The Announcement Economy. LinkedIn has turned the word "honoured" into punctuation.
Scroll for five minutes and witness the parade:
"Honoured and humbled to be named to the Top 40 Under 40 Over 30 list by a magazine that didn't exist last Tuesday."
"Thrilled to announce I'll be speaking at the Northeast Regional Summit for Digital Excellence." (It's a hotel conference room in Newark with 23 attendees.)
"Deeply honoured to be recognized as one of the Top 5,000 Thought Leaders in Supply Chain Management by SupplyChainList dot com."
"Humbled to moderate a panel at Virtual Summit 2024." (You're talking to three people on Zoom while eating lunch.)
"Excited to share that I've been selected as a judge for the Annual Innovation Awards." (You got an email asking if you'd review 50 submissions for free.)
The inflation is staggering. Every micro-achievement needs macro-announcement. Every participation trophy demands a victory lap.
We've created an entire economy of manufactured milestones:
• Pay-to-play awards that exist solely to generate announcement posts
• "Top X" lists where X keeps growing until everyone's included
• Speaking slots at conferences that are really just vendor showcases
• Certifications from two-day courses treated like PhDs
"Honoured" used to mean something.
Now it means you responded to an email.
"Humbled" used to suggest genuine surprise.
Now it's the mandatory prefix to any form of self-promotion.
The real builders? They're not "honoured and humbled" to speak at your breakfast panel.
They're too busy actually building things that matter.
But in the Announcement Economy, substance doesn't trend.
Honours do.