Hello Friends:

Jerry Fochtman wrote:

>I have to disagree with Ron's general statement.  Certainly the
>agreement itself does not explicitly include any penalty clause,
>beyond their obligation to protect the information and not
>disclose, disseminate or publish the information until the
>agreement term expires or the information becomes publicly known
>without breach by the recipient.  However, I've seen instances
>whereby when an NDA has not been honored those who broke the trust
>were not invited to other briefings which were given under NDA.

I've been less clear than I need to be about this. More plainly put,
when an IT manager comes back to the office and reports NDA
information he or she has heard to other IT staff, top management of
their company, or to colleagues in other offices, nobody at Interex
will complain. Who will know, and then implement the enforcement?
Interex expects this kind of illegal nondisclosure to happen.

But when a reporter goes back to the keyboard to break the NDA in the
same way, there's public evidence of the disclosure. Because the
press speaks in a voice that carries further, we're expected to honor
NDAs that individual IT managers and organizations can ignore.

It's hard to imagine a level of NDA monitoring and enforcement where
Interex won't accept paid registrations from IT managers who have
previously broken NDAs by telling their companies what they heard at
Interex. It's not hard at all to imagine Interex reading reports from
the press afterward, then being selective about whose credentials are
approved at the next conference. And obviously, there will be no full
Interex transcripts of these NDA sessions. That wipes out information
for Interex members who can't attend the shows.

Any NDA amounts to limiting the work of the press. This is the first
time in this user group's history that its chairman feels like he
will need NDAs to get HP's communication of strategic information.
It's a slippery slope that Interex has taken, downward and away from
independence. As a member, I'd like to know how those board members
running for election this month feel about this.
--

Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 NewsWire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
http://www.3000newswire.com
512.331.0075 -- [log in to unmask]

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