I’m gearing up for my presentation about professional portfolios that I’ll be doing at the Society for Technical Communication’s Summit to be held May 4-6, 2009. One of the first questions asked every time I do this presentation, is

How do I showcase my skills when much of my work has been on proprietary projects?

Here is my standard advice:

• Don’t! If the projects you’re working on are restricted by proprietary agreements, you really can’t show them.
• Volunteer! Countless professional organizations and nonprofits desperately need your skills. Ask around to see if anyone needs a little help in areas you want to showcase in your portfolio. It’s a win-win situation.
• Negotiate! During the hiring process, talk about what you will and will not be able to include in your portfolio.
• Ask! Ask your employer if you can use particular parts of projects and how you can use them.
• Get it in Writing! People and companies can be litigious. It’s always a good idea to cover your assets!
• Be transparent! Be open with your employer about what you’re putting in your portfolio fodder file. Collect your pieces regularly and from the beginning of your employment. Trust me, we know when you’re getting ready to change jobs and you making a mad dash of copying files is just one of many indicators.
• Redact! Often you can sanitize a document and make it perfect fodder for your portfolio by taking out all identifying information.
• Rework! Redo elements of the projects that show your skills for company X.

I posted this question in several different venues and this is what other professionals from both sides of the table had to say.

From Aaron Bowdoin, Executive Producer at Indigo Studios:

If it is a proprietary project…there are often components that most can access via the Internet… or what the companies PR/sales would say about the product offering. These are perfectly acceptable to show and discuss as long as the product/service is currently in the market. Would never show a project in development. If it is design + backend development it is acceptable to talk about the functionality as long as it is something anyone could access…e.g. A B2B service offering.

Always have who you are presenting to sign an NDA also. Never leave behind sensitive material…and always explain why you can show certain elements of the project and not others.

People tend to respect that you are responsible with their Intellectual Property and proprietary models.

From Guy Ball, Senior Technical Writer at EADS North America Test & Services:

I’ve had several interviews where I showcased “non-public” or secure projects but I first “sanitized” the information by changing critical information, deleting certain sensitive content, and revising names and part numbers. I even had to PhotoShop out some numeric data in drawings and screen captures. By the time I was through, the original source material was pretty hidden – but I was able to show how I handled certain types of documentation. Also in many cases, I only showed a chapter or two of the full manual.

In those cases, I was very clear to the interviewers that the materials I was showing had sensitive material removed. I’ve been in interviews where prospective contractors bring in original manuals that are definitely either proprietary or government sensitive. I feel very uncomfortable in these situations even when they tell me their former bosses are okay with it.

One of the tricky areas though is some of the video training and documentation I’ve done. In these areas, I try to make sure there is nothing sensitive that a competitor couldn’t get in some easy fashion (via website or through a sales rep). Sometimes, I’ve just provided screen captures when the materials could not be cleaned up enough.

From Marc Yellin, Technical Communicator:

My personal advice is to be very, very cautious about presenting (even for just a “quick look”) any document labelled Proprietary or Confidential, and to be just as cautious about presenting any document with a logo or other identifiable information.

As a hiring manager, I would see red flags when a prospective hire showcased such material at an interview: If this is how the candidate treats others’ intellectual property, how will s/he treat mine?

It’s much better to take the time to “sanitize” any portfolio material. Presumably (although not always), if you wrote it, you have access to the source code and can modify it.

One practical example: I have done consulting gigs for different business units within the same Big Company. For my portfolio, I strip out all identifying and / or proprietary material, but preserve the documents’ format. At interviews, other companies see only that I can write clearly and understandably; Big Company interviewers recognize their format and know that I have done work for them before and have a track record.

Furthermore — call me crazy, but I would not rely on anything less than written permission from a former client’s Legal Department to authorize any display of company information.

From John Blake, Principal, End User Documents, Inc.:

My advice is to first get client approval. That said, realize that many times when you ask (especially with larger companies), you are likely to get ‘no’ as an answer because it is the easiest way for your clients to protect themselves and their company (it’s also easier than actually tracking down the ‘right’ person, if one even exists, within the corporate structure to get that answer).

Use common sense and good judgment to protect your clients (and yourself, legally) in terms of what type of content you show, leaning towards more general subject matter (e.g. policies and procedures or business processes that are common to the industry and not your particular client). Remove logos and redact company, individual client, and client facility location names. Don’t forget that many times screenshots may contain corporate names or sensitive client data.

You should be able to offset these limitations by the way that the documents are structured and formatted, as well as via your resume and references.

From Patricia Overbo, Technical Writer – Online Help/eLearning Developer:

Yes, portfolios are difficult enough to update and maintain and then you have to worry about giving away company secrets. Here’s my 2 pesos:

1. Ask permission from your employer/client to use proprietary info including specifically what you CAN use. Indicate that you will not leave the content with a prospective employer/client but showcase it in your portfolio leaving out or replacing info as needed.
2. Only show portions needed to get your point across… i.e., you don’t need to show an entire user manual you wrote; just the a page of the TOC, a page of the Index, a Title page, a few content pages… just to give an example.

From Deanne Levander, Technical Writer at TCF National Bank; Associate Fellow, STC:

My 2 cents echo Pat’s (above): In the past I have used title pages, tables of contents, indexes, and sometimes glossaries to illustrate my skills and abilities when it comes to proprietary content. My portfolio does not contain the entire contents of anything (except for very short pieces).

One other thing I do is keep a list of clients with one-liner client descriptions, as well as a list of publications that I wrote or edited. These are part of my portfolio also, and information that I can leave with the prospective client.

From Tony Chung, Creative Communications; Technical Communicator; Web Developer; Multimedia Production:

Regarding confidential/proprietary work, it all depends on whether the secret sauce is necessary to showcase your ability, or whether you are using the corporate branding to give yourself some status by association. My thoughts are to strip out all logos and secret sauce, rebrand the work under a fictitious company name, and voila! Problem solved.

What are your experiences in dealing with content that is protected by proprietary agreements? Let us know in the comments.