The accidental invention of post-its, your ultimate study resource
Be it inside the pages of your books or on your laptop’s home screen, you definitely know the importance of post-its, don’t you? After all, they are those handy study resources that help you glance through the key points during last-minute revision outside the exam hall. But is that all they do? No! They do a lot more; they remind you of your pending assignments and even refresh your memory that you need your parents to sign off your field trip permission slip. So, the next time you take these small sticky pieces of paper for granted, think twice! But for now, let’s just stick to the accidental invention story of sticky notes.
No one set out to invent sticky notes!
But it still happened. That’s right, the invention of these small pieces of paper featuring light adhesives on their backs was a mere accident. Turns out, a chemist named Dr. Spencer Silver who worked at the 3M Company was busy researching adhesives in 1968 and one day he chanced upon something strange: it was an adhesive that stuck lightly on to surfaces, but didn’t really stick cling tightly. The irony here is that Silver wanted to invent a super-strong adhesive. Instead, he came up with a super-weak one. It was something called microspheres that was a unique, low-tack adhesive which could be removed, reattached and repositioned more than once. Are you wondering what we are wondering? Silver had by chance created a solution minus its problem! So, he did have a new invention at hand but didn’t really know what to do with it, until 1974!
The world welcomes post-its, thanks to Arthur Fry
So, in 1974, a colleague of Dr. Silver named Arthur Fry (also an employee at 3M) was frustrated while attending church when the bookmarks he used to mark his place inside the hymnal kept falling out. This is when he remembered Dr. Silver’s super-weak adhesive and started using it on top of his bookmarks. Guess what? It did the job well! The bookmarks not only stayed in place but were also easily repositionable. And the rest is history!
Arthur Fry came back to 3M the next day and pitched the idea of adhesive behind small notes. His bosses were impressed with the idea but first wanted to try out in-house. So, what Silver and Fry did was this: They made a few samples and used them to communicate around the office. The higher authorities were convinced about the selling point and decided to launch the product. They named the three-inch squares with adhesive back as “Press n Peel” and unveiled them in 1977. In less than a year, these made quite a stir in four important US cities. However, it wasn’t until 1980 when 3M renamed the product as “Post-it Notes” after a successful trial run in Boise Blitz that they distributed it across the country. From here, there was no turning back! Nine out of ten consumers who used the product came back looking for it. And thus, post-it earned its much-deserved global attention!
Oh, guess what! The canary yellow colour that you often associate with post-its was an accident too. Turns out, the original 3M team that was behind the production of post-its used leftover canary yellow scrap paper from a nearby laboratory to make the first batch. How weird is that!