Some of the best ideas are accidents.

[James Lord]

In 1968, a Minnesota based company was trying to invent a new type of adhesive and did, although they initially believed it to be somewhat worthless. The inventor, a chemist by the name of Spencer Silver had invented a glue which was strong enough to hold light weight items together but weak enough to allow them to be separated without damage.

Mr. Arthur Fry, another company employee sang in his church choir, he began using the adhesive to hold his place. Later he would glue several pieces of scrap paper together for his secretary, as a way she could keep important hand-written notes posted in areas easy to get to. The secretary liked the pads so much she showed them to others in the secretarial pool, soon the pads were throughout the offices at the Minnesota Mining and Mineral company headquarters.

Eventually, the pads made their way to the secretary of the CEO of 3M and she made sure her boss knew of the value of the invention, which was only being used by 3M employees. Seeing the value of the item, the CEO, began the process of marketing the new invention to consumers and 3M companies introduced to Post It Note.

Clearly, some of the best inventions are those we never thought were good ideas.

[Scott Jensen]

@James Lord My grandpa was on the chemical engineering team that patented these!