Before there was email, before there were hyperlinks, before we tagged items of interest to share with others, or posted opinions about articles. or attached our own comments along with others' to someone else's post, there was a revolutionary breakthrough in how we communicate. Though a technological innovation, it was remarkable in its simplicity and flexibility. Its take-up had more to do with how users kept coming up with new ways to put the thing to use. Network effects were critical to its success. Marketing relied more on "viral" techniques than advertising.

The controlled circulation magazine for Minnesota, The Rake, celebrates Minnesota's greatest invention by recounting the compleat history of the Post-It Note.

In the wake of the Post-it Note’s huge commercial success and enduring popularity, its development is often cited as a classic example of business innovation. Most of the time, though, the tale is synopsized, elided, reduced to a few efficient paragraphs. On the face of it, this is fitting for a product that helped usher in the era of PowerPoint presentations and instant messaging.

But the story of 3M engineer Art Fry’s invention is a grand chronicle of post-industrial American enterprise. It encompasses skeptical bosses, last-ditch marketing campaigns, and that old Hollywood crowd-pleaser, “inherently tacky elastomeric copolymer microspheres.” It deserves a more in-depth telling than it typically gets.

And a delightful in-depth telling this tale receives, indeed.

Courtesy 3quarksDaily, my favorite eclectic link-blog, dedicated to "science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating."