Post-it Notes

The 3M Company encourages creativity from its employees. The company allows its researchers to spend 15 percent of their time on any project that interests them. This attitude has brought fantastic benefits not only to the employees but to the 3M Company itself Many times, a spark of an idea turned into a successful product has boosted 3M's profits tremendously.

Some years ago, a scientist in 3M's commercial office took advantage of this 15 percent creative time. This scientist, Art Fry, came up with an idea for one of 3M's best-selling products. It seems that Art Fry dealt with a small irritation every Sunday as he sang in the church choir. After marking his pages in the hymnal with small bits of paper, the small pieces would invariably fall out all over the floor.

Suddenly, an idea struck Fry. He remembered an adhesive developed by a colleague that everyone thought was a failure because it did not stick very well. "I coated the adhesive on a paper sample," Fry recalls, "and I found that it was not only a good bookmark, but it was great for writing notes. It will stay in place as long as you want it to, and then you can remove it without damage."

Yes, Art Fry hit the jackpot. The resulting product was called Post-it! and has become one of 3M's most successful office products.

From Candles to Soap

In 1879, Procter and Gamble's best seller was candles. But the company was in trouble. Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb, and it looked as if candles would become obsolete. Their fears became reality when the market for candles plummeted since they were now sold only forspecial occasions.

The outlook appeared to be bleak for Procter and Gamble. However, at this time, it seemed that destiny played a dramatic part in pulling the struggling company from the clutches of bankruptcy. A forgetful employee at a small factory in Cincinnati forgot to turn off his machine when he went to lunch. The result? A frothing mass of lather filled with air bubbles. He almost threw the stuff away but instead decided to make it into soap. The soap floated. Thus, Ivory soap was born and became the mainstay of the Procter and Gamble Company.

Why was soap that floats such a hot item at that time? In Cincinnati, during that period, some people bathed in the Ohio River. Floating soap would never sink and consequently never got lost. So, Ivory soap became a best seller in Ohio and eventually across the country also.

Like Procter and Gamble, never give up when things go wrong or when seemingly unsurmountable problems arise. Creativity put to work can change a problem and turn it into a gold mine.

Good Charlotte

Good Charlotte is an American pop punk band from Waldorf, Maryland that formed in 1996. They took their name from the children's book called "Good Charlotte: The Girls of Good Day Orphanage," written by Carol Beach York.

History

Early years & self-titled album (1995–2001)

Good Charlotte started out by playing at small bars. They soon caught the attention of pop punk band, Lit, whose song "My Own Worst Enemy" was a chart topper at the time. Good Charlotte lost the opening slot on Lit's East Coast tour in 1999. Soon after, Good Charlotte played some dates with the band Blink-182, who had just experienced mainstream success with their album, Enema of the State. All of this caught the attention of major music labels, and Good Charlotte eventually signed with Epic Records in 1999.

In 2000, they released their self-titled debut album, Good Charlotte. Y100, a now-defunct radio station in Philadelphia spun Good Charlotte's song "Little Things" before it was released as a single. It ended up being a big success on the station, so big that on Y100's nightly "Cage Match" competition (where new songs were pitted against each other and listeners could vote on which was better), "Little Things" won fifteen nights in a row, beating out bigger names, before it was retired to the cage match hall of fame.

Good Charlotte also gained a lot of momentum and popularity from "Little Things" being played by now defunct Washington radio station, 99.1 WHFS. WHFS's annual music concert, the HFStival, hosted a locals only stage and is credited with being Good Charlotte's big break.

"Little Things" was later released as a single in 2001, and peaked at #23 on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. In the second half of the year, three more singles were released from the album, "The Motivation Proclamation", "The Click" and "Festival Song", which is an ode to HFStival.

Billie Joe Armstrong

Billie Joe Armstrong (born February 17, 1972) is the lead vocalist, chief songwriter and guitarist for the rock band Green Day. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the rock band Pinhead Gunpowder and sings for garage rock band Foxboro Hot Tubs. He's also suspected of being the lead singer for new wave group The Network, though he has emphatically denied it on numerous occasions.

Early life

Billie Joe Armstrong was born in Oakland, California and was raised in Rodeo, California, as the youngest of six children. His father, Andy Armstrong, worked as a jazz musician and truck driver for Safeway to support the family. He died of esophageal cancer on September 10, 1982 when Armstrong was 10. The song "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a memorial to his father. He has five older siblings: David, Alan, Marci, Hollie, and Anna. His mother Ollie worked at Rod's Hickory Pit. Armstrong and Mike Dirnt got their first gig at Rod's Hickory Pit during their early years.

Green Day

Green Day is an American rock trio formed in 1987. The band has consisted of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, vocals), and Tré Cool (drums, percussion) for the majority of its existence.

Green Day was originally part of the punk rock scene at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. The band's early releases for independent record label Lookout! Records earned it a grassroots fanbase, some of whom felt alienated when the band signed to a major label. Nevertheless, its major label debut Dookie (1994) became a breakout success and eventually sold over 10 million copies in the U.S. and 15 million worldwide. As a result, Green Day was widely credited, alongside fellow California punk bands The Offspring and Rancid, with reviving mainstream interest in and popularizing punk rock in the United States. Green Day's three follow-up albums, Insomniac, Nimrod and Warning did not achieve the massive success of Dookie, but they were still successful, reaching double platinum, double platinum, and gold status respectively. Green Day's 2004 rock opera American Idiot reignited the band's popularity with a younger generation, selling five million copies in the U.S. The band's eighth studio album, 21st Century Breakdown, was released on May 15, 2009.

Green Day has sold over 22 million records in the United States. They have won three Grammy Awards; Best Alternative Album for Dookie, Best Rock Album for American Idiot, Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

Formation and Lookout years: 1987–1993

In 1987, friends Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, 15 years old at the time, formed a band called Sweet Children. The first Sweet Children show took place on October 17, 1987, at Rod's Hickory Pit in Vallejo, California where Armstrong's mother was working. In 1988, Armstrong and Dirnt began working with former Isocracy drummer, John Kiffmeyer (also known as Al Sobrante). Kiffmeyer served as both the band's drummer and business manager, handling the booking of shows and helping the band establish a fan base.

Larry Livermore, owner of Lookout! Records, saw the band play an early show and signed them to his label. In 1989 they recorded their first EP, 1,000 Hours. Before 1,000 Hours was released, the band dropped the name Sweet Children, according to Livermore this was done to avoid confusion with another local band Sweet Baby. The band adopted the name Green Day, allegedly due to their fondness of marijuana.

Lookout! would release Green Day's first LP, 39/Smooth in early 1990. Green Day would record two EPs later that year: Slappy and Sweet Children, the latter of which included some older songs they had recorded for Minneapolis indie label Skene! Records. In 1991, Lookout! Records released 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, a compilation of the 39/Smooth, Slappy, and 1,000 Hours EPs. In late 1990, shortly after the band's first nationwide tour, Sobrante left the East Bay area to attend college. The Lookouts drummer Tré Cool began filling in as a temporary replacement, and when it became clear that Sobrante did not plan to commit to the band full time, Tré Cool's position as Green Day's drummer became permanent. The band went on tour for most of 1992 and 1993, and played a stretch of shows overseas in Europe. The band's second full length album Kerplunk sold about 50,000 copies in the U.S.

Breakthrough success: 1994–1996

Kerplunk's underground success led to a wave of interest coming from major record labels, and they eventually left Lookout! on friendly terms and signed with Reprise Records after attracting the attention of producer Rob Cavallo. Signing to Reprise caused many punk rock fans to regard Green Day as sellouts. Reflecting on the period, Armstrong told Spin magazine in 1999, "I couldn't go back to the punk scene, whether we were the biggest success in the world or the biggest failure ... The only thing I could do was get on my bike and go forward." After signing with Reprise, the band went o work on recording its major label debut, Dookie.

Released in February 1994, and recorded in 3 weeks, Dookie became a commercial success, helped by extensive MTV airplay for the videos of the songs "Longview", "Basket Case", and "When I Come Around", all of which reached the number one position on the Modern Rock Tracks charts. That year, Green Day embarked on a nationwide tour with queercore band Pansy Division as its opening act. At a September 9, 1994 concert at Boston Esplanade, mayhem broke-out during the band's set (cut short to seven songs) and by the end of the rampage, 100 people were injured and 45 arrested. The band also joined the lineups of both the Lollapalooza festival and Woodstock 1994, where they started an infamous mud fight. During the concert, a security guard mistook bassist Mike Dirnt for a stage-invading fan and punched out some of his teeth. Viewed by millions by pay-per-view television, the Woodstock 1994 performance further aided Green Day's growing publicity and recognition, and helped push its album to eventual diamond status. In 1995, Dookie won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and the band was nominated for 9 MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year.

In 1995, a new single for the Angus soundtrack was released, titled "J.A.R.". The single went straight to number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song was followed by the band's new album, Insomniac, which was released in the fall of 1995. Insomniac was a much darker and heavier response by the band, compared to the poppier, more melodic Dookie. Insomniac opened to a warm critical reception, earning 4 out of 5 stars from Rolling Stone, which said "In punk, the good stuff actually unfolds and gains meaning as you listen without sacrificing any of its electric, haywire immediacy. And Green Day are as good as this stuff gets." Insomniac used a piece of art by Winston Smith entitled God Told Me to Skin You Alive for its album cover. The singles released from Insomniac were "Geek Stink Breath", "Brain Stew/Jaded", "Walking Contradiction", and "Stuck With Me". Though the album did not approach the success of Dookie, it still sold two million copies in the United States. Insomniac won the band award nominations for Favorite Artist, Favorite Hard Rock Artist, and Favorite Alternative Artist at the 1996 American Music Awards, and the video for "Walking Contradiction" got the band a Grammy nomination for Best Video, Short Form, in addition to a Best Special Effects nomination at the MTV Video Music Awards. After that, the band abruptly cancelled a European tour, citing exhaustion.

