In 48 posts on this site, Robert Greene’s modern-day Machiavellian masterpiece on the principles of power, “The 48 Laws of Power” (1998, Penguin Books), is being turned sideways (using the laws to fight counterfeiting and other forms of fraud) and then upside down (using the laws to create better businesses).

Today’s blog focuses on Law #2: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn To Use Your Enemies. The impetus behind this law is that friends, knowing you well, perhaps ascending to power along with you, are prone to jealousy and privy to your weaknesses. When they turn on you, they generally know more about you than your enemies.

Beware your friends!

SIDEWAYS: The “enemy” for an authentic producer is an agent of fraud. From counterfeiting to coupon fraud, there are a plethora of ways in which all the planning, research, development, marketing and branding costs associated with putting a valuable product together can be squandered by an agent of fraud.

On the other hand, as your countermeasures—security deterrents, investigations, evidence gathering, etc.—become more effective in staunching the plans of your enemies, you drive would-be counterfeiters to theft or toward “insidious insider” activity. In the latter case, it is truly your friends who betray you. Someone working for your company, your brand, your product, sells out to the counterfeiters. When the turn on you, they generally know more about you than your enemies.

In this case, learning how to use your enemies is using the counterfeiters themselves to help you reduce their impact. Security printing, using the power of variable data printing (VDP), enables this. Use multiple printing techniques, including color, special designs, unique halftoning approaches, and other specialty printing, to force the counterfeiter to reveal something about himself when he tries to mimic your legitimate printing. Security printing features such as color bar codes, guilloches, etc., enable point-of-sale, authentication and mobile commerce, simultaneously. With VDP, however, any number of printed regions can be made variable. To use your enemy, the counterfeiter, effectively, use additional security printing features as decoys (make the counterfeiter think you’re inspecting them) or as bait (to make the counterfeiter reveal himself in replicating them).

Robert Greene notes that the reversal of this Law is almost always concomitant with the loss of the friendship. It is best not to mix work with friendship. For this reason, this rule is, in my opinion, strongly amenable to being turned upside down, as described next.

UPSIDE DOWN: Turning this rule upside down to create better business, use former enemies as new friends in the reality of the 21^st century global, distributed, fully supply-chain dependent world of business. The former enemies—your branded competitors—face the same common enemy. Counterfeiters, smugglers, third shifters (for factory overruns), and manufacturers of inferior (perhaps dangerous!) products. Your former competitors can unite with you to produce products that are safer, better-built, more environmentally friendly, more energy-efficient, more sustainable, and a host of other ameliorations. Rather than (rat)race your traditional competitors to the bottom (which is the history of the 21^st Century to date), KEEP THE BOTTOM DOWN. Counterfeiters now comprise the single largest competitor for legitimate brands in many product areas. Use your “enemies”, your former brand competitors, to fight this threat to us all.

Cheers,

Steve

See Law #1 at: http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/securityprinting/archive/2009/05/27/91834.aspx