CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET IN THIS HYPERCONNECTED WORLD?

Information is the business asset of the 21st century. So our impulse may be to guard it. Yet in a flat global economy, we have to share it-not just with employees but also partners, vendors, customers and consultants.

Here's the risk: secrets falling into the wrong hands can destroy a project, or even bring down a company. And the same technology that enables seamless communication also makes data theft easy, cheap and hard to detect. So what can managers and business owners do to protect and exploit their competitive advantage, maintain productive relationships, and avoid lawsuits?

In Secrets you will find the answers, discovering how to:

• Identify and reduce your risk of information loss
• Deal with employees leaving to join or start a competitor
• Manage your data on the Internet and in the Cloud
• Build an information protection program with best practices
• Respond when you find a breach of confidentiality

Trade secrets expert James Pooley has written a "must have" resource for executives and managers, knowledge workers, consultants, security professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers and accountants-anyone and everyone who works with information.

"Jim Pooley has spotted one of the great ironies of modern business: In an age of transparency and 'open innovation, ' the value of secrets has skyrocketed. And so has their vulnerability. - Stan McCoy, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative "Pooley makes the reader feel every creak of the tightrope innovators must walk between trusting sensitive information with others yet also taking smart precautions against lawsuits, leaks, and outright theft."

- Louis Foreman, creator of Emmy Award-winning PBS series "Everyday Edisons" and author of "The Independent Inventor's Handbook"

"The book is a dose of reality to those in denial about the real and pervasive dangers of the world we live in."

- Federico Faggin, co-inventor of the microprocessor

"With patent protections in America shrinking steadily, more and more companies and their lawyers will have to turn to trade secrets, and this guide will illuminate the way for all."

- Hon. Paul Michel, Chief Judge (ret.), Federal Circuit Court of Appeals

James Pooley has been a Silicon Valley lawyer, leader, manager, diplomat, professor and writer. From 2009 to 2014 he was Deputy Director General for Innovation and Technology at the World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the United Nations, where he ran the international patent system.