An Homage to a Failure

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Spencer Silver died. His biggest success was a failure.

The story goes that Silver was working on adhesive that could be used for aircraft construction. He failed. He invented something different — adhesive that stuck to surfaces but could be peeled off and reused.

For years, he believed it could be helpful but didn’t know what to do with it. Thus, he became a champion for the adhesive — acrylate copolymer microspheres.

It took years before he connected with Art Fry in another division, trying to develop new products. Fry didn’t quite know what to do with it either but found a situation in his life where he thought it might be helpful.

It seems that at his church, he used small slips of paper to bookmark songs in his hymnal, but they would fall out. Thus, to use Dr. Silvers adhesive to create a bookmark that stayed in place.

I’ll spare you more of the story and tell you that Silver and Fry were the inventors of the Post-it note, a failure that became a phenomenal success.

Within this story, there are a couple of lessons.

Silver made something they didn’t know what to do with. He championed it within his company for years.