After giving the afternoon keynote at BIA/Kelsey NOW, MyTime CEO Ethan Anderson answered questions for our cameras about the changing nature of work and customer relationships (full video embedded below).

“Consumers have the new expectation that when they want something, they can get it any time they want,” he said. “They are also moving away from he model of calling around to find out availability. What they are expecting if they are looking for someone new to provide a service, they want real-time reviews, a description of the service and the ability to pull the trigger at the moment they want to.”

MyTime provides a set of back-office services to enable individual service providers to schedule and confirm appointments, keep in contact with customers and collect reviews as independent businesses. Anderson’s company is aiming squarely at the “1099 worker” and SMBs that serve local markets, representing a new breed of “solopreneur” tools to enable local services.

“This is a major sea change in work and technology. It’s a change in the supply of labor,” Anderson said, describing a change in relationships between people that will result in greater focus on the task — and quality of work involved — and immediate gratification.

But the “1099 employee” faces the need to train and prepare more on their own to ensure their career progresses, Anderson warned.

“I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when there were lots of independent small retailers were on every block,” which have given way to “big-box” competitors. “I think the same thing could happen to the service economy now. You might see a lot of people end up as low-paid workers or contractors for these bigger companies rather than the independent small business person who makes a great living for himself and his family.”