2009 was a great year in which I accomplished more than any other year before. However, the goal of this post is not to recount past achievements. Instead, I want to focus on what I did wrong in 2009 so that not only can I plan for my own changes in 2010, but hopefully help others avoid the mistakes I made as well.

About 16 days ago I prophesized the death of web design in my oh-so verbose post. In hindsight, I do think many elements of web design are going to die, but I also think in death will be a transformation.

In many regards, web design has not changed significantly since its founding days in the ’90s. Most sites are created as static presences with text that users can consume and perhaps a contact form that can be used to transmit a simple message. This method of communication has become so branded on the internet that it seems almost routine to set it up for any organization.

That’s not a bad thing. Organizations should communicate with people online. The internet offers the ability to communicate with the most people at the cheapest rates.

However, I think web design is due for some death and transformation. No longer can organizations just idly post content. They must engage. They must reach out to their market and actively communicate with people. They must build a brand online that can be accessed, discussed and followed with ease.

Right now, much of the web is passive. There is little interaction and few ways to connect with most organizations.

Web design as a concept won’t die anytime soon, but the methods that have engulfed it will — they must — and a new breed of communication will emerge. I look forward to it.

I’ve been watching @copyblogger tweeting about how unnecessary personal branding is. To build a good brand for yourself, all you need to do is be exceptional.

I would definitely agree that to maintain your brand you must do good work. That’s obvious. However, I would argue that there is more to it than that.

Branding is the art of setting up a platform for yourself. It consists of everything from how you communicate to the tools you use to communicate with. These are all necessities. You can’t do good work without them.

Sure, you might not need to worry too much about branding if you’re established and have the capacity to make your good work known, but if you’re just getting started, you can’t rely on the “build it and they will come” philosophy. You have to get out there and establish an image for yourself. And whether or not you want to call this personal branding is up to you.

Once you get to the point where you’re known is when you can let others build your brand for you.

My favorite strategy when it comes to combating email headaches is simple: respond late. Many people tell you that once business hours are over you should close down your email and not look at it. I think the smart way is to do the opposite.

Think about it. We’re forced to multitask on multiple issues everyday. Emails are a big contributor to this. Each message represents a new challenge, question, complaint, problem or idea that we have to confront, investigate and address. By removing email from the equation, the day can be made less hectic.

The Internet has led to many enhancements in the way we communicate, consume information and do business. This has been a great advancement in technology. In no other period could someone build and launch a product or service, and capture a target market in such speed.

The web has also led to a saturation of knowledge. With so many open channels, knowledge has become easy to access and consume. The chances that you have the same knowledge has someone else is now greater.

What does this mean?

It means that general knowledge is less valuable. The barriers to information access are thinning out. Is this a bad thing? You can arguably go either way.

On one hand, the old hat "information brokers" are going to die out. People will no longer seek general knowledge experts because they can access the information themselves. This could be bad for some businesses.

On the other hand, it actually enhances business. Businesses must adapt to the ease of knowledge accessibility by focusing on a specific segment of knowledge. It’s called a niche and anyone familiar with marketing knows what that is. But this goes beyond the traditional niche. Businesses need to become true experts in a very narrowly defined field. There are no experts in web design, for example. There are experts in landing page effectiveness, conversion strategy, social media measurement and so forth.

Another benefit of knowledge saturation is that talent is cheaper. Instead of learning a general set of knowledge, you can hire it out at a cost that is less than your time value. And you can easily scale on the concept to build a strong business.

My stance is to be at least superficially knowledgeable in as many things as possible without sacrificing the ability to be super knowledgeable in one or more very specific fields.

Meetings are a great method for sharing information, developing task items, getting feedback, and so forth. However, I think meetings outlive their effectiveness once they reach a certain length threshold.

As a member of the web design industry, I’ve been immersed in the going-ons of various industry trends, practices, and activities. For my own benefit, I think it’s critical to assess and analyze the state of the web design industry.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything that is happening in the industry. To make such a list would be too exhaustive. Instead, I boiled my list down to the few items that I think will have an impact on the industry within the next six to 12 months.

I would also impress upon those not in the web design field to skim through this. Many of these trends extend beyond web design into other industries. The web is tying things together. To operate successfully in most fields today, you must have a solid understanding of how the web works. This list could help you direct where you need to improve your own knowledge.

Whenever I start a new web project, I want to conceptualize, and fast. Ideas seem to flow at a rapid pace in short intervals, making it hard to capture everything. I’m a huge proponent of rapid prototyping. I want to take as many of those ideas as I can, build a quick prototype, take a step back and then carefully analyze everything.

The best ideas are born in those critical few moments that you rapid prototype. And over time, those ideas can be melded into something that is truly incredible.