My dad is a piano technician in Northeast Ohio. This morning he was telling me a story about a guy he went to piano technicians school with who never actually went into the business of tuning pianos. Instead he went into the family business — home remodeling.

His family business was very specialized, focused primarily on repair of tub and counter tops, especially Formica and polyester substances. Apparently he is very good at it. Well, after all these years he decided he wanted to get back into the technician business. He went out with my dad and apparently he has no ear for tuning at all. Really bad.

So they got to talking and it turns out that his skill set is perfect for a very specialized piano technician skill in high demand: piano refinishing. The high gloss coating on a piano is made of polyesters and this guy’s background in mixing, blending, etc., is perfect for this.

This was very interesting to me. We always talk about businesses pivoting, where it focuses on a chunk of its expertise and builds that into a full-scale business. Here’s an example of a people pivot.

Almost a month ago, Marco Arment was writing about piracy of movies and music, but I thought he was really making a much broader point:

We often try to fight problems by yelling at them instead of accepting the reality of what people do, from controversial national legislation to passive-aggressive office signs. Such efforts usually fail, often with a lot of collateral damage, much like Prohibition and the ongoing “war” on “drugs”. And, more recently (and with much less human damage), media piracy.

It is a well-written piece and deserves a full read. His point applies to so many things in life.

Given that, there is a fine line between fighting the status quo and going with the flow. Some battles are worth fighting. For instance, I agree that the fight with Congress over the way campaigns are financed, which in essence leads to favor-politics that distort what needs to be done for the best of society, is worth it. Putting a garbage can by the door in the men’s room, as per Marco’s example? Not worth the fight. Just move the can.

Obviously Hollywood believes fighting piracy is worth the fight. Can they win? Probably not. It’s a gorilla war that Hollywood fights with bazookas and tanks. So the best approach is to change the way it sells products, which the media companies will do eventually when they realize they can’t win the old way.

Many of the issues that surround Hollywood have surrounded software, too. Apps used to cost $20-$50 for mobile platforms. Some of our powerOne products demanded over $100 per copy. Now an expensive app is $5. We could have fought this trend, still charging $10, $20, $40 for our apps. Or we could go with the flow and experiment with free versions, versions at different price points, in app purchase, subscriptions and the like. We chose the latter. It doesn’t make sense to fight this trend. It makes sense to figure out how to use it to my advantage, a lesson Hollywood would heed well.