Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page B
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Ads: Link
Since then he had been in great demand because he was such a superb piano tuner.
What Happened: It worked—the story ran all over the country, and was picked up by the London Daily Mirror , which even ran a photo (an actor hired to dress up in Chinese costume). Bacon even got calls from piano owners asking how they could get in touch with Keye. “But the funniest repercussion of all,” Bacon writes, “came when Streisand—who had refused to give interviews in the first place—complained to the producer because the piano tuner in the movie was getting more publicity than the star.”
----
“Seersucker” comes from a Persian word—shir-o-shakar—that means “milk and sugar.”
----
THE BIRTH OF POST-ITS
Post-It Notes now seem like a logical and obvious product. In fact, you’re probably so used to seeing Post-Its around your house or office that sometimes it’s hard to imagine there was a time when they didn’t exist. Actually, they began as a mistake, and almost didn’t even make it into the market. Here’s Jack Mingo’s story of how they were invented.
S TICKIES
In 1964, a 3-M chemist named Spencer Silver was experimenting with a new adhesive. Out of curiosity, he added too much of a “reactant” chemical...and got a totally unexpected result: a milky white liquid that turned crystal-clear under pressure. He characterized it as “tacky” but not “aggressively adhesive.”
He also found that it was “narcissistic”—i.e., it tended to stick to itself more than anything else. If you put it on one surface and stuck a piece of paper on it, either all or none of the adhesive would come off when you peeled off the paper.
STICKY SITUATION
Silver was intrigued with the stuff, but couldn’t get his superiors at 3-M excited. So he wandered the hallways of the company giving demonstrations and presentations. He nearly had to beg 3-M to patent it.
Silver was sure there was a use for his adhesive—he just didn’t know what it was. “Sometimes I was so angry because this new thing was so obviously unique,” he says. “I’d tell myself, ‘Why can’t you think of a product? It’s your job!’”
EUREKA
Finally, in 1974, someone came up with a problem to match Silver’s solution.
----
Second Street is the most common street name in the U.S.; First Street is the 6th.
----
Every Sunday, Arthur Fry, another 3-M chemist, directed the choir in his church. He always marked songs in the hymnal with little scraps of paper. But one Sunday, while signaling the choir to stand, he fumbled his hymnal and all the bookmarks fell to the floor. As he frantically tried to find his place, he thought, “If only there was a way to get them to stick to the page.” That’s when he rememberedseeing Silver’s “now-it-sticks, now-it-doesn’t” demonstration years earlier....And while the choir sang, he started thinking of situations where semi-sticky paper might be helpful.
The next morning, he rushed to work and tracked down some of Silver’s adhesive. He found there were still problems to work out—like how to make sure the adhesive didn’t come off on the document—and he worked with company chemists to solve them. He even created a machine in his basement that would make manufacturing easier by applying the adhesive in a continuous roll. When he was done, he found that the machine was bigger than his basement doorway...and it couldn’t be disassembled without ruining it. So he knocked out a part of his basement wall.
NOT YET
Fry and his team began producing prototype Post-Its. As a form of informal marketing research, they distributed the sticky notes to offices around the building. They were a hit. “Once you start using them,” one enthusiastic co-worker told him, “you can’t stop.”
Despite in-house success, the 3-M marketing department didn’t believe Post-Its would sell. They kept asking: “Why would anybody buy this ‘glorified scratch paper’ for a dollar a package?”
What Happened: It worked—the story ran all over the country, and was picked up by the London Daily Mirror , which even ran a photo (an actor hired to dress up in Chinese costume). Bacon even got calls from piano owners asking how they could get in touch with Keye. “But the funniest repercussion of all,” Bacon writes, “came when Streisand—who had refused to give interviews in the first place—complained to the producer because the piano tuner in the movie was getting more publicity than the star.”
----
“Seersucker” comes from a Persian word—shir-o-shakar—that means “milk and sugar.”
----
THE BIRTH OF POST-ITS
Post-It Notes now seem like a logical and obvious product. In fact, you’re probably so used to seeing Post-Its around your house or office that sometimes it’s hard to imagine there was a time when they didn’t exist. Actually, they began as a mistake, and almost didn’t even make it into the market. Here’s Jack Mingo’s story of how they were invented.
S TICKIES
In 1964, a 3-M chemist named Spencer Silver was experimenting with a new adhesive. Out of curiosity, he added too much of a “reactant” chemical...and got a totally unexpected result: a milky white liquid that turned crystal-clear under pressure. He characterized it as “tacky” but not “aggressively adhesive.”
He also found that it was “narcissistic”—i.e., it tended to stick to itself more than anything else. If you put it on one surface and stuck a piece of paper on it, either all or none of the adhesive would come off when you peeled off the paper.
STICKY SITUATION
Silver was intrigued with the stuff, but couldn’t get his superiors at 3-M excited. So he wandered the hallways of the company giving demonstrations and presentations. He nearly had to beg 3-M to patent it.
Silver was sure there was a use for his adhesive—he just didn’t know what it was. “Sometimes I was so angry because this new thing was so obviously unique,” he says. “I’d tell myself, ‘Why can’t you think of a product? It’s your job!’”
EUREKA
Finally, in 1974, someone came up with a problem to match Silver’s solution.
----
Second Street is the most common street name in the U.S.; First Street is the 6th.
----
Every Sunday, Arthur Fry, another 3-M chemist, directed the choir in his church. He always marked songs in the hymnal with little scraps of paper. But one Sunday, while signaling the choir to stand, he fumbled his hymnal and all the bookmarks fell to the floor. As he frantically tried to find his place, he thought, “If only there was a way to get them to stick to the page.” That’s when he rememberedseeing Silver’s “now-it-sticks, now-it-doesn’t” demonstration years earlier....And while the choir sang, he started thinking of situations where semi-sticky paper might be helpful.
The next morning, he rushed to work and tracked down some of Silver’s adhesive. He found there were still problems to work out—like how to make sure the adhesive didn’t come off on the document—and he worked with company chemists to solve them. He even created a machine in his basement that would make manufacturing easier by applying the adhesive in a continuous roll. When he was done, he found that the machine was bigger than his basement doorway...and it couldn’t be disassembled without ruining it. So he knocked out a part of his basement wall.
NOT YET
Fry and his team began producing prototype Post-Its. As a form of informal marketing research, they distributed the sticky notes to offices around the building. They were a hit. “Once you start using them,” one enthusiastic co-worker told him, “you can’t stop.”
Despite in-house success, the 3-M marketing department didn’t believe Post-Its would sell. They kept asking: “Why would anybody buy this ‘glorified scratch paper’ for a dollar a package?”
Similar Books
