How we anonymise field notes

Field notes come from live production work. Much of that work sits under NDA or confidentiality terms. We publish patterns and lessons so other operators can learn — never identities, secrets, or details that would let a reader identify a specific engagement.

If something would identify an engagement, it stays private until we have written approval to share it.

Forbidden → allowed

• Forbidden: Client legal name, product name, logos — Allowed: “a B2B SaaS company”, “an industrial technology company”, “a regional technology company”
• Forbidden: Employee names, emails, Slack handles — Allowed: “the RevOps lead”, “IT”, “sales ops”
• Forbidden: Exact internal IDs, tenant IDs, workflow IDs, portal IDs — Allowed: “HubSpot portal”, “n8n Cloud workflow”
• Forbidden: Confidential revenue, pipeline, customer lists — Allowed: directional only: “four-figure annual tool cost”, “thousands of contacts”
• Forbidden: Screenshots with real data — Allowed: redacted UI, diagrams, mermaid flows
• Forbidden: Copy-pasted internal docs — Allowed: rewritten principles and lessons
• Forbidden: Anything under NDA that identifies the engagement — Allowed: wait for written approval

Bottom line: anything that identifies an engagement waits for written approval. Patterns travel; names and secrets stay locked.