As I pondered the next topic to discuss on BuncoSquad, I was interrupted by an e-mail from someone on a mailing list who had a dilemma that could easily apply to any of us. The consultant was preparing to leave a high-profile client of several years for incompatibility reasons. Of course, the consultant was thinking about the future and thus how to provide a proper portfolio even though none the completed projects were to the consultant’s satifaction (even though the client was thoroughly pleased). The consultant then queried the group to see if it would be ethical to take his work, which was on the corporate web site, and modify it to his liking. What is your view?

Gentle readers, first and foremost: the client is always right. Even if you disagree with the client and you have made your best effort to state your position, dont’ worry because you are safe: that’s why you had that indemnification clause added to your contract! Our job is to give the client what they want; though we may be dissastisfied with the result because we had a different vision, the client may be pleased with it.

Secondly, most likely (and this is a king-sized most likely), your client is the holder of the copyright and other creation rights that would prevent you from altering their work.

One common response from the list member was for the consultant to redo the project to his liking and make a comparison. There are a number of issues with this: first, the copyright issue; secondly, it will time consuming for the consultant to do this especially when he cannot be sure of any ROI; third, it might cast a bad light on the consultant to favorably compare his vision to that of the former clients - how will the new client be reassured that the consultant won’t second-guess their vision; and finally, the new potential client may actually prefer the original version to the consultant’s masterpiece?

BuncoSquad sez: if you are in a similar situation, then you’ve got three options, mate: either do not showcase work from this client, only mention that you worked for Client X (if they’re cool with that) and not provide samples (let their reputation - if it is good - do the talking) or preface your sample work with something akin to the following: “Client X wanted me to ….. and this is the result.”