Middle era and fall in popularity: 1997–2002

After taking a break in 1996, Green Day began to work on a new album in 1997. From the outset, both the band and Cavallo agreed that the album had to be different from its previous records. The result was Nimrod, an experimental deviation from the band's standard pop-punk brand of music. The new album was released in October 1997. It provided a variety of music, from pop-punk, surf rock, and ska, to an acoustic ballad. Nimrod entered the charts at number 10. The success of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" won the band an MTV Video Award for Best Alternative Video for the song's video, which depicted people undergoing major changes in their lives while Billie Joe Armstrong strummed his acoustic guitar. The song was also used in the second "clip show" episode of Seinfeld and on two episodes of ER. The other singles released from Nimrod were "Nice Guys Finish Last", "Hitchin' a Ride" and "Redundant". The band made a guest appearance in an episode of King of the Hill entitled "The Man Who Shot Cane Skretteberg", which aired in 1997.

In 2000, Green Day released Warning, a step further in the style that they had hinted at with Nimrod. Critics' reviews of the album were varied. Allmusic gave it 4.5/5 saying "Warning may not be an innovative record per se, but it's tremendously satisfying." Rolling Stone was more critical, giving it 3/5, and saying "Warning... invites the question: Who wants to listen to songs of faith, hope and social commentary from what used to be snot-core's biggest-selling band?" Though it produced the hit "Minority" and a smaller hit with "Warning", some observers were coming to the conclusion that the band was losing relevance, and a decline in popularity followed. While all of Green Day's past albums had reached a status of at least double platinum, Warning was only certified gold.

At the 2001 California Music Awards, Green Day won all eight awards that they were nominated for. They won the awards for Outstanding Album (Warning), Outstanding Punk Rock/Ska Album (Warning), Outstanding Group, Outstanding Male Vocalist, Outstanding Bassist, Outstanding Drummer, Outstanding Songwriter and Outstanding Artist.

The release of a Greatest Hits compilation, International Superhits!, and an assemblage of B-sides, Shenanigans, followed Warning. International Superhits and its companion collection of music videos, International Supervideos!, sold reasonably well, going platinum in the U.S. Shenanigans contained some of the band's B-sides, including "Espionage" which was featured in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

In the spring of 2002, Green Day co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Blink-182. Despite the co-headlining title, Green Day would play each show before Blink-182, who at the time were experiencing more success. The tour was documented on the DVD Riding in Vans with Boys.

American Idiot and renewed success: 2003–2006

In the summer of 2003 the band went into a studio to write and record new material for a new album, tentatively titled Cigarettes and Valentines. After completing 20 tracks, the master tapes were stolen from the studio. The band chose not to try to re-create the stolen album, but instead started over. By the end of 2003, Green Day collaborated with Iggy Pop on two tracks for his album Skull Ring. On February 1, 2004 a new song, a cover of "I Fought the Law" made its debut on a commercial for iTunes during NFL Super Bowl XXXVIII. The band underwent serious "band therapy," engaging in several long talks to work out the members' differences after accusations from Dirnt and Cool that Armstrong was "the band's Nazi" and a show-off bent on taking the limelight from the other band members.

The resulting 2004 album, American Idiot, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, the band's first ever album to top the chart, backed by the success of the album's first single, "American Idiot." The album was billed as a "punk rock opera" which follows the journey of the fictitious "Jesus of Suburbia". American Idiot won the 2005 Grammy for "Best Rock Album" and the band swept the 2005 MTV music awards, winning a total of seven of the eight awards they were nominated for, including the coveted Viewer's Choice Award.

Through 2005, the band toured in support of the album with about 150 dates — the longest tour in its career — visiting Japan, Australia, South America and the United Kingdom, where they drew a crowd of 130,000 people over a span of two days. While touring for American Idiot, they filmed and recorded the two concerts at the Milton Keynes National Bowl in England, which was voted 'The Best Show On Earth' in a Kerrang! Magazine Poll.

These recordings were released as a live CD and DVD called Bullet in a Bible on November 15, 2005. This CD/DVD featured hits from American Idiot as well as a few songs from all its previous albums, except "Kerplunk" and "1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours". The DVD featured behind-the-scenes footage of the band, and showed how the band prepared to put on the show. The final shows of its 2005 world tour were in Sydney, Australia, and Melbourne, Australia, on December 14 and 17 respectively. On January 10, 2006 the band was awarded with a People's Choice Award for favorite group.

