When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

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tryin_to_lance
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Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:32 pm

When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

Post by tryin_to_lance »

Hi all,

I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong place or if this question has been asked somewhere else.

I am a very advanced (in my humble opinion) PHP programmer who has been stuck working in the corporate world for my entire career. I have done some crazy cool things throughout my career and I am now taking the plunge (finally) to go out on my own and join the ranks of the freelancers.

My question is, can I ethically use those things that I have created / help work on in my personal portfolio? If so, where do I draw the line? If I am starting my own company (just me right now) can I use that stuff in that company's website or is that misrepresenting? I just would like to know since I do have quite an extensive resume and I would be heartbroken if my portfolio was empty since I technically was never out on my own working for myself...

Please advise.

Thanks!
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califdon
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Re: When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

Post by califdon »

What "things" are you talking about? Code? Descriptions of projects? Generally, anything you created on company time (in some cases, even during your period of employment, regardless of whether it was for the employer) is the property of your employer, so, for example, if you developed a library of useful functions, you'd be skating on thin ice to use those functions again. Also, if descriptions of projects could possibly reveal trade secrets of your former employer, you'd be violating the law, I'm sure. If you are only talking about listing your skills, of course that's entirely different. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, this is just general knowledge, although I think what I've said above is pretty surely correct.
tryin_to_lance
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Re: When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

Post by tryin_to_lance »

thanks for your reply califdon.

The 'things' I am talking about is just a picture of the site to say, hey, i worked on this. And then putting some text in my portfolio to explain what aspects of the site / project I worked on. so basically a graphical resume...or is that not the correct way to word it? Because I am of the understanding that I can put in my resume what things I worked on at my previous employer (as long as it didn't reveal trade secretes of course) so my question is...is it ok to put a screen shot of the 'thing' on a portfolio page and then put what I worked on next to it?

Thanks again!
josh
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Re: When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

Post by josh »

As long as you really did I don't see the problem in it, if you're in doubt and you really worked on the site you could always just ask them.
infiniteacuity
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Re: When is it ok to use something in your portfolio?

Post by infiniteacuity »

You could categorize it as corporate career experience and talk more about what you did and less about what the application does. So if you create a zip code search module you would talk more about the programming you did for the zip code module rather than the overall project it was done for.
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