The Baboon Congress

Tiny Paper Storm

54 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Sherrilee.

Art Fry is my hero.

That’s right, my hero. I know, I know. Heroism brings to mind Superman, Wonder Woman, firefighters and soldiers – the sort of super-human person who arrives a the last moment to rescue the helpless and the lost. For me, that guy is Art Fry, an inventor who provided me with an essential workplace tool.

Art Fry was born on August 19, 1931 in Owatonna, Minnesota. He studied chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota and while he was still in school, he took a job at 3M; back then it was called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. From the beginning he worked in the new product development area. In 1973 he came up with a use for another engineer’s unique adhesive; he got the idea because little slips of paper that he used to mark his choir book always fell out. It was the birth of the Post-It® Note.

Post-It note

I’ve been in love with Post-It® Notes from the time I entered the workforce. I can’t get enough of them! Little notes about which store to call, little notes about ordering more of that bestseller, little notes with birthdays that I don’t want to forget, little shopping lists, little to-do lists, little bookmarks – you name it.

No matter the task, I can figure out how using a Post-It® Note will improve the process! And I’m not alone. Take a look at how these guys have used Post-It® Notes to waste vast amounts of company time.

PostIts

Seeing all this Post-It® Note carnage is fun but also troubling, since I don’t like waste and I’ve become something of a collector. At home I have a little basket in my studio with all my Post-It® Notes pads and at work I have over 40 pads of notes, from little arrow-shaped notes to large lined notes. I have funny workplace notes and notes from hotels around the world, Disney notes and Muppets notes. I have a couple of pads that are over 25 years old; these are the ones that I think are particularly hilarious so I have used them sparingly over the years. If anyone ever creates a Post-It® Note Museum, I’m destined to be a major benefactor.

And now as a promotional deal, 3M is running a Dreams for Good contest for people who “like” their Post-It® Note Facebook page. The rules are rather involved, but basically you write down your idea for improving the world on a Post-It® Note and send in a picture of it. If your entry is a winner, you get $25,000 to start putting your inspiration into practice.

Sounds like it would be fun to enter, but winning would be a lot of work.

All of this commotion can be traced directly to Art Fry’s brilliant solution to a rather ordinary problem. So you can have your winged and caped heroes and crusaders. Art Fry rescued me from a world without Post-It® Notes. And for that, I will always be grateful.

Name a simple invention that has improved your life.

54 thoughts on “Tiny Paper Storm”

  1. RIse and Shine Baboons!

    Thanks VS, for a great post! That video is something else. Mesmerizing.

    What could I think of that tops the Post-it Note? My relationship with them is as loving as VS’s–they are so handy. I do not collect them, though. I do have a work desk drawer full so I never run out of them. Horrors!

    I have my list of small, but vital things I WISH I had invented. Post-its are at the top. A few other items as follows:

    Papertowels
    Kleenex
    Rubberbands
    Glue Sticks
    Sandwich bags with self-closing tops (Note: not the bags of purchased items with the self-closing strip which does not work. That just irritates me.)

    Polymer Clay is my invention of choice to answer VS’ question–my art medium. It gives me joy.

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  2. Good morning. Great one, VS. Amazing video. I am looking at a simple invention that has worked well for me. A small plastic vial with a plastic lid that is attached to it.

    I bought these plastic vials to use for seed storage. When the lid is snapped on they are air tight. That makes them good for seed storage because seeds that are have been dried to keep well in storage will stay dry. In containers that are not air tight seeds can pick up moisture from the air and will not remain well dried. The vials come in several sizes which is good because the smallest ones work well for small seeds and bigger ones are good for larger seeds.

    These vials are well made and can be reused many times. I have many uses for them other than seed storage. They make good pill boxes and are good containers for small items of all kinds. A seed company sells them to gardeners and they are used commercially as sample containers in laboratories. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is the place that I buy them.

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  3. Velcro and the thermos
    Velcro has long been the greatest realization of and harnessing all that mature has to offer. Remember sand burrs? The inspiration for Velcro .
    I heard post it notes were discovered when a 3m guy was looking for a glue that stuck forever and instead he got the post it note glue that sticks to everything but comes undone so easily he adapted it for another use. Well done but a far cry from duplicating the intricacies of the sand burr. I love Velcro
    And the thermos… It keeps hot stuff hot and it keeps cold stuff cold… How does it know?
    On my way back from ely
    Catch up later

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      1. iPhone is a format used while traveling
        The ironing of lowercase years ago was the free flow of thought without having to deal with caps and all. It has evolved a bit but ease is the primary objective and it just isn’t east on these auto dictate media nazi devices so I do the best I can

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    2. I like Velcro. It does have it’s negative side. It sticks to things when it shouldn’t and dirt get stuck in Velcro making it less effective. However, the positives our weight the negatives. I especially like Velcro on the boots I wear in the winter because it is much easier to take those boots on and off using the Velcro straps than it would be otherwise.

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      1. My proof reading is not good this morning. It should be “out weight” not “our weight” in the above reply. Also, I hope my typos in my first comment this morning didn’t make that too confusing.

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      2. And dog hair gets into Velcro. My Irish Setter has a Thundershirt that she wears at night in the summer, in case of inclement weather; it uses wide strips of Velcro. Every few weeks I have to “de-hair” the strips using a safety pin.

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        1. OK, now that’s I’ve read that, it makes it seem like the shirt velcroes (is that the correct verbing?) directly to the dog. This is not correct and putting the shirt on her or taking it off does not pull her hair. Just that Velcro seems to suck up any stray hair in the vicinity.

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  4. Great post, vs. That’s a great video. 3M’s marketing department must have had a wonderful time making it. This is a short test post to see if I’m allowed to post this AM; WP wouldn’t let me all weekend.

