The glue that failed

In 1968, a chemist at 3M named Spencer Silver set out to make a very strong glue. He failed.
What he made instead stuck to things, but only lightly. It held on, and then it let go. You could peel it off and use it again, and it left no mark. By every measure of the day, it was a bad adhesive.
The glue with no job
Silver did not throw it away. He told people about it and showed it around the company, but for years nobody could think what it was for. A glue that does not stay stuck seemed like a problem, not a product.
The hymn book
In 1974, a colleague named Art Fry heard Silver talk about it. Fry sang in a church choir, and he had an annoying habit to deal with. He marked his place in the hymn book with scraps of paper, and they kept falling out.
He thought about the weak glue. A bookmark that clings without tearing the page would be exactly what he needed.
From that bookmark came the sticky note.
It still took years
The idea did not take off right away. An early version was tried in a few cities in the late 1970s, and people did not much care. What changed things was handing them out. Once people had a pad on their desks, they started using it for everything, and it spread. The Post-it Note went on sale across the United States in 1980.
What it teaches
A few things are worth remembering:
• A failure is a result. The glue did not do what Silver wanted, but it did something real.
• An idea can wait for its use. The glue sat for years before someone had a problem it solved.
• Try it before you judge it. People did not know they wanted sticky notes until they held one.
Most of us have a scrap of paper or an unfinished thought that looks useless today. Keep it. It might be waiting for the problem it solves.