Disclosure Agreements and the Like Button

nonda A short time ago, a company that we’re doing some work with asked us to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Things like this are fairly common, and I had no qualms about signing it or keeping things confidential. The truth is, we really do take these things seriously when we’re asked to sign. We even have our own NDA that we’ve asked others to sign in the past, but not recently. I started to think about why that was and I realized that NDAs do have their function and place, but in this Social Media-ized environment an NDA seems so dated. I was thinking about why that was and realized that what we really needed and wanted was a, well …

Disclosure Agreement

That’s right – what I’d really like is to have an agreement with everyone we work with that says that we’re legally bound to talk about each other. Something that forces us to tell at least 100 people about our partner in the hopes that at least 1 or 2 of them will be interested enough to investigate further. Write blog posts, tweet, put links on the website, do whatever else is necessary to tell the world that we believe that those guys are doing something so innovative, valuable, and cool, that you should also check them out. Isn’t that what all of this social media stuff is all about anyway?

So what do you think about this? Is this a good idea or just really goofy? Are there any lawyers out there forward thinking enough to even try to draft such an agreement? If so, let us know at admin@testfacebook.com.

Until then, I guess the “Like” button will have to do.

Postscript

Two days after publishing this I received an email containing yet another NDA to sign. On the one hand, it’s very positive that other companies wish to talk to us. However, it would be even nicer if they also talked about us to others.