Slashdot Mirror
Post-It Notes - 25 Years of Hypertext in Paper
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."
What was the First Post(it)??!?
Because they are comparing Post-It Notes to the Internet wouldn't it be fun (and time-comsuming) to create an Internet Map using just Post-It Notes? Of course, Post-It Notes stock would go through the roof since it would require billions of stickies but it would be fun!
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
Its amazing what somebody saw in something no one else saw a use for.
p
the saying 'someone's junk is another's treasure' comes to mind.
http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/post-it.as
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
...the world's first Post-It Note is being auctioned on eBay. It comes complete with certificate of authenticity, written directly on the Post-It itself.......uh.......oops.
Seriously! Minnesota's greatest invention prefigured email, hypertext, and the digital revolution.
No, it didn't. E-mail and hypertext preceded the PostIt note by a decade or two.
I've also seen some creative use for these notes that probably were not part of the original ideas either :-)
see a Text Widget
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.Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
I which they'd come up with full page size Post-Its with full adhesive backing with a removable liner. That way you could print off CAD drawings and use them as guide templates for drilling and cutting out parts. Sort of a poor man's CAM tool. Think of surfaces like plexiglass where you can't mark on it directly since it would ruin the finish.
Despite common belief, e-mail actually pre-dates the Internet; in fact, existing e-mail systems were a crucial tool in creating the Internet.
Email originated before I was born, and I'm old enough to remember the introduction of the Post-It.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
You realise that before post-it notes, people would simply use a sheet of paper and some duct tape or a bloody paper-clip? (the non virtual, non annoying kind). The brilliant idea of post-it notes was to have pre-cut, pre-glued paper notes. Claiming that post-it notes are ancestors of hyper-links is like saying that the red pen used by teachers is the ancestor of versioning systems...
There have been a number of software products based on the Post-It concept, such as 3M's own app (which includes an ability to transfer notes using XML) and Apple's Stickies.
I'm curious: do fellow Slashdotters find these programs helpful versus other ways of keeping track of snippets of information, such as e-mail?
If it wasn't for the Post-it-note, how on EARTH would users remember their passwords! Got to be the best invention ever for Windows users in businesses everywhere!
"Foreshadowing email, they made informal, asynchronous communication with your co-workers a major part of modern office life."
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...
They are bitch to remove from inside the floppy drives.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Amongst other things I provide consultancy for help desks and call centres (migration, training, expansion, logistics, workflow etc.)
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.
AT&ROFLMAO
Theres still no better way to get a bunch of people to collaborate over solving a problem than sticking ideas on postit notes on a framework sketched out on a Very Large Piece of Paper (TM.) stuck on a wall.
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....
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
1980? geez, that means Romy had to be about 9 or 10 years old when she invented them.
Just jot it down and stick it on your monitor.
If you are really security minded, you can simply stick it under the keyboard.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
Romy and Michelle invented Post Its
Seems someone tried to mark this anniversary by selling a post-it note on eBay UK. Bids got upto £1.8 million, but then that bid was retracted. I managed to get a screenshot of it. See the screenshot here
If Carling made signatures they would be the best signatures in the world...
from TFA: "At 3M, however, there is a long-standing policy that permits employees to spend fifteen percent of their time working on projects of their own choosing." I guess Google can't be credited with innovating that (although I've never seen anyone claim that they had). I wonder how many other companies have done something like this?
I hate you, Post-it Notes. I hate the person who invented you. And most of all, I hate my uptight, neurotic and textbook case of passive behavior ex-roommate who communicated exclusively through you.
Hi. I'm just writing to inform you that in the English language it is generally considered appropriate to acknowledge the difference between the word "what" and the word "when." They really are quite different.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I've always liked the concept of post-it notes, since my memory for tasks is abysmal (or rather I'm too easily distracted from the tasks I need to complete). I've tried using post-it notes, but the problem is that usually after a few hours, they stop sticking. I've tried using other brands but I can't get any of them to stick for more than an hour or two. Anyone have any experience with a brand that will actually stay stuck on vertical surface (e.g. monitor, fridge, etc) for more than an hour or two?
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
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.
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).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I know one of the primary developers of the chemical they used to make it sticky...he was on the original team. And I think I rememeber him telling me that they only gave them a one time 50K bonus. (Might have been 500K, but he said it was pretty small, so I think it was 50K). Thats sad.
Yuck. Point taken, but what a nasty mental image! Wouldn't want too many of those on my desk. :-)
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.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
GTK+ dependencies:
http://xpad.sourceforge.net/
For KDE:
http://pim.kde.org/components/knotes.php
Whenever said it doesn't really matter.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Everything about that blurb annoys me:
"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.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
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.
With great power comes great fan noise.