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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)??!?
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 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.
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...
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!
Romy and Michelle invented Post Its