Q – Fact or fiction: Post-it® notes were an accident?

Art – A lot of people would like to think that you get something for nothing. A discovery might be an accident. But an innovation requires so much work. I use the analogy that we're all working under a street light. We're acquainted with what we see and work with day in and day out. But out there in the darkness there is so much stuff that we don't know about that if we send somebody out and they feel around and find something and bring it back, we all have something we can work on. But sending those people out to look is not an accident.

Q – What goes through your mind when you walk into a room of people using Post-it® notes to brainstorm new ideas?

Art – It's a great satisfaction. It's like having your kids grow up and do well. In every inventor or creator, your real drive is making something that's useful for other human beings. And when you see it being used, there's no greater satisfaction.

Q – Post-it® notes have been called “the yellow stroke of genius” that are so simple to use, even a CEO can master it. Isn’t the simplicity of Post-it® notes its greatest contribution to society?

Art – Any time you make life simpler for people, my goodness, they really need it. If you simplify the obstacles to get over for them to do something, they are more liable to do it. So if they want to jot down an idea that they have, and they are in the midst of something else, they don't have to turn on their computer and wait for it to come up and, in the process, forget about what they're doing in the first place. You can just grab a Post-it® note, jot a word or two as a reminder, and stick it up some place where you can see it. If you want to communicate with someone else, you can stick a note right on their chair, the computer screen or on the refrigerator where the kids will see it. It's very direct, easy, and people-readable. The first notes that I put on test books back in '75 are still readable. Post-it® notes are simple. They work with human nature. You can put them on something or move them from place to place. As long as the paper is there, they will last. You can pull them off and they'll come off without damaging the product. So you don't have to think or worry about these things. You just use them.

Q – The design of the Post-it® notes begs several questions. Why was canary yellow the original color?

Art – In the beginning, this was the first time that we could use writing paper with an adhesive on it. If you used all of the other previous pressure-sensitive adhesives, it would tear the paper apart. This meant that that whole library of colors in writing papers was available to use. I made samples in a rainbow of colors. But the distributors and dealers said, "We don't believe that stuff is going to sell. We're not going to give you all that shelf space. We're going to give you just enough shelf space for one color and two sizes." So what size? We didn't want it to be pink or blue and step on anybody's toes as far as male and female preferences. Yellow seemed to be a very natural one because it was cheerful and the eye can see black on yellow with very low distortion.

Q – When they were introduced in 1980, Post-it® notes came in two sizes – three inches by five inches and one-and-a-half inch by two inches. What was the thinking behind these sizes?

Art – We wanted a small note that didn't take a lot of space for people that just wanted them for a bookmark or a flag to get people's attention. And, then, for those who wanted to write a little bit more, something bigger – a 3x5. Now there was a lot of pressure in the beginning to make them in 4x6. That was the size of scratch paper folders that were on the desks of most executives. But you couldn't stick a 4x6 note in your pocket. The 3x5 would go in. So we wanted the large one and a small one. After we'd been selling the product a few years and the sales had built up to the point where now we could have more sizes in our line, we added a 3x3. It's one of the most popular sizes.

Q –So the size can be traced back to convenience?

Art –Again, it's designing it for a customer need. In the beginning there also was a lot of pressure on me to make it in roll form. Because nobody knew how to make sticky sheets in a pad. Can you imagine how inconvenient it would be to have a roll of notes in your pocket? For the customer, we clearly needed a pad. No one knew how to do it. But that's the direction we took and we learned how to do it.

Q – You’ve said that most everybody in 3M management, marketing and sales initially thought “sticky notes” was a dumb idea that was too expensive and wouldn’t sell. What kept you going in the face of strong opposition?

Art – That's part of the game. I was in new product development for 20 years previous to that. I knew that when you have something that's new to the world, it takes a lot of convincing. People don't see it right away. That's almost a good thing. If it were easy, somebody else would be doing it. So the challenge is something that keeps people like me going. And, then, I just knew better. I knew that folks that were using the pads were using between seven and 20 pads per year around 3M. Well, that was enormous compared to the Magic™ tape that was the cash cow for our division. They were using one roll of Magic™ tape per year. So when I said this was going to be seven to 20 times bigger than Magic™ tape, people were incredulous. They wouldn't believe it. They thought, "Go back to the lab; you don't know anything about marketing." But I knew people's addictions to the sticky note when I gave them samples.

PAGE 1  PAGE 2