Post-It Notes - 25 Years of Hypertext in Paper 142
RexDart writes "A Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine, The Rake, has a fascinating article revealing the history and development of the humble, ubiquitous Post-It Note. An intriguing tale of a dedicated visionary working the system to bring an innovative product to life in a monolithic, tradition-bound organization." From the article: "Two and a half decades later, as the little yellow notes celebrate their silver anniversary, it's easy to forget what a recent innovation they are. Thanks to their material simplicity, they seem more closely related to workplace antiquities like the stapler and the hole-punch than integrated chips. Instead, they're an exemplary product of their time. Foreshadowing the web, they offered an easy way to link one piece of information to another in a precisely contextual way. Foreshadowing email, they made informal, asynchronous communication with your co-workers a major part of modern office life."
Obvious Question (Score:5, Funny)
Really ... (Score:1)
Re:Really ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Really ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Really ... (Score:1)
Re:Really ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really ... (Score:2)
Re:Obvious Question (Score:1)
Re:Obvious Question (Score:2)
Re:Obvious Question (Score:1)
FYI, from the article:
So, nothing interesting or with any relevance outside it's context. Which was the point of the article, think on.
Pitty, the "Come here, Fry, I need you" suggestion would have been nice.
Re:Obvious Question (Score:1)
Post-It Note Web Map (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Post-It Note Web Map (Score:2)
yea (Score:5, Insightful)
the saying 'someone's junk is another's treasure' comes to mind.
http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/post-it.as
Re:yea (Score:3, Insightful)
someone's junk is another's treasure
Which is really why eBay exists and is so profitable!
EricNew book out on June 17th! [memwg.com]
What we used before Post-Its (Score:2)
At Bell Labs, the standard "routing slip" was green, so they were referred to as "greenies".
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
timeline (Score:5, Informative)
No, it didn't. E-mail and hypertext preceded the PostIt note by a decade or two.
Re:timeline (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:timeline (Score:2)
Re:timeline (Score:1)
Not to mention RexDart's hyperbole.
KFG
creative other use (Score:5, Funny)
Love the Post-its (Score:5, Funny)
I grew up in a 3M town and had family that worked for them. I was 10 or 11 when they came out and I remember the big deal made about them. There was a 3M exec who worked with the Junior Achievement groups and I would always be hoping and praying that he would bring some Post-It notes in to school so I could get a pad.
It is interesting to note the products of unintended consequences. Just a few: Post-Its, Microwave Ovens, and Vasoline.Re:Love the Post-its (Score:4, Funny)
I shudder to think what the sequence of 'unintended consequences' leading up to the invention of vaseline were.
Sadly, kind of boring (Score:1, Interesting)
The fella who noticed that wounds didn't get infected if you covered them with vaseline lived into his 90s, and credited his long life to a full-skin vaseline massage given to him by his nurse everyday.
Re:Sadly, kind of boring (Score:4, Funny)
This guy is getting a full-skin vaseline massage from a nurse every day and you think it's "sadly, kind of boring"?!
My God! I wouldn't mind helping that nurse live into her 90s using the same method (though I'd prefer she was in her 20s at the time I was doing it).
Re:Sadly, kind of boring (Score:2)
Robert Chesebrough, the inventor/discoverer, wasa wack guy. It gets even better:
Re:Sadly, kind of boring (Score:4, Interesting)
The best use of Vaseline® has to be by Mr. Chesebrough, himself. He believed that a person should eat a spoonful every day for good health. He lived to ninety-six years of age and never missed that delicious spoonful every morning.
Vaseline is about as harmless as mineral oil. Eating a spoonful of vaseline every morning would keep him regular and otherwise be harmless assuming he didn't inhale any of it and monitored his fat-soluable vitamin intake. Now, gasoline would cause him some real problems if he had a spoonful of that every morning.
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably the most lucrative example of this is Viagra, which was originally developed as a heart medication. I heard that the original developers considered its unintended side effect so unfortunate that they ceased development of the heart medicine until someone at Pfizer realized that perhaps the side effect might be worth something. I suspect that's an urban legend though....
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:2)
I'm not entirely certain about this; it's all from HS anatomy.
