You might think the most important thing happening in T-Mobile’s world would be AT&T’s impending (but not yet approved) deal to acquire the company, and that was of course the first question we brought up with Adams.  Naturally, he could provide no more information than what’s been publicly announced. But he had much more to talk about. “We’re not slowing down. We’re not waiting for the acquisition,” he said. “Minnesota is a very important market for us, and we continue investing heavily and adding staff here.”  Across the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, T-Mobile has invested more than $43 million in continuous network upgrades since the start of 2010, according to Adams, and now has more than 350 cell sites operating 4G service in the Twin Cities area.

Which brings me to the most exciting news that T-Mobile was announcing yesterday:  T-Mobile’s Faster 4G Network Now Available in the Twin Cities — America’s Largest 4G Network is now twice as fast in Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Its super-fast “HSPA+42″ (as in Mbps) network is now available “in the majority of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area,” the company’s release said, and customers will experience “speeds twice as fast as T-Mobile’s current 4G network on compatible devices.”  Before you start hyper-ventilating, it also states this:  the recently introduced Rocket® 3.0 laptop stick, its first HSPA+ 42-capable device, offers “average download speeds on our HSPA+ 42 network approaching 10Mbps, with peak speeds of 27 Mbps.”  Okay, it”s not 42 — but, trust me, I’ll take it!  

[By the way, I've been a T-Mobile customer since sometime in the early to mid-'90s, counting the two predecessor companies they acquired, Aerial and VoiceStream.  Then, soon after, I also became a customer of AT&T Wireless, well prior to the Cingular merger.  And I continue to be a dual-carrier-household guy. Net-net: can't wait to see how well I'm treated after the merger -- I've earned it, haha.]

Back to T-Mobile in Minnesota.  I was impressed with these stats the company shared with us:

•  T-Mobile has more than 825,000 customers in the Twin Cities area.

•  Its sales organization in Minnesota numbers more than 380 national retail locations, corporate and partner-owned stores, as well as third-party retailers.

•  The company has 540 employees in the Minnesota-Wisconsin region — in retail stores, enterprise sales, mid-market/B2B, small business/B2B, operations, finance, engineering, local marketing, human resources, and other functions.

• Data traffic on T-Mobile’s network in the Twin Cities area has increased about 330% in the past year.  (Wow!)

Tim Adams was joined by Scott Goldberg, a T-Mobile senior communications manager based in Chicago, and a great guy.  Steve Borsch and I enjoyed bringing both him and Tim up-to-speed with the breath and scope of the Twin Cities tech and mobile community.  In particular, I had some fun chatting with Goldberg about Chicago’s longtime tech-gossip guru, Ron May, whom he knows well (and whom I’ve met).  I couldn’t help but bring up the recent May Report email newsletter that mentioned 160 people showed up for Chicago’s latest BarCamp.  Big whoop — I pointed out, with much glee, that we had *1200* at our recent BarCamp event!  That would be MinneBar 2011.  [Note to Luke, Ben, and crew:  they were taking notes feverishly.]

Two other recent news announcements from T-Mobile really impressed me. It’s clear they’re a serious competitor for your wireless business. Announcements like this prove it. These product offerings are national in scope, not just for the Twin Cities. The first is some really consumer-friendly news, while the other new product announcement will surely get the attention of small businesses:

May 23:  T-Mobile Offers Monthly 4G Plans Featuring Unlimited Talk, Text, and Web With *No Annual Contract*

June 30:  T-Mobile Bolsters Options For Small Businesses with Flexible, Multi-Line Shared Pooling Plans

We wish T-Mobile, Tim Adams, and his entire Minnesota-Wisconsin crew all the best as they move forward!

UPDATE (7/15/11):  One thing I forgot to touch on was T-Mobile’s Customer Care, which gets high ratings in surveys and really does set them apart from the bigger players. I can attest that is the case, after my many years as a customer, and being able to compare it to AT&T’s (and actually even Verizon’s, too, when I once attempted to become a customer). But what struck me was a line that Tim Adams used, that T-Mobile people are all about “right-fitting the customer.” What that means is they don’t try to push stuff on you that isn’t right for you.  They want to ensure that each customer gets just what they need, and only what they need. They even hold free smartphone classes in certain of their stores, to help people learn how to use them, or even if a smartphone is right for them.  These classes are extremely popular, Adams said, “packed.”

One other thing I wanted to add was a link to some very interesting stats about consumer 4G adoption from recent surveys by Nielsen and Retrevo.

T-Mobile Shows It’s Serious About Minnesota, “Not Slowing Down” is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

It’s called “Izzy’s Flavor Up!” and it essentially allows customers to subscribe to their favorite ice cream flavors. Current flavors are updated every three minutes on its “flavor grid” web page.

