[sjwright]

Not only wouldn't I sign an NDA, I've also started getting very careful about when I might contribute my own wisdom and experience. Far too often, I've found those sorts of meetings to be as much about trolling for free advice as anything.

I explain to these people that consulting is one of my services, and the price is on my rate card.

[wpietri]

Personally, I've always been happy to give modest amounts of free advice. My standard rule when I was consulting was that I was happy to meet with anybody for lunch. The overhead of signing a contract isn't worth it for an hour or two, and it was fine free advertising. It's no bad thing to have a lot of people know you as that smart person who really helped them out in a pinch.