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, Propecia was originally a prostate medication. It blocks the uptake of testosterone in certain tissues. The effect they wanted was that the prostate would shrink. It also makes one's dick shrink and it stops hair from falling out (eunuchs don't go bald, by the way -- one way to think about Propecia is that it chemically castrates the man who is taking it). One of these side effects was worth a lot of money.
There's a lot of tetracycline that gets prescribed in this country for zits.
There was one drug I remember reading about that was intended to treat some kind of frivolous Western medical problem, didn't do so well at that, but turned out to work really well on a particular tropical disease. The drug company gave the remaining stock to Doctors Without Borders, but didn't make any more of the drug because there was no profit in it.
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:2)
You really shouldn't learn to spell things from song titles [lyricsfreak.com]. Musicians are frequently the worst authority on literacy. The word you want is Vaseline [vaseline.com].
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:2)
Re:Love the Post-its (Score:2)
Other ideas for Post-It technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Other ideas for Post-It technology (Score:2)
If you are working with plexiglass that already has a sheet of plastic on top of it, to be removed to reveal the final surface, then even the permanent spray adhesive would not be an issue, as you would just peal it off with the surface protection plastic.
Even with that, over the long term, it would probably be more efficient to use a laser or watter jet
Re:Other ideas for Post-It technology (Score:3, Informative)
mod parent up (Score:1)
Re:Other ideas for Post-It technology (Score:4, Insightful)
KFG
Not just the /. Eds that are clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite common belief, e-mail actually pre-dates the Internet; in fact, existing e-mail systems were a crucial tool in creating the Internet. [wikipedia.org]
Email originated before I was born, and I'm old enough to remember the introduction of the Post-It.
Re:Not just the /. Eds that are clueless (Score:1)
Come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Come on! (Score:5, Funny)
bloody paper clip? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the real innovation was the glue that wouldn't "set", so you could remove the thing later w/o tearing the original. It was a failed experiment that they found a use for. I believe the guy was looking for a way to keep his place in a hymm book at church. He didn't want to deface it.
Re:Come on! (Score:1)
It's not quite that far out of line. It is possible to see the connection they've tried to make, between directly linking an idea to another idea without interfereing with the first and HTML, because that is kind of how HTML works, but I understand what you're saying. It's quite a bit of a stretch, but the items are related more closely than red pens and versioni
Electronic Equivalents (Score:4, Funny)
I'm curious: do fellow Slashdotters find these programs helpful versus other ways of keeping track of snippets of information, such as e-mail?
Re:Electronic Equivalents (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Electronic Equivalents (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously though I prefer real notes as I don't need to login to my desktop and wait for all the networking stuff just to read a note saying "X tried to call... can you call back?"
Re:Electronic Equivalents (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually in Mac OS 10.4, the postit notes widget can be made to do all of that. This hint [macosxhints.com] at MacOSXHints.com shows how to keep the stickies always on top. They are easy to move and can be put back into the dashboard at any time. Maybe not as good as on
Re:Electronic Equivalents (Score:3, Informative)
I started using freeware post-it like software that allowed arbitrary sized/coloured notes to be left on the desktop, however I gradually migrated to using MS Outlook notes, which I use for all of my notes. Currently I have about 40 different notes active. Usually only one or two are
Re:Electronic Equivalents (Score:3, Interesting)
They take up screen real estate, which is a very limited resource. I often use post-it notes myself, to write down useful info from the computer. More, I sometimes print sidebars and paste them to the sides of the monitor (i.e. SFR and memory map for 8052 while developing programs for it, or basic help for some new program - I had "mouse gestures" in "printed sidebars" before I remembered them.) - these actually "increase screen real estate". (same reason I think no 15" ultra-hi-res super-duper LCD scre
Users celebrate! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Users celebrate! (Score:5, Funny)
Like the poster on the wall, saying "Lexmark Z-50_Color Ink Printer." It's not going to go anywhere in the next 2-3 years.
Re:Users celebrate! (Score:2)
Re:Users celebrate! (Score:1, Funny)
Why exclusively Windows users? "Pretentious, moi?" Does usage of GNU/Linux, Mac OS or another UNIX-derivative somehow increase brain memory capacity?
Re:Users celebrate! (Score:2, Informative)
No, but said users have a bigger brain capacity to start with...
