[0x0000000]

> If you ask the average person what the company 3M does, odds are if they have a few gray hairs hanging out on their scalp, they might say that the company makes floppy disks.

That's crazy, I wouldn't think anyone would first and foremost associate 3M with floppies instead of adhesives, even those with a few grays like myself.

They make post-its for chrissake, and we're gonna pretend they're most known for floppies?

[jll29]

> They make post-its for chrissake

Wikipedia to the rescue:

"3M Company (originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) is an American multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, healthcare, and consumer goods. The company produces over 60,000 products under several brands, including adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, personal protective equipment, window films, paint protection films, dental and orthodontic products, electrical and electronic connecting and insulating materials, medical products, car-care products electronic circuits, healthcare software, and optical films. It is based in Maplewood, a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota."

Although recently not doing so well due to one lawsuit, they have a wonderful rule that nudges management to add new products to its portfolio sooner and more aggresively than other companies, so I associate them with innovation.

The now-famous "Post-It notes" were such a disruptive new innovation, made from scrap paper that was left over when cutting larger pages: literally rubbish/garbage turned into a new revenue stream.

[redblacktree]

> Although recently not doing so well due to one lawsuit, they have a wonderful rule that nudges management to add new products to its portfolio sooner and more aggresively than other companies, so I associate them with innovation.

What rule is that?

[esafak]

I have no idea why they shoehorned 3M into the article. Floppies rose and fell independently of 3M.

[OJFord]

If I picture a floppy it definitely has a 3M logo either on the paper label or stamped into the plastic.

But I'm with the sibling commenter to you who says 'adhesive tape' as the first thing '3M' brings to mind. People talk about '3M-backed X' to mean basically 'self-adhesive X' (and maybe express a preference for adhesive brand, but it's common enough the knock-offs use it as an SEO keyword too).

[skissane]

> If I picture a floppy it definitely has a 3M logo either on the paper label or stamped into the plastic.

I do remember seeing 3M floppies, but in my memory Verbatim were more common. And, in the 5.25 inch era, Nashua

[creatonez]

3M is only interesting in retrospect. They were one of the first manufacturers to get out of the floppy business, but they also had some of the highest quality disks. So as soon as floppies started dying, the durability and quality fell off a cliff. But if you come across a 3M disk in the modern era (floppies are still used by textile equipment), it might actually store your data without breaking.

[hypercube33]

Actually I think they spun off their media business to imation who kept making CDs and floppies

[creatonez]

The article points out how Imation was eventually bought out just for the trademark, so it sounds like they gave up on the manufacturing / material science and just became like any other floppy disk.

[skissane]

> They make post-its for chrissake, and we're gonna pretend they're most known for floppies?

How many people actually remember that post-its is a 3M product? Maybe buried deep in my memory, but not at the top of it

If you’d asked me to name a 3M product, the first thing that would pop into my head is Fluorinert-range of electrically inert cooling chemicals, used to cool electronics, e.g. in the 1980s Cray 2 supercomputer: stuff many overclockers daydream about but very few ever use (primarily due to how extremely expensive it is, although environmental and safety issues are also a factor). Never seen the stuff in person, but the idea of it is cool

[tristor]

I mostly associate 3M with film products, because that's what they're most known for in the car world. If you want high-quality paint protection film or tint film at a commercial scale, it's usually from 3M (although they have some competitors like Xpel). When I think about adhesives, I think about Permatex, but I didn't realize Scotch and Duck tape were 3M products, so I have probably used way more 3M adhesives than I realized.

When I think about floppy disks, especially 3.5" floppy disks, I mostly think of Sony and Toshiba. Both made floppy disks, but Sony invented them, Toshiba was the first to put a 3.5" floppy disk drive in a laptop, and Sony made one of the first consumer digital cameras which stored photos on a floppy disk (Sony Mavica). I don't even remotely think of 3M. I would associate the brand name "Fellows" more with floppies than 3M, because they were the company that made the 50 and 100 floppy storage trays you could buy at any office store. When I moved in 2022, I threw out nearly 600 floppy disks I still had in a closet for some reason, including a copy of the Windows 3.11 installer set.

[nine_k]

I used a ton of floppies since mid-1980s and until early 2000s. The names I actively associate with floppies in my visual memory are BASF, TDK, Maxell, and Sony. I did have the occasional 3M floppy, but these were somehow rare.

OTOH 3M easily evokes images of all things adhesive.

[LeoPanthera]

I would have said adhesive tape. And then maybe magnetic tape.

Followed shortly by "industrial chemicals".

[ijijijjij]

I associate 3M with the production of chemicals

[saurik]

I feel like in recent years people--not just relevant trade professionals but a ton of normal people--have also come to recognize them for making protective gear including, very specifically, N95 masks.

[_carbyau_]

Nerdy but - last Xmas 3M got hundreds of dollars of my family money.

I got speed tape, ruby tape, silicone fiberglass hi-low temp tape. I don't really need them, I admire the engineering and I'm kinda afraid to use these tapes given how much they cost.

But yeah, the 3M brand = adhesives in my household.

[mensetmanusman]

My favorite is their nuclear duct tape:

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-17542R/3M-Duct-Cloth-...

[_carbyau_]

Oh! Who doesn't want to answer:

"Duct tape, sure... I got nuclear duct tape in the drawer over there."

3M getting more of my money for my next birthday I guess.