"Make a Note"

[Razi]

So, what's this advert all about then?

 

[Shizuoka Dolphin]

I refuse to be drawn into their marketing ploy.

(I don't know.)

 

[Beach Hut]

Post it ?

Very irritating

Trivia question time:

Which musicians mum invented them ?

 

[Curious Orange]

I thought that was Tippex?

 

[Razi]

Invented them? Art Fry, apparently.

The Post-it® Note is one of the best known of all 3M products. It is used by loyal customers all over the world, many of whom declare that they can't imagine how they ever got along before Post-it® Notes were invented.

It's equally difficult to imagine a time when 3M was struggling to find a use for the repositionable adhesive that makes Post-it® Notes so versatile. But that was precisely the case back in the early 1970s - before a team of tenacious innovators at 3M created the product that permanently changed the way we communicate.

3M research scientist Dr. Spence Silver first developed the technology in 1968, while looking for ways to improve the acrylate adhesives that 3M uses in many of its tapes. In a classic case of innovative serendipity, 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. Now the challenge was: 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.

At last, Silver found a powerful ally in Geoff Nicholson, who joined the former Commercial Tape Division in 1973. A mere two days after Nicholson began his job as new products development manager, Silver seized the initiative and made a presentation on his adhesive. Nicholson was convinced of its importance and became a champion of its use in products such as bulletin boards in the form of tiles and tapes.

But 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.

Many 3Mers know the famous story of how Fry came upon the Post-it® Note concept out of frustration at how his scrap paper bookmarks kept falling out of his church choir hymnal. In a moment of pure "Eureka," Fry realized that Silver's adhesive could make for a wonderfully reliable bookmark. The broader concept of the Post-it® Note soon followed, along with paper tapes and labels using Silver's adhesive.

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. Fry's response demonstrated the approach of the true innovator: "I said, 'Really, that is great news! If it were easy, then anyone could do it. If it really is as tough as you say, then 3M is the company that can do it.' "

And, of course, there was the market research which is extremely difficult with revolutionary new products. Who would pay for a product that seemed to be competing with cost-free scrap paper? Despite the initial "kill the program" efforts, Nicholson convinced Joe Ramey, the division vice president, 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.

The result is, as they say, history. 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.

Now retired, Fry looks back on the many innovative products - such as the Post-it® Pop-up Note Dispenser and the Post-it® Flag - that have followed upon the original Post-it® Note. "It is like having your children grow up and turn out to be happy and successful," he beamed.

 

[Beach Hut]

I thought that was Tippex?

It was 50/50 I couldn't remeber if it was tippex or post-it.

I concede to your superior knowledge.

 

[Shizuoka Dolphin]

Which musicians mum invented them ?

Gareth Gates.

 

[Beach Hut]

Err I totally cocked the famous musicians Mum invented tippex:

Not Gareth Gates - you need to go back a lot further in time.

 

[Curious Orange]

And Tippex was of course invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, who is the mother of Michael Nesmith from the Monkees!!

 

[Beach Hut]

You could have given Cheshire a chance.

 

[Curious Orange]

Er, well I wasn't aware he'd posted 'cos I was replying to your 50/50 post!!! Sorry!

 

[Beach Hut]

Mind you we could have been here all night after the first answer.