Eureka! or slow development?

The "invention" of the Post-it® is often told as a eureka story, as if the Post-it was an instant and brilliant idea, an epiphany like Newton's apple or Edison's lightbulb.

The facts are different. The innovation that led to the Post-it was not like flipping a switch. It was a long-term, multistage process that took more than a decade. It was a slow hunch.

Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay (New York: Public Affairs, 2012),  p. 226