Blogging and Non-Disclosure
When I left UQ Library, I promised I would blog a bit about what I was doing on various projects. The problem with blogging about work related stuff now that I work for a private company is that I’m restricted in what I can say. My contract says I can’t divulge company secrets and the borderline of what is secret and what is just common knowledge is a bit grey. I think the intent of it all is to hamper the attempts of competitors to replicate our products.
I had intended to just not reveal the name of the company I work for so that nothing I say here could be confused as anything to do with my employer but it goes a little deeper than that. It’s not just about using the employers name, my employer actively doesn’t want me helping anyone to do anything that might be similar to what they do. So when I think about it and apply the strictest interpretation of my contract, it means that I can’t blog about anything I’m doing at work.
But I’ve decided I can probably blur the boundaries a little bit by just sticking to fairly broad topics that are common to my industry without divulging how the company I work for actually implements any of it. I think that will be a safe approach.
All this secret squirrel stuff is bad for the industry in general anyway, especially when I think about how much I (and by extension the company I work for) benefit from the generosity of others who share their expertise on blogs. I guess the problem that is trying to be addressed is that of freeloaders or lazy competitors who come in and rip off your product. I think that actually having more openness would be a better solution to this problem as you can just expose the rip-offs for what they are and market your company as the one with the realexpertise. I suppose it get’s hairier when we’re talking consumer products but when it’s a relatively small market with a smallish customer base – i.e. you have a relationship with all of your customers, then it makes sense to be more open.
[tags]contract, intellectual property, nda, secrecy, work[/tags]
