Spence Silver & Art Fry

A failed invention turned out to be one of the most popular products of the century, thanks to the resilience exercised there.

Like all great inventions, the Post-it unharming sheet now in use everywhere, came out from a failure. That item has become not only a popular tool of communication, but also a ticket for 3M to be in the industrial lead again and to settle their debts.

Back in 1965, 3M chemist Spence Silver was trying to develop an acrylic adhesive that could give “sticking power” to various adhesive tapes for household utensils. One day he developed polymer cement to realize what he had in mind.

But that adhesive would not stick firmly. It would not get dry. It could stick two surfaces but could not glue them together. In short, that adhesive bound only its own molecules – not what the chemist expected to find and use in adhesive tapes. At the most, that adhesive functioned to stick only lightly and temporarily – something which Spence thought had to be useful in some way.

Unwilling to to throw away his discovery, Spence kept testing and developing it for several years. He created an application that could be sprayed. He developed a bulletin board coated with that adhesive so papers could be stuck there without pushpin. He held seminars for 3M employees expecting one of them might come up with some idea better than his.

One of the seminar participants was Art Fry, himself a chemist and also an active church choir member. He was often at a loss and frustrated about keeping some book marks inside his church book : they kept slipping out and larger book mark hindered putting some more at the same time. And one Sunday morning, when he again lost a particular page and had to find it back, an idea flashed across his mind. It was during a boring sermon and hastily he scribbled down what he thought was the solution : “My mind was drifting back to music when I got that flash of idea. Eureka! I think I can make book marks by applying Dr. Spence’s adhesive so they can be stuck on and peeled off without spoiling the book”.

Art had come to the point of revealing what might be the hidden value of that adhesive, but when both he and Spence started to make a prototype, they were told the company didn’t have the facilities needed for the process of coating papers with the adhesive. But Art was excited : “That’s a good news! If it were easy, anybody could do that. But if it is as difficult as you say, then 3M is the only company able to do that”.  With great resilience, he developed his own device in his cellar. The machine was so large that he had to tear down the cellar’s wall to take it out to his laboratory in 3M.

So far, Art and Spence were still thinking the prototype was meant for book mark only. And its evolution was begun when Art happened to send a report of his research and stuck a note inside for a co-worker. The co-worker took the note to stick it again on another report he sent to Art. As Art recalled : ”At the coffee break that afternoon we both realized that what we got is not just book mark, but also a new way to communicate and convey information”. What they found was Post-it note.

Hadn’t been blocked by such obstacle as the cellar’s wall, Art was not to be stopped by the next one : the marketingdepartment failed to see any market potency in that invention. Art and Spence were sure that product would sell by itself when people came to know how to use it. So they produced hundreds of pieces and distributed them to the company senior executives. When the stock was getting low, the executives who by then had realized its purpose, asked for more, and Art and Spence simply passed their request to the marketing department.

Eventually the marketing department accepted the new invention, but there was one last key to deal with : 3M customers. The first market trial conducted in Richmond, Virginia and Boise, Idaho, failed to convince customers who didn’t see the benefit of paying more for colorful small note pad. Not loosing their faith, 3M sent their salesmen to do door to door calling in Richmond and Boise distributing Post-it to businessmen, set up free demonstrations in banks and stores and made  every person who used the sticky note demand for more.

When ultimately Post-it note was nationally launched in 1980, it became an inseparable part in the daily life at offices and households. Through that not-too-sticky adhesive 3M reclaimed his glory by dominating the market. Looking back to 1968, Spence realized that the particular polymer had some features then coming into being, not only as Post-it notes of various sizes, but also as file folder labels, telephone message sheets, stickers, glue bar and transparent tapes that can be peeled off.

Can failure yield success? 3M naturally thinks so. 3M scientists now are asked to spend 15 % of their office hours to tinker with any new idea – even if it then proves unsuccessful or yields something with no immediate benefit.