By Vanessa Horwell

The start of the year was a very different kind of New Year for me. Whereas previous years have always started and ended with fireworks, festivities and a very big bang ? and a massive headache to boot ? this New Year?s Eve was an altogether different affair.

Subdued, reflective, calm and quiet. Huddled up on a snowy mountain top away from emails, news and the twang of social media, I finally had the brain bandwidth to think about goals and dreams for 2010, personally and collectively.

Yes, a very big change to previous years and indicative of the type of mental preparation needed for a new year, a new decade and a new era.

Gone are the brash excesses, hasty decisions and knee-jerk reactions. Out with insecurity and fear, and in with sensibility, logic and decisiveness. Oh, and accountability, all very welcomed, thank you very much.

Welcome to a very different decade in our lives as marketers. Bring it on, I say!

And so we begin this new era from a very different place to where we were in 2000, or 2001, if you are one of those calendar purists.

Saddled with choking debt and less money ? but greater and more demanding expectations from consumers and our clients ? marketers across all channels have a lot to sort through and sort out.

Although there seem to be startups blooming everywhere ? and thank goodness for that: we need new blood, new ideas, new thinkers and revitalized innovation ? there are fewer venture capital funds sitting at the end of the digital/tech rainbow.

Veni vidi VC
Whereas 2009 was a funding desert, funds are opening up their coffers once more. But they will be more demanding and expecting a lot more in return. Notice those two words again?

Gone is the era of throwing money at flashy and splashy campaigns and budgets, or reckless startups and the glory days of playing with other peoples? money. Those days are so over ? or at least until we relapse into a time of fake plenty again.

No, this is most definitely an era of thrift and resourcefulness, an era where clients will be tempted to say ?You know, we?re going to try doing this ourselves,? or ?We?re going to look for a more cost-effective partner because we need to achieve more but with less.? 

Sounds familiar, right?

So what does this mean? It means we have to more than deliver to our clients this year ? and the next, and the next.

If we have learned anything from the past 18 months, it is that our clients? expectations will only grow ? even if their budgets do not.

If we did a great job last year, we have to do an ever better job this year. To be sure, the pressure is on.

Which brings me to mobile.

So we all now know that 2009 was not the year of mobile. It was not the tipping point that we had hoped for on the eve of 2009, but we made inroads. A lot.

We saw mobile ad networks ? much to the chagrin of analysts, media critics and pundits ? grow considerably. So much so that Google plonked down $750 million for AdMob and Apple paid $275 million for Quattro Wireless. But I think the Google purchase has more to do with exploiting Android, and that's another story.

We saw an explosion of applications ? good job, Mr. Jobs! ? that propelled the concept of mobile-phones-as-my-everything into the mainstream. Which of course the industry sorely needed to move the mobile needle from ?experimental? to ?somewhat valuable.?

Note that I say "somewhat" because we still have a way to go to prove the channel?s value and effectiveness to a wider audience.

But I honestly think that if the above had not happened, mobile marketers would still be behind the proverbial eight ball, still trying to convince brands of mobile?s worth. And we would still be battling with consumers over perception, privacy, acceptance and, importantly, usefulness.

Of course, we still have those battles ahead in 2010 but I think we have definitely reached a turning point in mobile?s maturity, internally and externally.

Mobile doable
We have achieved what those pioneers set out to do in the early 2000s ? you know who you are ? which is to make the mobile phone indispensable.

And we have laid out database/loyalty/advertising/mobile commerce framework that goes far beyond the simple SMS campaigns of yore.

Now, we just have to prove mobile?s value, once and for all.

With thrift, resourcefulness, effectiveness and cost indelibly staining the lips of every chief marketing officer and brand marketer, it is time for us to make that happen, collectively. It is time to push aside some of the social media nonsense that overtook mobile?s climb last year, and finish what was started a decade ago.

We need more advertising agencies bringing mobile strategies into the fray and we need more mobile marketers educating those agencies.

We need to bridge the gap between those who do not ?get it? and those who do.

We need to educate brands that mobile marketing and advertising work better when we integrate and look at the big picture.

We need to shout out very loudly ?strategy, strategy, strategy!!? when pitching mobile to new clients. And we need to educate those same companies and CMOs that while there is no quick fix ? in anything, ever ? mobile?s lower CPM and customer acquisition cost tramples traditional advertising over and over. Really.

Am I asking a lot?

Perhaps, but that is my mobile dream for 2010. And when we try hard enough, dreams can absolutely come true. Let?s sleep on that.

Vanessa Horwell is chief visibility officer of ThinkInk, a marketing communications firm in Miami, FL. Reach her at .