Our second Local On-Demand Economy Conference, NOW | Seattle, will take place on February 18, 2016. Join us to for an action-packed one-day event. Register today with the discount code “NOWMR” to save $100 on the $595 admission price.

What’s NOW? To start it all off, get an on-demand view of the emerging world of virtual reality, Internet of Things, voice interfaces, and concierge business models from Rackspace futurist Robert Scoble. We’ll also discuss:

• How big the local on-demand economy will grow, and why it’s already a rapidly growing multi-billion dollar business opportunity.
• What solopreneurs are looking for in marketing and business services.
• How food delivery will pioneer the coordination of many supply-chains to create personalized local products and services.
• What back office and business management tools SMBs and media will need to embrace to win in on-demand.
• How to coach partners and their SMB customers on the integration of on-demand services, such as delivery, customer service and engagement tools.
• How media is responding to the advertising-to-marketing transformation of local markets.

Additionally, we’re hand-picking a group of surprising startup and early-stage companies. During the day, you’ll be introduced to eight potential breakthrough companies in demo sessions and panels. Our end-of-day investor panel will help you understand the Seattle/Portland/Vancouver investor community.

Robert Scoble opens the day, followed by an interview between futurist Cecily Sommers (Think Like A Futurist) and Tether Inc. founder Stanley Hainsworth, who designed the Starbucks stores and now provides designs to clients globally.

Treat on-demand workers as well as customers?

We’ll tackle one of the most controversial topics in on-demand, the employment relationship, in two sessions. First, we’ll hear from Uber/Lyft driver Don Creery, featured in The New York Times coverage of Seattle’s recently passed legislation providing collective bargaining for drivers. He’ll be joined by a local TaskRabbit “tasker” to talk about what on-demand workers want from their work relationships. It’s a unique look at a business challenge typically examined at a distance from the workers, who we argue are a new part of the on-demand customer triad (Marketplace–Buyer–Service Provider). Everyone’s a customer now.

Then we dig into the policymaking side of the worker equation, with Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien, who passed driver collective bargaining legislation in 2015, App-Based Drivers Association organizer Dawn Gearhart, and Seattle University School of Law professor John Kirkwood, who opposes the legislation. We’ll be asking: How can policy and workplace innovation be aligned in a timely manner? What are the issues O’Brien, Gearhart and Kirkwood believe will be key to resolving the growing battles over work? How does business experiment with new labor relationships without landing in court?

On, to the business of growing the on-demand economy

We then turn to business and innovation, and I’ll be covering these sessions individually over the next few days. We’ll also be unveiling the participants in a fast-demo session soon. Here are some of the speakers we’ll be hosting:

Janelle Maiocco, CEO, Barn2Door
David Rutenberg, General Manager, Special Projects, Uber
David Galvan, Vice President, Development & Strategic Alliances – U.S. Markets, MasterCard
Adam Burrows, Senior Vice President, Business & Corporate Development, HomeAdvisor
Nicholas Goubert, Head of Product Management, Platform Group, HERE (in a one-on-one strategy interview)
Jeff Tomlin, Cofounder & Chief Marketing Officer, Vendasta Technologies Inc.
Keith Smith, Cofounder & Chief Executive Officer, Payability
Stuart Wall, Chief Executive Officer & cofounder, SignPost
David Shim, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Placed
Tyler Douglas, Chief Marketing Officer, Vision Critical
Manpreet Singh, President & Cofounder, TalkLocal
John Saltas, Founder & President, City Weekly

Join us at NOW. Register now and save $100 with the discount code “NOWMR” and we’ll see you in Seattle. There will be parties and surprise speakers, all to be announced shortly.

Robert Scoble image courtesy of Michael O’Donnell.