The Owners' Manual - Issue 9 - Winter 2017

s Carolyn has been emphasizing over the last few Employee Owners’ meetings, confidentiality is an important consideration in our business. Often before we receive information from a client on which to form a proposal, we are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Many of the contracts we sign that are produced by our clients contain confidentiality paragraphs. What these agreements and provisions typically say is we will use the information given to us only on a need-to- know basis – meaning that it should only be shared with your project team. Additionally, these provisions and agreements often ask us to guard the confidential information in the same manner and with the same controls that we guard our own

information. Therefore, the information that Dave provided in his recent Lunch and Learns is not only important to safeguard BL’s data, but it’s critically important for meeting our contractual obligations to our clients to safeguard their information. Please continue to be mindful of what you disclose in conversation around the office and outside the office. Please continue to be wary of suspicious e-mails and links. In kick-off meetings prior to the start of projects, this topic should always be discussed and it is best practice to simply treat all client information, whether we’ve signed a confidentiality agreement or not, as confidential.