So, I had a thing happen to me this past week.

I guess you could even say, “I had an Internet of Thing happen to me.”

I received a prototype sample from a vendor, in order to test it, and show it to a few key resellers in order to further its development.

You’ll forgive me, but because it’s a prototype and not yet available, I need to remain fairly cryptic about what it is and what it’s supposed to do.

Suffice it to say, it’s a connected device, and its purpose is security-oriented.

So, I received the device, read the instructions, download the app to my phone, and tried to connect.

It wouldn’t connect.

I emailed my contact at the vendor.

He called me, and we walked through the troubleshooting over the phone, while he looked at the backend architecture on the servers.

Long story short, through an unlikely set of circumstances, I bricked the device.

It is an ex-device. It has ceased to be.

Its connectivity has gone and joined the choir invisible.

The good news is the vendor was already aware of the potential for this fault, and has corrected it in subsequent iterations of the prototypes.

The bad news was that it happened to me.

The GOOD good news was that it didn’t happen to me while I was sitting in front of a customer.

Which is the point I was arriving at for this blog post:

NEVER BETA TEST A NEW PRODUCT IN FRONT OF YOUR CUSTOMER.

Test new things alone or with your team.

Familairize yourself with its operation, and become an expert on them.

Try to break it.

If you succeed in breaking it, figure out why you broke it, and how to avoid breaking it the same way twice.

For a happy ending my vendor overnighted me a new sample, and it worked like a charm. And in the few meetings I’ve had so far it’s generating the kind of interest I was hoping for.