With web site design and technology assistance from Bloomington MN-based The Nerdery (aka Sierra Bravo), Rogers MN-based RFID firm AbeTech, and CA-based tech vendor Phoenix Technologies, Izzy’s Ice Cream is now tagging all its 90+ flavors of ice cream in-store with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.  Each flavor’s tub is tagged with a unique code that’s automatically scanned when placed in the dipping cabinet.

What it means for an ice cream lover is nothing less than nirvana. Customers can now know, with absolute certainty anytime around the clock, which flavors are available in-store. When new flavors are removed from or added to the dipping cabinet, Izzy’s web site, Facebook and Twitter pages will automatically be updated, alerting fans to the latest changes. Customers can sign up for email alerts for their favorite flavors – so they’ll always know when their favorite Hot Brown Sugar, Soy Peanut Butter, or Peace Coffee ice cream is available. My buddy Al Maruggi told me today that Izzy’s has the best coconut ice cream in the Twin Cities, too, as he licked a sample thereof.

We also learned that SMS or text updates are on the way, if you’d rather get your alerts that way.  In-store customers can see the technology in action via a large-screen monitor that shows which flavors are now being scooped.

“Our customers are extremely passionate about their favorite flavors of Izzy’s ice cream,” said Jeff Sommers, Izzy’s owner, in a statement. “Their enthusiasm, while motivating me to continue creating delicious flavors, can also prove to be a customer service issue. Before today, our customers had no way of knowing if their favorite flavors were going to be available when they walked through the door.  This system solves that problem and makes it easier for our customers to enjoy their favorite flavors.”  The title of a video that Izzy’s crack PR firm put up on YouTube says it all: “How to Subscribe to Ice Cream.”

The nameplates for each flavor in the store have RFID chips built in, which are then read by antennae anchored in the dipping cabinet. The inventory is automatically updated simply through the act of an employee changing flavors in the dipping cabinet. That act triggers an inventory update, which in turn publishes the current flavors to multiple channels: the in-store screen, Izzy’s website, its Twitter and Facebook pages, and it’s automated emails to subscribers of individual flavors.

Izzy’s isn’t just a retail business. It has a catering business as well, and a wholesale business that has signed up several upscale grocery stores and restaurants throughout the Twin Cities that now offer its products — Kowalski’s, just to name one chain.

Regarding its latest new wrinkle, “This is undoubtedly one of the first uses of RFID as a customer service application,” said the company’s statement.  Izzy’s has a history of embracing new technology, having installed solar panels in 2005.  Owner Jeff Sommers also showed attendees at his media briefing today an innovative new cleaning system he has implemented in Izzy’s kitchen called “Zap Water,” which is an amazingly more environmentally friendly way to maintain a germ-free, allergen-free environment.

Izzy’s gets my vote as a true Minnesota innovator!  Now, excuse me, I’m jumping onto their web site to check if my favorite flavor is still available tonight….

Web Innovation Is Everywhere in Minnesota – Even In an Ice Cream Shop! is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Today’s hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

Our discussion surrounded a variety of topics:

- How did the idea to open up the Best Buy catalog come about? What is the vision for Remix?
- How does it fit with broader plans or strategies of the corporation?
- Can you talk about how you came to select Mashery as your API delivery partner?
- What about higher level tools to increase access to the Remix API?

As you may have heard, a guy by the name of Keith Burtis (based in Buffalo, NY) was just hired to be community manager of the Remix program and is running the Twitter presence. During this podcast, we discussed the role of the community manager, what Keith is doing, and why it matters.

Links:

+ Kallow.com

+ Blog:  http://remix.bestbuy.com/blog

+ Twitter:  http://twitter.com/bestbuyremix

+ Kevin’s article, Agile Software Development: Bridges to the Future in BusinessWeek.

+ Follow @kevinmatheny on Twitter here.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 19 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As we’ve written here before, Best Buy is one of the leaders in the adoption of social media in the retail industry. Their CMO, Barry Judge, has started blogging and has taken to Twitter. He’s very transparent in his exploration of conversational marketing in interviews like this one. But probably the best overview is a video we posted here last month that features an interview with Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson who clearly is behind their use of social tools and techniques.

Target, in contrast, is opaque on all things social and their CMO, Michael Francis, seems from the corporate model of a brilliant planner, not innovator. Although they have been involved in conversational marketing — I recall meeting blogger Robert Scoble some 3 years ago after a day of meetings at Target — their efforts to date have been mixed. A well planned Facebook campaign was marred by controversy. And there was that episode with bloggers who took issue with a billboard in New York. Not the kind of case studies you would want from a company who clearly is a leading force in retail brand advertising.

So I will be tracking each company and their marketing efforts over the next several months and posting highlights here. If past is prologue, my gut tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of innovation from Best Buy, particularly in their use of social media. But the folks at Target might also surprise us. In these difficult times, the most innovative will likely win.

Marketing Innovation: Best Buy vs. Target is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.