Writing About Work You Cannot Show

Who this affects

More businesses than expect it.

Trades working in private homes where the owner does not want their property identified. Security and access work where publicising the installation defeats it. Businesses under confidentiality terms. Work for clients who prohibit supplier publicity. Anything involving a person's health, finances, or legal situation.

The common outcome is a portfolio showing only the projects that happened to be unrestricted, which is frequently the least representative sample of what the business does.

What is actually restricted

Worth separating, because businesses over-apply the constraint.

Usually restricted: the client's name, the address or anything locating it, identifiable images, and commercially sensitive specifics such as figures or systems in place.

Usually not restricted: that the type of work exists, the nature of the problem, the approach taken, the constraints worked within, and the outcome described generally.

A confidentiality obligation prevents disclosure of the client's information. It does not generally prevent you describing your own methods and experience, though the specific terms of an agreement govern and are worth reading rather than assuming.

Where an agreement does restrict any mention of the engagement, that is a term to negotiate at the outset rather than to discover afterwards.

The de-identified write-up

The workable format, and it persuades better than most named case studies.

Describe the situation generically: a three-storey heritage property in the Lower Mainland, a professional services firm of about forty people, a family home built in the nineteen sixties.

Then the actual content: what the problem was, what made it difficult, what you considered and rejected, what you did, and what the result was.

That is the part a prospect learns from. A named client adds credibility and it is not the part that demonstrates competence, and a well-described anonymous project outperforms a named one that says the client was delighted.

Vary the identifying details enough that the specific property or business cannot be worked out, particularly in a small market where a description can identify somebody as effectively as a name.

Photographs

Where care is needed and where most of the value sits.

Tight detail shots frequently carry the technical content without showing anything identifying. A joint, a mechanism, a finish, or a repair says more about workmanship than a wide shot of a room.

What to remove or avoid: house numbers, street signs, vehicles with plates, mail, framed photographs, distinctive views from windows, and anything with a name on it.

Where a wide shot is necessary, permission is the answer rather than obscuring, and asking is usually successful when the request is specific about what would be shown and where.

A signed release is worth having as routine rather than as an exception, and it should cover what may be shown and where, with an ability to withdraw.

Asking properly

Since many restrictions are assumed rather than actual.

A meaningful share of clients would permit a de-identified write-up if asked, and are never asked because the business assumed the answer.

Asking well: at completion when they are pleased, specifically about what would appear, with the option to review it before publication, and with an easy no.

Offering review is what converts refusals into agreements, because the fear is usually about what will be said rather than about the fact of being mentioned.

Where the answer is no, asking whether a description without any identifying detail would be acceptable frequently produces a yes.

The alternatives when nothing can be shown

Content that demonstrates competence without reference to any particular job.

• Explaining a common problem and how it is properly addressed.
• Describing your process in detail.
• Writing about what goes wrong and why.
• Composite descriptions, clearly labelled as typical rather than actual.
• Your own premises, equipment, and people, which are yours to show.
• Work done for yourself, such as your own property or workshop.

The composite deserves a note. A description assembled from several jobs is legitimate content provided it is presented as a typical project rather than as a specific one, since presenting an invented project as real is a misleading representation.

Turning the constraint into a signal

The move worth making.

Stating plainly that you do not publish client details without permission, and that some work cannot be shown at all, is itself reassuring to exactly the clients who care about discretion.

For work in private homes, for professional clients, and for anything sensitive, a supplier who is visibly careful about confidentiality is more attractive than one with a full gallery.

Which means the constraint, said out loud, does some of the work the portfolio would have done, and it addresses the same permission question that governs any customer image, as covered in using photographs of customers and their property.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.