I like reading the part of people's websites where it says they've won awards. 'Award winning illustrator' 'award winning director' and 'award winning award winner' are all highly useful snippets of information that fill me with confidence about the person I'm just looking at and have absolutely no intention of paying any money to do anything. Without that information I'd probably be left feeling empty and unsure as to who I could trust anymore as I left their site and went on with the rest of my life, forgetting they even existed.
My site, the place where you are right now, doesn't say I'm an award winner. In part that's because I'm not an award winner... actually that's the only reason why it doesn't say that. If I'd won anything it would be on here in flashing lights like a website from the early 90s. ASH BILLINGHAY, AN AWARD WINNING PERSON OF STATURE, it would say, and it would sparkle as your mouse hovered over it to highlight how bloody good I was.
I can totally see the benefits of saying you've won an award. It makes people think you've got some sort of talent that has been judged by other people, unlike the sort that only exists in your head when you're wearing a cape on a Friday night. But how many of these people actually specify what the award was? Very few of them, that's how many. How are we to know that the award wasn't simply a merit badge gained in secondary school? If they count then I can say that I've won two awards and only been bullied for it once, because by the time of the second one I'd had a growth spurt and my voice had dropped. Maybe the award was 'fielder of the year 2011' because, if that's game, I would put it on my home page in bold. I've even got a reference for that one:
"Ash has come on leaps and bounds this year, and he leaped and bounded all over the field. He knew he was going to get hurt but still got himself in the way of the ball and saved us a lot of runs over the course of the season. This more than made up for the fact he has no other legitimate sporting ability."
Are we living in a world where any award counts? Could you have things like 'employee of the month at Starbucks,' 'most likely to get arrested, school prom 2008,' and 'Passage to India's most loyal customer, three years running' on your site, so long as you're not award specific? I sure hope we are. This opens a door to a whole new world of opportunity for me. Deceptive, slightly misleading opportunity, but opportunity all the same.
Those 'good effort' rosettes from playschool are finally going to come in handy.
