How to Fight the Bad Logic of the Internet | Argument Clinic

The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

 The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

3M’s story, in its own words, suggests a similar crisis of culture. In A Century of Innovation, a book published by the company in 2002, around the time of its 100-year anniversary, the company compared the creation of the spin-off, which it called “the most wrenching decision in its history,” to that of its determination eight years earlier to sell its Duplicating Products Division, which sold copying machines:

Of all the businesses 3M has shed over its 100 years, the two seminal decisions that people point to as most significant involved the sale of 3M’s Duplicating Products business to Harris Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, and the spin-off of 3M’s data-storage and imaging-systems businesses in 1996 creating a new company called Imation in Oakdale, Minnesota, near 3M headquarters. The two decisions have several elements in common—both involved businesses that 3M created and, in fact, ranked number one in the marketplace for decades. They were “homegrown” businesses—largely created within 3M and commercialized and built with the energy of many internal sponsors and champions. The businesses were risky because the products were based on pioneering technologies. They not only changed the basis of competition; they also created all new, global industries. The businesses were highly profitable for decades, and they represented a significant share of the company’s total annual revenues. They also produced many of 3M’s next generation of leaders.

Todays Thought

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. 

-Booker T. Washington, reformer, educator, and author (5 Apr 1856-1915)

Todays Thought

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. 

-Maya Angelou, poet (4 Apr 1928-2014)

Todays Thought

I am only one, / But still I am one. / I cannot do everything, / But still I can do something; / And because I cannot do everything, / I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. 

-Edward Everett Hale, author (3 Apr 1822-1909)

Todays Thought

A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you're keeping. 

-Kenneth Tynan, critic and writer (2 Apr 1927-1980)

Todays Thought

Make no judgments where you have no compassion. 

-Anne McCaffrey, writer (1 Apr 1926-2011)