• Wall Street Journal, Monday, November 1, 2010 10:51 AM

Scott Culler, a scientist who has worked at 3M for 26 years, is excited about a new product he has been working on. In fact, he says its "No. 1 project I've worked on in terms of excitement," ever. No, it's not a new Post-It note that digitizes your scribbled "To Do" list. It's a new kind of abrasive disk that does things like grind down welding seams.

James R. Hagerty reports that CEO George Buckley is on a mission to get his scientists and marketers revved up about "humdrum products" like the industrial-grade sandpaper, fuel cells and "micro-needles" that purportedly make measles boosters, and the like, painless. (Who said it was harder being a kid today?)

Shortly after Buckley joined 3M, abrasives business vp Chris Holmes told him that products in his area were rarely seen as sexy. "Why can't abrasives be sexy?" Buckley responded. Suffice it to say that scientists working with marketing and production managers believe they've met Buckley's challenge with Cubitron II sanding disks that produce precisely shaped triangular grains that work more like knives than plows.

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