Born by chance from a poorly successful experiment, the Post-it, since their introduction on the market, in the years ‘ 80, have represented a real revolution in the way of working in the offices of the whole world. Their unmistakable yellow color, and the ability to adhere to any surface, make it a tool of primary importance, especially for the most forgetful.
To invent the Post-it were Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry, two employees of the 3m, the company that in the Thirties invented and patented the Scotch. Silver was commissioned to create a stronger adhesive than those at the time on the market. After a myriad of experiments gone to empty, however, he realized that he had invented a type of adhesive that allowed to reposition a possible sheet on which it had been applied, with the advantage of not leaving any traces. Although the intuition suggested that the idea was more than good, Silver had not reached the goal, that is to create an ultra-powerful adhesive, for which the product was put in standby.
And here the other protagonist of this story comes into play, Arthur Fry, who in his spare time sang in the choir of the North Presbyerian Church of North St. Paul, Minnesota. He realized that he had great difficulty in keeping his mark in the songbooks with normal leaflets, which slipped away as soon as the desired page opened.
During a sermon, which Fry remembers quite dull, he began to reason he remembered theinvention of his colleague and the usefulness he could have in his specific case. Back at work, he put on paper his idea for a Reusableadhesive bookmark, presenting him to his superiors. The management of the company was afraid that it could be an expensive product, but the staff of the 3M, in which the ingenious invention had started to circulate thanks to the free samples provided by Fry himself, convinced the leaders of the company to give Full support to the invention, which was readily patented.
After about five years of refinement of the specifications, the machines for the design and manufacture of the product, finally inApril of 1980 the Post-it saw the light, becoming a success on a worldwide scale. To the original format, square of 7.6 cm of the side, of yellow color, one then joined another 8 different sizes, 62 colors, and 25 different shapes. It may seem like the perfect product, with no need for improvement, but the 3M thought, in 2003, to develop a particular type of Post-it able to better adhere to printers, computers, refrigerators and inside cars, adapting to New needs of customers.
