Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, was trying to create a strong adhesive but he actually created a really weak one. He shared his findings with his colleagues and went started over again. A few years later, Art Fry, a another scientist at 3M, was having problems keeping his book mark in place during choir practice. He remembered Silver's weak adhesive and the Post-It not was born.
What I love about this story is the culture of knowledge sharing that was the catalyst for innovation. As Fry later explained, "At 3M we're a bunch of ideas. We never throw an idea away because you never know when someone else will need it."
Creative teams inevitably have more ideas than they can ope to implement. Some are not technologically feasible at the present, while in other cases the organization is simply not ready. The challenge is to avoid losing the ideas you don't use. What is nice to have today may be necessary to have tomorrow. In the end, having ideas is the easy part. Keeping them alive and accessible is the real measure of success.
If you want your ideas to live, share them!
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