"[Give people] a Post-it® note and they immediately know what to do with it and see its value."
Arthur Fry
The Post-it® is a small reminder note, stuck temporarily to documents, computers, and other prominent spots. Launched commercially in 1980 by Arthur Fry (b, 1931) and Spencer Silver (b. 1941), employees of 3M in the United States, the notes are available in a wide range of shapes and colors, although the original yellow, three- inch (7.5 cm) square note is still the most popular.
In 1968 Silver developed a "low-tack" reusable adhesive made of tiny, indestructible acrylic spheres. Sticking to a given surface at a tangent rather than flat against it, the adhesive was sufficiently strong enough to hold papers together, but weak enough to separate them without tearing. Silver envisaged its application as a spray, or as a surface for notice hoards. He spent five unsuccessful years promoting his idea within the company. However, in 1974 a colleague, Arthur Fry, attended one of his seminars, and a few days later, during a sermon at his church, he realized that the low-tack adhesive would solve a frustrating problem: He sang in the choir and saw that if his bookmarks were temporarily and lightly stuck into his hymnal, they would not fall out.
3M eventually agreed to invest in the product, taking five years to develop, design, and build the machines needed for manufacture. In 1980, after a sustained marketing campaign, the notes took off and were soon to be found all over the world.
