That is the "official story" -- and as you can see Post-its is described as a product of the innovative environment at 3M. The way I heard the tale from those who were there ran like this.
It is true that Fry was developing adhesives -- what else do you do at 3M? But he made one that seemed like a ridiculous mistake. It would not stick permanently. So he put it to one side and went on to better things until one day either he or a colleague discovered a unique need. He sang in a choir and they did lots of different hymns from the hymnbook. The practice was to put page markers in the book so they could find the right hymn at the right time. Only problem was the page markers kept falling out, so they were always losing their place. And -- if they glued the page marks in it would ruin the book. What to do? Seemed to him that glue that would not stick permanently might just do the trick. He made up a batch, tried it and it worked. Pretty soon, all the other choir members wanted their own set -- and Fry thought he might just have a business. In a short while he had more business than he could handle, and turned to some of his colleagues for some ideas as to how they might mass produce the "little stickies." Somebody suggested that they could get some development money from the research people -- they tried, but the answer came back -- What? A Glue that won't stick???? No dough ($$$$s). But Fry was not to be put off, nor were his colleagues and they created what in those day was called a Skunkworks. For those of you who don't know, a Skunk is a smelly, small animal who likes to stay out of sight, typically in basements and under porches. So a Skunkworks is a place where people do things that others might find odd, weird, offensive, or all three. This small band of folks used whatever might come to hand -- which meant that they begged, borrowed and stole resources as needed. They even used their own money. After a bit they had things pretty well together -- a product that worked. All they needed was a little packaging to make it pretty and some advertising. They took their marvelous invention to the appropriate corporate types -- who did little more than snicker -- and once again, No Money. The Skunkworks continued to skunk it out and after a while they not only had a product, a package -- but also a growing market. And most embarrassing, they were making money and it looked like they could make a lot of money. This was a problem, if only because they were all loyal 3Mers. Once more they went to the powers that be and FINALY the lofty 3M deigned to accept the lowly Post-it. All the rest is history, but it a history that seems to get re-written a bit. It now seems that the Skunkworks, once well beneath the dignity of 3M has now become a shining example of Corporate Vision. Oh Well. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Corrigan Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 1:48 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Muddling Through - and Post-its Here is a link Marei: http://www.3m.com/about3M/pioneers/fry.html Chris On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 22:37:00 GMT, Marei Kiele <mareiki...@web.de> wrote: > "Harrison Owen" <hho...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > > I am not sure that the strategy would actually work, but there are multiple > > examples of what you are talking about. The most famous one (at least in the > > US) is the story of Post-its at 3M. The innovation occurred in a totally > > messy way (didn't follow any known procedure) and the Management of 3M did > > their very best to ignore, starve, and squelch the new thing. Despite all of > > that, the little Post-it triumphed (made money) -- and at that point company > > policy changed. Suddenly the new innovation was trumpeted as the result of > > the vibrant, forward looking, boundary breaking environment of 3M. Ha :-) > > That the Post-Its story is a great one, I now hear for the the third time at least (on this list before and on the Understanding Open Space-CDs), but I never got to learn the story itself! Dear Harrison, would you please be so kind to tell it again or give a link to where I can read it - I am not American... > > Thank you!! > > Marei > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > > To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: > http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist > -- ------------------------- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
