3M Company, formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, (NYSE: MMM) is an American multinational conglomerate corporation.

With over 76,000 employees they produce over 55,000 products, including: adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental products, electrical materials, electronic circuits and optical films.3M has operations in more than 60 countries – 29 international companies with manufacturing operations, and 35 with laboratories. 3M products are available for purchase through distributors and retailers in more than 200 countries, and many 3M products are available online directly from the company.

History

3M started out on the North Shore of Lake Superior at Two Harbors, Minnesota in 1902. The company then moved to Duluth, Minnesota, and then again to Saint Paul, Minnesota. 3M stayed for 15 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters in Maplewood (a St. Paul suburb). The new campus in Maplewood is 475 acres (1.92 km2) and has over 50 buildings, including an ‘innovation center’ that displays products 3M has brought to market. The company began by mining stone from quarries for use in grinding wheels. Struggling with quality and marketing of its products, top management supported its workers to innovate and develop new products, which eventually developed into its core business. Twelve years after being founded, 3M developed its first exclusive product: 3M Three-M-ite cloth. Other innovations in this era included waterproof sandpaper and masking tape, then the famous Scotch brand tape was “born.” By 1929 3M made its first moves in to an international expansion by forming “Durex” to conduct business in Europe. This same year, the company’s stocks were first traded over the counter and in 1946 the stocks were listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company is currently a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and of the S&P 500.

3M was founded by Henry S. Bryan, Herman W. Cable, John Dwan, William A. McGonagle, and Dr. J. Danley Budd. The founders’ original plan was to sell the mineral corundum to manufacturers in the East for making grinding wheels. After selling one load, on June 13, 1902 the five went to the Two Harbors office of company secretary John Dwan, which was on the shore of Lake Superior and is now part of the 3M National Museum, and signed papers making Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing a corporation. In reality, however, Dwan and his associates were not selling what they thought; they were really selling the worthless mineral anorthosite.[2]

Failing to make sandpaper with the anorthosite, the founders decided to import minerals like Spanish garnet, after which sale of sandpapers grew. In 1914, customers complained that the garnet was falling off the paper. The founders discovered that the stones had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean packed near olive oil, and the oil had penetrated the stones. Unable to take the loss of selling expensive inventory, they roasted the stones over fire to remove the olive oil. This was the first instance of research and development at 3M.

The 3M Company originally known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company began life all the way back in 1902 in the Minnesota town of Two Harbors on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The company was originally formed by five partners Henry S. Bryan, Herman W. Cable, John Dwan, William A, McGonagle, and Dr. J. Danley Budd who had come up with the idea of selling a mineral known as corundum to manufacturers on the east coast. The mineral they thought would sell well as it could be used to make grinding stones and sandpaper or so they thought.

Well the idea didn’t really pan out to well for the partners but as they were not willing to give up just yet they turned there attention to another mineral known as Spanish garnet. This mineral it turned out worked really well in the making of sandpaper. After some initial problems that were soon dealt with sales of their new sandpaper product began to take off. But these early trials for the company had taught the founders the value of a good R&D department. Forever after innovation at the company would lead the way.

In fact each year new products created by their R&D labs account for about 25% of sales each year. Products such as waterproof sandpaper in 1921 and masking tape in 1925 provide just two examples of the kinds of innovations that 3M Company has become known for. The company has strayed some from their path over the years though. It was during the late 60’s and early 70’s that 3M began creating its own line of board games. And although the games were very popular it was eventually decided that the division should be sold off to Avalon Hill.

After that 3M decided to stick to what it does best. Of course one of the areas that 3M is best known for is tape. Besides masking tape they produce other products such as scotch tape and in 1980 the company brought out the now famous Post-it-notes. This little office innovation has brought the concept of leaving messages for people to a whole new level all by itself.

Finally in 2002 the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company officially changed its name to the 3M Company since that was how the world really new the company anyway. The company now employs over 75,000 people worldwide. It has labs and manufacturing facilities in countries across the globe. And it has become a global conglomerate best known for its innovative products and commitment to researching new ideas. For any entrepreneur it has become a benchmark example of how research and development can lead the way and create a better tomorrow.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The premier professional body in the field is the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD).[citation needed] Since 1989 they have hosted an annual international conference and published its proceedings,[7] and since 1999 have published a biannual academic journal titled “SIGKDD Explorations”.[8] Other Computer Science conferences on data mining include:

* DMIN – International Conference on Data Mining;[9]
* DMKD – Research Issues on Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery;
* ECML-PKDD – European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases;
* ICDM – IEEE International Conference on Data Mining;[10]
* MLDM – Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition;
* SDM – SIAM International Conference on Data Mining

Association for Computing Machinery :

The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the world’s first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership was approximately 83,000 as of 2007. Its headquarters are in New York City.

Academic journal:

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research. Content typically takes the form of articles presenting original research, review articles, and book reviews. Academic or professional publications that are not peer-reviewed are usually called professional magazines.

The term “academic journal” applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this article discusses the aspects common to all academic field journals. Scientific journals and journals of the quantitative social sciences vary in form and function from journals of the humanities and qualitative social sciences; their specific aspects are separately discussed. The similar American and British journal publication systems are primarily discussed here; practices differ in other regions of the world.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.