Foxboro Hot Tubs and 21st Century Breakdown: 2007–present

Green Day engaged in several other smaller projects in the time following the hype of American Idiot. Green Day released a new album under the band name Foxboro Hot Tubs entitled Stop Drop and Roll!!!. In 2008, the Foxboro Hot Tubs went on a mini-tour to promote the record, hitting tiny Bay Area venues including the Stork Club in Oakland and Toot’s Tavern in Crockett, CA. One song, “Ruby Room,” even gives a shout-out to the Oakland dive bar where “the Pabst Blue Ribbon unravels.”

In an interview with Kerrang!, Armstrong revealed that 2008 would "be a fair estimate of the release date of their new untitled eighth studio album for Green Day." In an interview with Carson Daly, Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson revealed that Butch Vig would be producing Green Day's forthcoming album. The span of nearly five years between American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown was the longest gap between studio albums in Green Day's career. The band had been working on new material since January 2006. By October 2007, Armstrong had 45 songs written, but the band showed no further signs of progress until October 2008, when a video of the group recording with producer Butch Vig in the studio was posted on YouTube. Two videos showing the band in the studio were posted on YouTube. In the tour section of the band's official website, the message "World Tour coming soon!" is shown. The writing and recording process, spanning three years and four recording studios, was finally finished in April 2009.

The new album, titled 21st Century Breakdown, was released worldwide on May 15, 2009. It received rave reviews from the likes of Nirvana's Krist Novoselic. The album had mainly positive reception from critics, getting an average rating between 4 and 5 stars. After the release, the album hit #1 in fourteen different countries, hitting Gold or Platinum in each. 21st Century Breakdown achieved Green Day's best chart performance to date. The band started playing shows in California in April and early May. It was their first live show in about 3 years. Green Day is currently on a world tour that started in North America in July, 2009 and continuing around the world throughout the rest of 2009 and early 2010.

It has also been announced that Green Day will be getting their own Rock Band video game entitled Green Day: Rock Band. A trailer of the game was shown during the Spike TV Video Game Awards 2009. It is set to release sometime in 2010.

Band members

Current members

• Billie Joe Armstrong – lead vocals, guitars (1987–present)
• Mike Dirnt – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
• Tré Cool – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1990–present)

Current touring members

• Jason White – guitars, backing vocals (1999–present)
• Jason Freese – keyboards, piano, acoustic guitar, trombone, saxophone, accordion, backing vocals (2003–present)
• Jeff Matika – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2009–present)

Former members

• John Kiffmeyer – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1987–1990)

Former touring members

• Timmy Chunks – rhythm guitar (1997–1999)
• Garth Schultz – trombone, trumpet (1997–1999)
• Gabrial McNair – trombone, tenor saxophone (1999–2001)
• Kurt Lohmiller – trumpet, timpani, percussion, backing vocals (1999–2004)
• Mike Pelino – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2004–2005)
• Ronnie Blake – trumpet, timpani, percussion, backing vocals (2004–2005)

Simple Plan

Simple Plan is a French Canadian pop punk band based in Montréal, Québec. They have released three studio albums: No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls (2002), Still Not Getting Any... (2004), and Simple Plan (2008); as well as two widely marketed live albums: Live in Japan 2002 (2003) and MTV Hard Rock Live (2005).

Formation (1993–2002)

Simple Plan began in 1993 with the formation of a band named Reset by friends Pierre Bouvier, Charles-André "Chuck" Comeau, Philippe Jolicoeur, and Adrian White. Reset toured around Canada with bands such as MXPX, Ten Foot Pole, and Face to Face, but only managed to gain modest popularity. The debut album, No Worries, was released in 1998, and Comeau left soon after to go to college. Two years later he met with high school friends Jean-François "Jeff" Stinco and Sébastien Lefebvre who were in separate bands of their own, and combined to create the band. Meanwhile, Reset released a second CD, No Limits (the two CDs would be re-released as a single CD in 2006, with liner note comments from Bouvier and Comeau). In late 1999, Comeau and Bouvier reacquainted at a Sugar Ray concert and Bouvier left Reset soon after to join Comeau. David Desrosiers replaced Bouvier in Reset, but when asked to join the foursome, he too left the band six months later. This allowed Bouvier, who had doubled as the band's front man and bassist, to concentrate on the singing.

The origin of the band's name is obscure. Band members have given various comical responses on this point, including that the band was their simple plan to avoid obtaining a "real" job. However, most likely, the name is derived from the movie "A Simple Plan". The name was only intended to be temporary, but they never thought of anything better, and with shows coming up for the new band, the name stuck.