes began to spread like a virus

Clients placed cards on the documents they sent to others, arousing their curiosity. They looked at the cards, played with them, then went to the store to buy a Post-It pad.

At the same time, the company was able to resist the urge to go all out immediately. It took about five years for the product to be available nationwide. 3M slowly expanded its distribution, each time using feedback from the market.

After 28 years at 3M, Spencer Silver retired with 22 patents. Both Silver and Fry ended their careers at 3M, winning top honors and numerous awards. However, neither of them were entitled to royalties from the sale of the product. My greatest reward, is seeing how many people use and appreciate my product, Art Fry used to say.

Andrzej Skasko / A story you don’t know

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