What Sven Kramer can teach us.

Earlier today I watched Sven Kramer lose the gold medal in the men’s 10k for failing to change lanes- a seemingly bone head mistake, but one that has ultimately proved to be the fault of his coach.

As many of you may have heard, Dutch speed-skater superstar Sven Kramer was heavily favored to win the Men’s 10K event in Vancouver (he hasn’t lost in the event since finishing 7th in the 2006 games), but was disqualified due to a lane violation, effectively dashing what would have been his second gold medal of the games and his fourth lowering of the recorded time for the event.

The sport of long track speed-skating, played on a 400 meter oval with just two lanes, requires that each athlete switch lanes on each lap of the race- this is done on the back straight of the oval of every lap.

With 8 laps to go in the final heat of the event, Kramer’s coach mistakenly told him the incorrect lane to take, and Kramer took the inner lane rather than the outer lane he was supposed to. The result was disastrous for the young Dutchman, 23, who actually finished the heat more than 5 seconds ahead of the would-be second place finisher from South Korea that captured the gold medal due to the DQ of Kramer.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with the Church or anything in the area of technology, web, et cetera.

I bring this up because I think it highlights our need for preparedness, especially when it comes to technology.

Are we prepared as much as we possibly can be?

One of the greatest lesson I’ve learned in working with technology, especially technology that is heavily-relied upon to assist in bringing the message of the Gospel, is that the enemy will do everything in his power to exploit any oversight on our part.

We must do everything within our ability to not just avoid mistakes- these will happen and there’s nothing we can do about it- but to make certain that we don’t become too comfortable with the technology that we are utilizing. Technology is great, but it simply will not work without human oversight, and it’s that oversight that must be ready for anything.

What steps do you take to ensure that you’ve done everything you can to make things excellent?