I admit I’m not a huge hockey fan. For me, the ability to insert a small, black plastic cylinder into a mesh just doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy. However, even I have to admit it is remarkable that Canada won gold in both the men’s and women’s hockey at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

I agree it is somewhat sexist that Canadians have been focusing more on the men’s win than the women’s. Maybe it’s because the score was so close. I think it’s because the Canadian men’s team lost to the same opponent (the U.S.) only a few days before.

Now, I admit I’m not a sports analyst (just a lowly information analyst), but I would say the Canadians won because they learned from the mistakes they made in the first game. The Americans, on the other hand, because they did not fail at the first game, had no mistakes to learn from.

Mistakes, therefore, are quite important. Before a draft is finally unleashed upon your readers, make as many bloody mistakes as you can; real nasty ones, if possible. Typos. Missing headings. Confusing overviews. Font failures. Awful grammar. Procedures missing steps. The more, the merrier.

Learn from your mistakes. Find them. Fix them. Then, when the software goes “gold”, so too will your draft become golden.