I hate post-its (Score:3, Funny)
I hate it when I come back from a lunch break and my monitor shines in yellow with gazillions of post-its from co-workers on it! Sometimes I think people just wait until you leave your desk and then attack you with post-its from behind. Office is so cruel sometimes...
Re:I hate post-its (Score:2)
Re:I hate post-its (Score:2)
But on the up-side, post-its leave no sender-side copy of themselves, nor is there any delivery confirmation mechanism. I have shirked off jobs that others have tried to shirk off on me via post-it by simply "vanishing" the note. "Dincha' see that post-i
Re:I hate post-its (Score:1)
Just a sort of plastic-paint-scraper with a receptical, it allows you, with one foul scrape, to remove all the notes and transfer them painlessly to the nearest appropriate receptacle. (Trash can or toilet - it just depends on your mood!)
More advanced models, containing, say, a shredder or some kind of incendiary device will also be covered.
I recall once possessing a similar device, but that was for removing ice from the inside on a free
There's one problem about them... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There's one problem about them... (Score:2)
Damn I hate that.
Re:There's one problem about them... (Score:1)
BANNED! (Score:5, Interesting)
On that kind of environment I strongly recommend AGAINST using sticky notes because they are apt to get lost, fall down the back of desks, under keyboards etc. and they do not stick well to fabric partitions, plus, when you see a desk/wall/monitor plastered with dozens of 'please call' or 'urgent' notes not only does it look extremely messy but it also devalues the urgency of the notes and looks unprofessional - it's a bit like if you received all incoming emails flagged urgent.
If a call centre or help desk cannot send electronic notes, I recommend a clipboard for each employee hooked by their desk in a specific location upon which A5-sized pre-printed notes can be left - because each note is arranged in the same way with regards to from/date/subject/priority etc, it is easier than wading through tons of stickies all written in a diferent way and placed on your keyboard, monitor, chair back, or whereever the person chose to leave it. Some advocate sticking notes on the monitor, but if someone comes back to their desk and needs to check something out on their computer they just peel off the pile and put it 'somewhere' to deal with later and they can get lost, forgotten or ignored.
This may all sound a bit over the top bit it just takes one note from a very important customer to go astray and you can appreciate the need for organisation and consistency - I'm not a control freak but sticky notes are not always the best way to do things in some environments.
Re:BANNED! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it does sound a little over the top... not because it's bad policy but more because I don't think it guarantees that one note from a very important customer still won't get lost somehow. I probably have a couple thousand "notes to self" in the form of text files laying around and I'm sure some of those are lost.
Chaos is chaos, and better tools probably just provide better chaos. And more expensive chaos. Wish I had an ultimate solution to suggest, but I've seen many sophisticated environments (e.g., Lotus Notes, PM tools, etc.) and not one has solved the "lost note" problem. Sigh.
Re:BANNED! (Score:3, Funny)
The Big Picture (Score:4, Interesting)
What I could do with is a way of capturing these things and then cutting and pasting portions of the thing and moving them around and then reprojecting them, rinse and repeat..
I could do it with a laser scanner (of the sort used to capture egyptian tombs) and a high deffinition projector I guess.
Good for web site design, FMEA, Business process re-engineering and the capture of complex systems.
No time to lose, I'm off to start up a new business right now, just as soon as I have recorded the idea on a postit note stuck on my monitor. Now where did I leave them....
Re:The Big Picture (Score:2)
Great for storing passwords! (Score:4, Funny)
If you are really security minded, you can simply stick it under the keyboard.
You're all wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Used Post-It Sold on eBay.... (Score:2, Insightful)
this sounds familiar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:this sounds familiar (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again you probably remembered that just after you posted, and decided it was just out
Re:this sounds familiar (Score:2)
As long as it is Star Wars season (Score:2)
"If you cut me down you will only make me stronger".
PCs, the web have not cut down post-it notes, only made them stronger or transformed them.
I still see a few computers in every office with post-it notes plastered around the monitor with fresh pads of them in every supply closet.
Every desktop I have seen has an electronic analog of post-it notes. Even gnu/linux with the KDE ( I don't know
Re:As long as it is Star Wars season (Score:1, Funny)
"But if you stick post-it glue to my back, I will fall to the floor within 2 minutes."
