Winner of 'Doing Good Business' announced! Guest judge David Lourie qualifies the entries

8th June 2017

Dear Writers,

Judging writing competitions is not something I have done before, so please don’t be offended if I have not chosen your entry (it’s probably down to me not you). It has been a great honour to judge your work which is far better than anything I am sure I could ever write myself.

Firstly I would like to say what a great collection of pieces. From brain-washing and poisoning, to companionship and binary lives. It was great to see such a variety of different interpretations of the title – some very pure focusing on ethical or responsible business (something that I deal with on a daily basis), others taking a much more fantastical view of it (something that I sometimes wish I spent more time dealing with).

All of which made it very difficult to choose a winner with such a variety of pieces. However, I have managed to choose one.

The winner for me was 2644. I was drawn in by the dark humour in the piece and the twist at the end. I loved its conversational style. My favourite line is ‘I suppress the image of a new-born hybrid, it’s too horrible to entertain’ as I too was conjuring up quite an unpleasant character based on the descriptions of the three protagonists. The depressing thing is that there are many companies the world over are being led by the likes of Colin.

2642 was a strong runner-up. I really enjoyed the story and felt quite moved by the relationship that developed by Jimmy and the old lady at number 42. The assumptions we all place on people we don’t know (especially the old) and the entrepreneurial spirit of young people were well expressed bringing the reader closer to the two lead characters. As I read the story I felt I had a sense of foreboding. Although the ending was sad I felt the relationship that had developed between Jimmy and the old lady at number 42 had perhaps provided some level of closure for the old lady.

My final choice to make it into the top three was 2649 and the dad’s letter to his daughter about how cynicism became a patented product and he ended up in jail. I loved the premise of the story and how the whole idea slightly ran away with the main character – it made me think of the many billion dollar tech companies that are appearing on a daily basis, creating things that no one really understands but seem to get billions and billions of dollars of investment without even turning a profit, followed by the founders being caught up in some awful negative media storm. Being a family man dealing with business on a daily basis I rather liked the sentiment of the final line ‘family is the best business to do’.

Thank you for your time in entering the competition – I’m off to see if I can persuade Colin that doing good business actually makes good commercial sense and is not just some PR you do on the side.

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