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    1. Eepybird, who made the video, are the same folks who did all the Diet Coke/Mentos experiments. My guess is that 3M was more than happy to donate the Post Its, but I don’t know that for sure.

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  5. I have a wonderful yard tool called a weed wrench. It’s very good for pulling out those little volunteer trees that come up in areas that are not mowed. It’s basically a big pliers with a mechanism that locks the plier part onto the plant’s stem. The base of the tool functions as a fulcrum and a long handle levers the offending plant out of the ground, roots and all.

    I have no ownership or investment in the company that makes it, nor do they pay me to promote it. So this is a completely unsolicited testimonial.

    VS, you did not mention whether you own any 3M stock. Full disclosure is required when you author a blog post, you know.

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        1. A Robostir does require batteries, and so is not quite as simple an invention as a weed wrench. I do think my Robostir has improved my life, though.

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  6. After this weekend, I have to vote for packing tape and hand carts as my inventions of choice. The move went as well as such things can go, but I am really glad it is over. Now we have to get daughter to college this Saturday, and then I can rest a little.

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    1. Good grief…. packing tape. Didn’t even THINK of that. One more thing for my growing “to do” list before next Thursday!

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    2. Packing tape? Apple boxes from the grocery store produce dept and wine bottle cases are the only things required for a move. If you’re gonna cheat and use packing tape you may as well hire movers

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      1. You are a moving purist, I see. I find liquor store boxes pretty handy. Daughter refuses to use them on her move, however. She feels it isn’t too appropriate to use them to move to a Lutheran college into a room she will share with a pastor’s daughter. Son didn’t have time to scrounge for boxes, and yes, he did hire movers to load up the truck with the heavy furniture. There were no movers except us at the other end of the move, hence my exhaustion and soreness of back today.

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        1. We’re actually borrowing bins from friend/neighbor. And she also has the little hand truck. The guy who gave the housing/dorm talk to the parents at Orientation said that if you are really smart, you won’t carry anything on move-in day. Just let the movers and students do it all. That’s my plan – we’ll see now that shakes out!

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        2. So your daughter doesn’t need a source for good fake I’d? Pastors kids are usually wired on that kind of stuff.
          Sherrilee said teenager didn’t need help at eau Claire either

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        3. She isn’t a drinker, but she knows that all she has to do is drive to Winnipeg where the drinking age is 18. New roommate doesn’t appear to be a partier, either, status as pastor’s kid not withstanding.

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  7. Yes, clear packing tape is right up there, great for mending paperback books.
    And super glue – some pottery can be mended with it so there are no visible seams.
    For sewing, there is none other: the seam ripper.
    Ball point pen, esp. the ones that don’t leave globs of ink behind.
    I still love my hand held egg beater.

    I’ll be back later with more, I’m sure – fun, VS.

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    1. More uses for packing tape:

      Mending torn client files and all other files
      Strengthening 3-Ring binders, notebooks, and folder seems
      Using any place duct tape might repair but where you don’t want to SEE it
      “Merging” documents to be copied on a copy machine with out the line scotch tape leaves (also 3M)

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  8. Ooh, the yellow Paper Mate mechanical pencils that have the retractable lead so you can get the right length and it doesn’t break off.

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  10. The needle nose pliers (useful for a variety of things, many of which are not “standard” use); lip balm in a little tube; the “classic” Swiss Army knife with its tiny tweezers, scissors and flat head screwdriver on the end of the file; the rubber spatula…I’m sure I will think of more. I’m with VS on Velcro – neat stuff, but it’s a mess when dog hair is involved (Barney also has a Thundershirt), and tim on the Thermos (how *does* it know I want hot things hot and cold things cold?..).

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  11. Had 3- and 10-year-old grandkids all weekend; there’s a reason you have kids when you’re young. Glad to be back at work this morning! In response to CBs query on Saturday about why time flies so much faster as you age, I heard this explanation years ago and it makes sense to me. When you’re young each chunk of time is a larger percentage of your elapsed life. To a 3 year-old, a month is only 1/36 of their life; to a 60 year-old it’s 1/720. No wonder time compresses as you get older when each day is such a tiny piece of where you’ve been. That explanation alleviates my astonishment at the current pace of time. The phrase “I can’t wait until . . ” is no longer part of my useful lexicon; I know that no matter how long it is until something is scheduled, it will be time to go before I’m ready.

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    1. I’ve heard it said that you can fix anything if you have duct tape and WD-40. Use duct tape if it moves when it shouldn’t; WD-40 if it doesn’t move when it should.

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  14. Things, wonderful things you mention. But I want to switch to the eternal and wonderful and small and unexpectedly found.
    My morning grace: Sitting on the patio reading this a.m. Got lost in thought looking out into the soybean field, vaguely at a spot 45 away. Then I realized what I was looking at, It was the badger I have been told was around and had yet to see.
    “GLORY be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
    Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough.”
    And badgers in the soybeans.

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    3. I’ve never seen a badger in the wild. When I was a school kid a conservation officer pointed out holes that he said were made by badgers in an effort to dig out burrowing animals.

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        1. They work remarkably well and are fun and attractive. I tried to store them by sticking them on the side of the fridge but the vertical orientation was beyond the staying power of their suction. I don’t have one that fits a 9×13 pan yet, that’s next on my list.

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    2. Evening. Morning–

      I tried to post earlier today but WP didn’t like me.
      We have some of those silicone covers; they are fascinating! Do they work? I’m not sure; we’ve never used them in a practical sense… just played with them in the kitchen. But they should work!

      Steve mentioned duct tape. I tried to talk earlier about Gaff Tape; a theater thing that’s better than Duct tape. Or tieline. Sort of like black twine. Useful for all sorts of things.
      And my pliers. With pliers, twine and baling wire I can fix anything!

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