Re:As long as it is Star Wars season (Score:2)
And while it is not a 'Gnome' specific app, there is xpad which uses gtk extentions.
Enjoy.
-Rusty
Ah yes... The Post-it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah yes... The Post-it. (Score:2)
Re:Ah yes... The Post-it. (Score:1)
But most of all, I hate white Post-It notes. They just blend into the white background of that important document that was forwarded to you five days ago and the document was supposed to be completed and edited by you, duplicated, bound, and circulated to upper management by YOU, five minutes from now, on this date, as indicated on said Post-It.
Re:Ah yes... The Post-it. (Score:2)
I'm watching you. -your ex-roommate]
problem with post-its (Score:3, Funny)
Re:problem with post-its (Score:1)
You can always tell the cool people at work... (Score:1)
Re:You can always tell the cool people at work... (Score:2)
Somewhere I have a pad of black post-its and some opaque pastel gel pens for writing on them. :)
They didn't pay them enough... (Score:2, Interesting)
What the...? (Score:2)
Macintosh post-it notes. (Score:1)
Saturday Night Live's Macintosh Post-It Notes Parody.
Coral cache. [nyud.net]
Re:Macintosh post-it notes. (Score:2)
Virtual Post-It Notes (Score:3, Informative)
GTK+ dependencies:
http://xpad.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
For KDE:
http://pim.kde.org/components/knotes.php [kde.org]
Re:Virtual Post-It Notes (Score:2)
Enjoy.
-Rusty
Interesting Quote (Score:1)
The Post-It is a great example of bucking convention and developing something that is 1) useful and 2
Post-Mortem (Score:3, Interesting)
"has a fascinating article revealing the history and development of the humble, ubiquitous Post-It Note."
Anything small yellow and square can't be humble. Just ask SpongeBob SquarePants.
An intriguing tale of a dedicated visionary working the system to bring an innovative product to life in a monolithic, tradition-bound organization."
We are talking about Post-It Notes, right?
From the article: "Two and a half decades later, as the little yellow notes celebrate their silver anniversary, it's easy to forget what a recent innovation they are.
I suppose so, if you are generation X. Everyone else knows they are modern. Why doesn't liquid paper get the same accolades? It's been around longer. Whatever happened to liquid paper anyway?
Thanks to their material simplicity, they seem more closely related to workplace antiquities like the stapler and the hole-punch than integrated chips.
Again what about liquid paper? Workplace antiquities? A scrivener's tools are workplace antiquities: blotters, quills, inkwells, candles, etc.
Instead, they're an exemplary product of their time. Foreshadowing the web,
Ooh, puh-lease! No it didn't.
they offered an easy way to link one piece of information to another in a precisely contextual way.
What the fuck are you talking about? Post-It notes are about as contextual as writing on a cocktail napkin.
Foreshadowing email, they made informal, asynchronous communication with your co-workers a major part of modern office life."
Foreshadowing email my ass. Email existed before Post-It's. Asynchronous? Do you even know what that means? Who the fuck used Post-It Notes to communicate to other people? I just used them as reminders for myself. And if other people saw them at my desk any communication was unintentional.
Re:Post-Mortem (Score:2)
This part really bothers me:
3M is what it is (a really really big, really really successful company) solely because they hire smart people and turn them loose. They know that. They're not stupid. This wasn't one guy trying to convince a large company that he was right and they were wrong. This was a guy who had a good idea, and when he approached others for help, they went along with it and did what it took to make it successful. But I guess that wouldn't
More corporate fluff (Score:1, Insightful)
I avoid traditional media to get away from this self-serv
hypertext (Score:1)
Improving Productivity (Score:2)
3M Likes Flat Things (Score:2)
3M is very engineer-driven -- a lot of 3M products (e.g. Post-It) were invented/developed by engineers.
Of course, an engineer with a Vision still has to sell the idea to management/marketing.
The secret: make it flat. According to my source, 3M management/marketing wonks really like things flat.
Savvy engineers therefore pack their prototypes into flat boxes -- even if a cubical box would be more efficient.
-kgj
OMG (Score:2)
They get lost in the shuffle and misplaced. Those who use them lack accountability. Perhaps post it notes plugged a hole for a short time but now the world would be better without them.
Re:It's finally happened... (Score:1)